The Order of the Day

Resumen del libro

Winner of the 2017 Prix Goncourt, this behind-the-scenes account of the manipulation, hubris, and greed that together led to Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria brilliantly dismantles the myth of an effortless victory and offers a dire warning for our current political crisis.

February 20, 1933, an unremarkable day during a harsh Berlin winter: A meeting of twenty-four German captains of industry and senior Nazi officials is being held in secret in the plush lounge of the Reichstag. They are there to extract funds for the accession to power of the National Socialist Party and its Chancellor. This opening scene sets a tone of consent that will lead to the worst possible repercussions.

March 12, 1938, the annexation of Austria is on the agenda: A grotesque day intended to make history the newsreels capture a motorized army on the move, a terrible, inexorable power. But behind Goebbels's splendid propaganda, an ersatz Blitzkrieg unfolds, the Panzers breaking down en masse on the roads into Austria. The true behind-the-scenes account of the Anschluss a patchwork of minor flourishes of strength and fine words, fevered telephone calls, and vulgar threats all reveal a starkly different picture. It is not strength of character or the determination of a people that wins the day, but rather a combination of intimidation and bluff.

With this vivid, compelling history, Éric Vuillard warns against the peril of willfully blind acquiescence, and offers a reminder that, ultimately, the worst is not inescapable.

Biografía del autor

Éric Vuillard (Lyon, 1968) es autor, entre otras obras, de Conquistadors (2009), que obtuvo el premio Ignatius J. Reilly 2010, y Tristeza de la tierra (2014), premio Joseph Kessel 2015. En su obra 14 de julio (premio Alexandre-Vialatte 2017) narró con pasión el día de la toma de la Bastilla. Con La batalla de Occidente, sobre la Primera Guerra Mundial, mereció el premio Franz Hessel 2012 y el Valery-Larbaud 2013, y con La guerra de los pobres quedó finalista del Booker Prize Internacional. El orden del día, obra merecedora del presti gioso Premio Goncourt 2017, que narra las bambalinas del ascenso de Hitler al poder, mereció el aplauso de los lectores y de la crítica: Una fulgurante obra maestra (Mercedes Monmany, Abc Cultural); Sus reverberacio nes sobre el presente son escalofriantes (Antonio Loza no, Quadern de El País); Recibirán el impacto de una verdad que no se puede coger, porque es un cuchillo sin mango (Francesc-Marc Álvaro, La Vanguardia); Una novela que galopa la historia agarrada a las crines, sin silla de montar (Manuel Rivas, El País Semanal); Un artefacto literario tan potente que hace estallar la con ciencia cívica del lector (Jordi Amat, Cultura/s de La Vanguardia).