Viewpoint: His dark charisma
Adolf Hitler was an unlikely leader but he still formed a connection with millions of German people, generating a level of charismatic attraction that was almost without parallel. It is a stark warning for the modern day, says historian Laurence Rees.
At the heart of the story of Adolf Hitler is one gigantic, mysterious question: how was it possible that a character as strange and personally inadequate as Hitler ever gained power in a sophisticated country at the heart of Europe, and was then loved by millions of people?
The answer to this vital question is to be found not just in the historical circumstances of the time - in particular the defeat of Germany in World War I and the depression of the early 1930s - but in the nature of Hitler's leadership.
It's this aspect of the story that makes this history particularly relevant to our lives today.
About Adolf Hitler
- Hitler was born 20 April 1889 in Braunau-am-Inn (Austria)
- Left school at 16 with no qualifications and struggled to make a living as a painter in Vienna
- Enlisted in the German army during WWI, where he was wounded and decorated
- Joined the fascist German Workers' Party in 1919
- By 1921 was the leader of what was now the Nazi Party
- In the 1932 elections the Nazis became the largest party in the German parliament
- Invasion of Poland in September 1939 began WWII
- Committed suicide in Berlin on 30 April 1945 ??
Source: BBC History
Hitler was the archetypal "charismatic leader". He was not a "normal" politician - someone who promises policies like lower taxes and better health care - but a quasi-religious leader who offered almost spiritual goals of redemption and salvation. He was driven forward by a sense of personal destiny he called "providence".
Before WWI he was a nobody, an oddball who could not form intimate relationships, was unable to debate intellectually and was filled with hatred and prejudice.
But when Hitler spoke in the Munich beer halls in the aftermath of Germany's defeat in WWI, suddenly his weaknesses were perceived as strengths.
His hatred chimed with the feelings of thousands of Germans who felt humiliated by the terms of the Versailles treaty and sought a scapegoat for the loss of the war. His inability to debate was taken as strength of character and his refusal to make small talk was considered the mark of a "great man" who lived apart from the crowd.
More than anything, it was the fact that Hitler found that he could make a connection with his audience that was the basis of all his future success. And many called this connection "charisma".
"The man gave off such a charisma that people believed whatever he said," says Emil Klein, who heard Hitler speak in the 1920s.
But Hitler did not "hypnotise" his audience. Not everyone felt this charismatic connection, you had to be predisposed to believe what Hitler was saying to experience it. Many people who heard Hitler speak at this time who thought he was an idiot.
"I immediately disliked him because of his scratchy voice," says Herbert Richter, a German veteran of WWI who encountered Hitler in Munich in the early 1920s.
"He shouted out really, really simple political ideas. I thought he wasn't quite normal."
In the good economic times, during the mid-to-late twenties in Germany, Hitler was thought charismatic by only a bunch of fanatics. So much so that in the 1928 election the Nazis polled only 2.6% of the vote.
Yet less than five years later Hitler was chancellor of Germany and leader of the most popular political party in the country.
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What changed was the economic situation. In the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 there was mass unemployment in Germany and banks crashed.
"The people were really hungry," says Jutta Ruediger, who started to support the Nazis around this time. "It was very, very hard. And in that context, Hitler with his statements seemed to be the bringer of salvation."
She looked at Hitler and suddenly felt a connection with him.
"I myself had the feeling that here was a man who did not think about himself and his own advantage, but solely about the good of the German people."
Hitler told millions of Germans that they were Aryans and therefore "special" and racially "better" people than everyone else, something that helped cement the charismatic connection between leader and led.
He did not hide his hatred, his contempt for democracy or his belief in the use of violence to further political ends from the electorate. But, crucially, he spoke out only against carefully defined enemies like Communists and Jews.
Since the majority of ordinary Germans were not in these risk groups then, as long as they embraced the new world of Nazism, they were relatively free from persecution - at least until the war started to go badly for the Germans.
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Unemployment was 30% in Germany when Hitler took power, it is 25.1% and rising in Greece” ( also USA )This history matters to us today. Not because history offers "lessons" - how can it since the past can never repeat itself exactly? But because history can contain warnings.
In an economic crisis millions of people suddenly decided to turn to an unconventional leader they thought had "charisma" because he connected with their fears, hopes and latent desire to blame others for their predicament. And the end result was disastrous for tens of millions of people.
It's bleakly ironic that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was greeted in Athens recently with swastika banners carried by angry Greeks protesting at what they see as German interference in their country.
Ironic because it is in Greece itself - amid terrible economic crisis - that we see the sudden rise of a political movement like the Golden Dawn that glories in its intolerance and desire to persecute minorities.
And is led by a man has claimed there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz. Can there be a bigger warning than that?
NOTE; Obama learned much from Hitler and has much in common. For neither was from the country that they ruled. Hitler was from Austria and Obama was from Kenya. But besides that, the economy was very bad in both countrys and the DC wanted someone whom they would believe the lies of not only recovery but World Power. Many thought Hitler was the Anti-christ and today many think Obama is the Anti-christ or at least the persona of him, the real Anti-Christ being the powers behind them ,such as the DC, the Archons and now the Visitors!!! And remember if we don't learn our lessons from history, we will then repeat them until we do, its called mass consciousness Karma. Rev. Joshua, Adonai
Laurence Rees is a former creative director of history programmes for the BBC and the author of six books on World War III
11/11- FOLLOW IN THE WAY; POEM FOR ASCENSION
Awakened I follow in the way appointed to me,
by the Creator Father,whom all want to see.
Therein lies my Salvation and my happiness,
everything I strive for, this is my eternal bliss.
My God is more than one can describe,
to share in his existence, do I subscribe.
The matchless Love of his innate personality,
drives me forth,forever to change this reality.
To one of Love, a nature that is to become mine,
and not alone,or lost nor forgotten in time.
Its but the Dream we agreed to, a long time ago,
to give courage to the heart of hearts and the soul.
When asked,where is it that we really wont to be,
my answer then,is a state of mind in spirituality.
Be still, mind, the tides ebb flows forever onward,
know its a place, where we can go eternally forward.
Sorry ,but there's no stopping now or turning back,
Ascend ever upwards on this Dimensional time-track.
And then to remember what we have never lost,
to re-claim the key to our inheritance,we exhaust.
A game of hide and seek,played with ourselves,
to bring it all back to the Creator Father himself.
We are all part of Gods great Divine eternal mind,
never to be lost again forever in space and time.
But nothing can be done if we choose to work alone,
we must bring our brothers with us to get back home.
For we are all one in tis cosmic Creators family,
true forgiveness allows love to flow on inwardly.
Now I invoke the higher self to come forth today,
for to help me make this Peace and Love stay.
For he is that prodigal son of God that lives within,
he's our ticket home when we meld and let him in.
Amen
11/11 Rev. Joshua Skirvin / Adonai
Comments
Isent it funny that history repeats itself. I alwas wondered how people just let hitler happen and do what he did. And today we see the same thing in the world and obama creating a new Nazi state and no one doing much about it. The Nazi movement wasent destroyed just moved to USA. Did you know that George bush sr. was the illigatmet son of hitler,who was a SS Nazi, that was adopted by Perrot Bush and took his name. He was the first illegal alien president. Obama was the 2nd. And the Nazi's are behind this NWO movement. Its time for Change! Adonai
...is it strange that the far right party (Golden Dawn) in Greece got into the parliament in the last elections, and it continues to grow in power??? ....not at all... people are very predictable in their behaviors...
where if u would tell something like that 10 years before, to people here, they would tell you it is sci-fi such a concept, and they would laugh...
nothing has changed in human mentality... get the people into fear for survival mode, and u will see them from chanting "Love and Light", to take out the torches and the pitchforks, and starting the witch hunt...
If Obama is the "new Hitler," where is the Red Army (Hitler's nemesis) when we need them...?? ;-)