The Hitler Myth

History Today ^ | Ian Kershaw

[fivecatsandadog]

Historic attachments to heroic leadership combined with a mastery of propaganda techniques to mesmerise Germany into acceptance of the charismatic authority offered by the Nazi 'Fuhrer'.

For almost a decade after 1933, Hitler enjoyed a remarkable degree of popularity among the great majority of the German people. However dramatic and spectacular his political career, concentration on Hitler's character and personality – in some respects bizarre, in others downright mediocre and wholly unpleasant – can nevertheless do little to explain the magnetism of his popular appeal. Nor can his extraordinary impact on the German people in these years be accounted for satisfactorily by seeing in Hitler's personal Weltanschauung (notably in his obsessions with the 'Jewish Question' and with Lebensraum) a mirror image of the motivation of Nazism's mass following. Recent research has done much to qualify such assumptions, suggesting too that even deep into the period of the dictatorship itself Hitler's own ideological fixations had more of a symbolic than concrete meaning for most Nazi supporters.

What seems necessary, therefore, is an examination not of Hitler's personality, but of his popular image – how the German people saw their leader: the 'Hitler Myth'. The 'Hitler Myth' was a double-sided phenomenon. On the one hand, it was a masterly achievement in image-building by the exponents of the new techniques of propaganda, building upon notions of 'heroic' leadership widespread in right-wing circles long before Hitler's rise to prominence. On the other hand, it has to be seen as a reflection of 'mentalities', value-systems, and socio-political structures which conditioned the acceptance of a 'Superman' image of political leadership. Both the active manufacture of Hitler's public image and the receptivity to it by the German people need, therefore, to be explored.

[Sherman Logan]

notions of 'heroic' leadership widespread in right-wing circles long before Hitler's rise to prominence.

Right wing circles as in prewar aristos and upper middle class types. The German master race sort.

The Nazis and fascists of various nations just do not fit easily into the Right/Left dichotomy. Hitler drew a great deal of his support from traditionalist nationalist circles, which by just about any standard should be called right-wing.

Of course, it was a blood-soil right wing, if not always church-crown, so it was the European variety of Rightist, going back all the way to the supporters of the old regime during the French Revolution.

What WAY too many American conservatives do is assume that the European Right of the 19th and early 20th centuries is similar to the American Right of today.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. What American conservatism is trying to conserve is the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the primary one being, "All men are created equal."

The old European Right, OTOH, was doing its very best to fight off this principle and maintain social stratification.

It's OKAY to recognize that the Nazis drew largely from the German right wing. We just need to recognize that the German Right had almost nothing in common with us. In fact, they despised America.

[robowombat]

I remember in college listening to a guest speaker. A very ‘Aryan’ looking German Jew of upper middle class background who got out of the Reich after the Nuremberg Laws were put in place. He said that in the early 30’s and up until he left Berlin he would try to go to any public speech Hitler made and otherwise try and hear AH on radio. He described him as the most mesmeric orator and political personality he ever encountered. Hitler's ability to use the grievances real and imagined of the ordinary German to propagate his vision of the world and what the Reich should be for German's was absolutely mepistalphilian . He further stated had he not been a Jew it was certain he would have embraced National socialism enthusiastically as so many of his fellow German's did. This was the most sobering point he made. ‘Was I any different from my neighbors and fellow German's. No. I just happened to be blessed with not being able to belong to the NS Volkstaat.’

[AnalogReigns]

In 1930s Europe, as well as amidst most intellectuals in America at the time, socialist alternatives were considered the ONLY alternatives. Constitutional republics—even as early as Republican “Progressive” Teddy Roosevelt (1900) were considered passé—especially among the educated classes.

Not until the shock of the truth of the barbarism of Communism came out in the 1950s (after we knew the barbarism of the Nazis) did conservative-seriously-constitutional thinkers arise who once again believed in classical liberal principles and capitalism. 100 years ago-—intellectually—was a much worse for liberty, than today.

[gusty]

Very good summation. A lot of people are not congizant of the narrower spectrum of our politics compared with the rest of the world. American Conservatives would fit more in the category with either the revolutionaries of 1848 or Gladstone Liberals, in the European context. American conservativism might easily argue that it stands at the center of the spectrum of world ideologies.

[Sherman Logan]

Thank you. I understand why liberals like to lump conservatives around the world together. It allows them to group the Taliban with the Tea Party. Both of which groups really are conservative, it’s just that they’re trying to conserve very different things.

I don’t understand why conservatives buy into this myth. What a given conservative group is trying to conserve is the most important thing about it.

The Taliban is trying to conserve “pure” Islam.

19th century German rightists wanted to conserve the old ways of crown and church, blood and soil. Hitler took a great deal of this into the Nazi Party, arguably making it considerably more central than his theoretically socialist economic programs.

American conservatives want to conserve the principles of the Declaration of Independence, IMO the most radical revolution in world history.

We have NOTHING in common with traditional European rightists, except a common opposition to leftists. In fact, our Revolution was fought more or less against principle of the European Right.

[JoeFromSidney]

Hitler was the first "electronic politician." He was the first to use a microphone and loudspeakers at a political rally. He even wrote an essay on how to do it effectively.

Does use of the "new media" sound familiar?

[dfwgator]

Wasn’t he related to Werner Klemperer who played Colonel Klink on Hogan’s Heroes?

[JoeFromSidney]

Jut from this essay, you'd never know that Hitler was a National Socialist and that Mussolini was a former editor of a socialist newspaper, who gave up on the Socialist Party and started his own, in order to achieve the goals of the Socialists.

[dfwgator]

Hitler was more pragmatic than the other leading Nazis, who were more socialist, especially those in the SA....but Hitler needed the industrialists to build his war machine, and he needed to get their support....one of those conditions was to get rid of the SA.

[cripplecreek]

Yeah it was his cousin.