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Glenn's Show Prep

Glenn Raves About His New Favorite Book

January 10, 2017
Staff

WRITER

Glenn is something of an aficionado when it comes to books on Adolf Hitler. That's why he was surprised to learn about one originally written in the 1930s, but published in 2002 after the manuscript was discovered by the author's family. The book --- Defying Hitler: A Memoir --- was written as a warning to the world by a young man who witnessed Hitler's rise to power.

"You name it, and I've read it on Hitler. I have gotten all the way down to I Was Hitler's Chauffeur, which isn't worth the read," Glenn said jokingly. "You will learn more important things about what happened and what allowed Hitler to take place than any other book I've ever read about the Second World War."

Not to be outdone, co-host Jeff Fisher mentioned that he's currently "reading" a picture book about Hitler.

Enjoy this complimentary clip from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Have I told you guys about Defying Hitler? Did I tell you guys about it yesterday?

STU: No.

GLENN: Stu is fresh meat. Fresh meat.

JEFFY: Yeah, Stu has been gone.

GLENN: Stu, remember when I said, you need to read Garden of Beasts?

STU: Yes.

GLENN: And remember you guys heard it for about six months, until you couldn't take it anymore?

STU: Oh, my gosh. Yes. I finally had to read it.

GLENN: Right.

And then you read it, and you came back, and you were like...

STU: It was awesome.

GLENN: Right. And the reason I wanted you to read it was because it was a different perspective on Germany than you had ever read before, right?

STU: Uh-huh. Great book. By the way, supposedly going to be a movie at some point.

GLENN: I'm telling you, this one, A, it's a lot shorter. This book that I've recently found is 100 times Garden of Beasts.

And what it is, is a guy who was German, was growing up in Germany, came of age about 1920. So he was a teenager during the first world war. He started writing it in the '30s, but he's going after all his recollections, starting at 1914. So he remembers what Germany was.

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Okay? Then he remembers the war. And he talks about the war and what happened. Then the 1920s. The Weimar Republic. Hyperinflation. He talks about that.

And then the coming of Hitler. And then Hitler and who he was and what happened.

This book was written in the '30s as a warning to the world. He escaped Germany and came to the United States. Became a professor. He became a huge author of historic books. He's -- he wrote the quintessential book on who Adolf Hitler really was, his character and his personality, back in like 1972. He dies.

His family finds on a shelf this manuscript in 2003 or 2006, something like that. It's published, becomes a big best-seller during the Bush years. I had never heard of it. Saw somebody reading it the other day. And I was like, what is that? Defying Hitler. And I said, "Ooh, that sounds good." And they started talking to me about it. You name it, and I've read on Hitler. I have gotten all the way down to I Was Hitler's Chauffeur, which isn't worth the read. But, anyway, I started reading this book. You will learn more important things about what happened and what allowed Hitler to take place than any other book I've ever read about the Second World War. It has a completely different point of view because he's not writing it from the point of view of the Nazis and what they were doing it. He's writing it from the point of view of the youth of the day.

And he was -- he was young. Okay? So he was in his teens when America -- or, when Germany was a certain way. And that 9/11 event, if you will, that changed them, was the first world war. Then they came back, and they were at each other's throats politically. And the churches were at each other's throats.

And then jobs were hard to find. And then they started printing money. And then money became -- you couldn't -- you know, we've read a million times that when you got paid, you stopped working, cashed your check, went in and bought anything you could in the store. Right?

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Because a week from now, by the end of your workday, it would be -- your paycheck would be worthless.

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: What he talks about is -- and I've never heard this. It was the stock market that anybody -- anybody who didn't have a family, they took their money and they immediately poured it into the stock market. And they got wildly wealthy.

Now, think of this. Why don't we have hyperinflation? Why isn't our meat and milk and everything else -- why isn't that reflective of the $4 trillion that we have just pumped into the system, right?

If I said, ten years ago, you put $2 trillion into this system and you're going to start to see massive inflation. Okay? We're 4 trillion. Where's the inflation? You know this. I know you know this. You're going to go, of course, yes, when I say it.

The stock market. He need says, "Well, there's no -- the fundamentals are gone." What they should be saying is, "The stock market is reflective of hyperinflation." Because the stock market is a reflection of who has the money.

PAT: That and velocity.

GLENN: Right.

PAT: I mean, there's a couple of --

GLENN: So they don't -- so the people who got the money are the big corporations, the big banks. They're not giving it to you and me.

So we don't have too many dollars chasing too far goods. They do. And so that's why big elaborate houses are still going through the roof. The rich are starting to feel that inflation. And it's concentrated in the stock market. Okay?

STU: Uh-huh.

GLENN: Well, that's the same thing that happened in Germany. They started constantly -- but everybody was doing it. I'm sorry, the youth without children were taking -- they were buying a little bit of food to last them the week to the next paycheck. Then they were taking all that money and putting it into the stock market. And the stock market did what it's doing now.

And now here's what happened: Now, think of this. I've never heard this point of view before. And I think this is accurate.

He says in reading -- remember, he's writing in the mid-'30s as a warning to the West. You don't know who this guy is, and you don't know what happened to Germany.

The older people in Germany are not with him. The youth are with him. And here's why: Because they were too young to really understand the real German society. The German ethics and being kind to each other because they went -- they came of age during the war. And then they came to age during the war. And then right after the war, then the people turned on themselves, were arguing politics, demonizing each other. The Weimar Republic came in, delegitimized the money. All morals went out the window.

So if you're 25, you have no kids, you're going out to the cabaret every night, you are with -- you have a ton of money because you put it all in the stock market. You're living large. You're a titan. You're getting all of the girls. Your life is absolutely sweet.

Then what happens? At the end of the Weimar Republic, a sensible guy comes in, an older statesman comes in and says, "I can fix the hyperinflation." He fixes the hyperinflation. He fixes the fact that -- he says, "For two years, during this guys' rule, we're not even talking about politics anymore."

No one is arguing politics. We're on the road back to the way we were.

But all those youth who were bank presidents -- they were 25-year-old bank presidents, they're not bank presidents anymore. Because they were all discredited because it was a game of -- it was a shell game. It was like Wall Street, you know, the movie. Just a shell game. So those guys don't -- they have to go now into other jobs and work hard for their money. And those days are over for them. Those glory days. They want the glory days. So when Hitler comes in and says, "We're going to set the rules. We're going to privatize business with us -- and if you're in with the Nazi party, you're going to be able to make it." They recognize this game of -- just do -- the ends justify the means.

And I could have that life back. So the youth throw their lot in with Hitler. And that's why it worked. I had never heard of that before.

STU: It's really interesting.

GLENN: That's like the first third of the book. It's really good. Called Defying Hitler.

STU: I'm in. I'm in. I just finished Hitler: Ascent.

GLENN: I have not read that one.

STU: It's the new like -- the ascent is till 1939. So it's a two-part series. The 1,000 books per edition. A dozen pages per edition. You know, one of those types of books. But, I mean, fascinating.

Just the chapter on Hitler and the churches is so worth your time. If you've ever had the argument with someone on Facebook where they say, "These mass murders are fueled by religion." Hitler? He was. Look at this quote by Hitler. He says --

GLENN: All prior to 1933.

STU: All of it happened really early on, in the first few weeks of his reign as chancellor. But, I mean, the behind-the-scenes quotes they have from this guy, his entire mission was to discredit the churches afterwards.

It was like, living space, get rid of the Jews, then let's get rid of the churches.

GLENN: Shocking.

STU: That was his plan. And he used those relationships, tried to destroy the churches, and the quotes they have from him and Goebbels, and -- it's amazing.

GLENN: Hitler's Ascent?

STU: Hitler: Assent. It's -- Volker Ullrich is the guy who wrote it. It's the new sort of --

GLENN: Oh, Volker? Yeah.

STU: Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's amazing.

It's the new, like, biography on Hitler. The new one. Every ten to 15 years a new one gets written.

GLENN: Yeah. And that's the problem too because the farther we get away from these guys --

STU: It's a double-edged sword.

GLENN: Yeah, it's a double-edged sword. You want to be -- the time to write it is when some of the people are still alive, but they're not powerful. So at the end of their life. So they can still -- you can still check and say, right? Right? Right?

STU: Yeah.

GLENN: And if you use original sources, you're good. So the first ones that are written in the first 30 years are probably a little skewed. Probably. Unless they're attached entirely to original first person sources.

STU: Right. And so you had -- you've had this where -- Joachim Fest had one, which was influenced by a lot of the people who were alive, but a lot of the people who wanted to rehabilitate their reputations.

Albert Speer, being the main one. And that one came later.

Kershaw's in 2000, I think, was seen as the standard. And this one I think -- because while you're right, a lot of these guys aren't around anymore to tell the stories, more and more documentation has come out.

And really, I mean, the fuel for the industry, if you want to say the Hitler -- you know, the Goebbels diaries. Those changed the world on how much we understand. The guy was writing a diary entry about every meeting he was having during the era.

GLENN: That's the great thing -- and the Founders too.

But with Founders, they stopped using those diaries. They stopped using the original sources because it didn't give them the narrative they were looking for.

The narrative on the Nazis is, they were bad guys. And so their diaries back all of that stuff up. So as long as you're pegged to original sources, you're good.

STU: This has been Hitler book corner.

PAT: I just finished Hitler's Mailman's Neighbor.

GLENN: Did you? Wow.

STU: Oh, wow.

PAT: Yeah. He died in 1934. So he doesn't have a lot of perspective. But he talked about the junk mail he heard Adolf got early in his chancellorship.

GLENN: Original sources and footnoted?

PAT: All footnoted.

STU: Can I get your copy? Do you mind if I borrow it?

PAT: 823 pages of footnotes.

GLENN: So the three books -- the three books -- one I'm talking about is Defying Hitler. Hitler Ascent is Stu's. And Hitler's Mailman's Next-door Neighbor.

PAT: Mailman Next-door Neighbor is the third one.

GLENN: Thank you very much.

PAT: Uh-huh.

STU: It's a long read. Pat's, I will say is a little bit academic.

GLENN: There's no pictures even of the mailbox.

PAT: It's 2400 pages.

GLENN: And he dies before 33.

PAT: He dies --

JEFFY: My Hitler book has pictures.

GLENN: Amazing.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A new Monroe Doctrine? Trump quietly redraws the Western map

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.