If anyone can be bothered reading
olume: 35 Issue: 11 November 1985 pp23-23History Today Volume: 35 Issue: 11
November 1985 pp23-23
THE HITLER MYTH
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 Ð in
some respects bizarre, in others downright mediocre and wholly unpleasant Ð 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 Ð 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.
Images of 'heroic' leadership were already gaining ground in
populist-nationalist circles of the German Right in the late nineteenth century.
Their inclusion as a growing force in the political culture of the Right in the
Kaiser's Germany (and there are parallels in pre-fascist Italy, which later gave
rise to the cult of the Duce) was c largely shaped by three interlinked factors:
the social and political disruption accompanying a simultaneous transition to
nation-state, constitutional government (if strongly authoritarian in
character), and industrialised society; the deep fragmentation of the political
system (reflecting fundamental social cleavages); and, not least, the spread of
a chauvinistic imperialist ideology clamouring for a rightful 'place in the sun'
for Germany, a 'have-not' nation.
Growing disappointment on the populist Right with Wilhelm II promoted notions of
a 'People's Kaiser' who, embodying strength and vitality would crush Germany's
internal enemies and, at the expense of inferior peoples, would provide the new
nation with greatness and would win an empire for 'a people without living
space'.
The extreme glorification of military values before and especially during the
First World War, and the Right's shock and trauma at defeat, revolution, and the
victory of the hated Social Democrats, promoted the extension and partial
transformation of 'heroic' leadership images in the 1920s. Following the
abdication of the Kaiser and the end of the old political order, ideal
leadership was envisaged as being embodied in a man from the people whose
qualities would reflect struggle, conflict, the values of the trenches. Hard,
ruthless, resolute, uncompromising, and radical, he would destroy the old
privilege and class-ridden society and bring about a new beginning, uniting the
people in an ethnically pure and socially harmonious 'national community'. The
extreme fragmentation of Weimar politics kept such visions alive on the
nationalist and volkisch Right. And by the early 1930s, perceptions of the total
failure of Weimar democracy and mortal crisis of the entire political system
allowed the image to move from the wings of politics to centre stage. By then,
one man in particular was making a claim Ð accepted by increasing numbers of
people Ð that he alone could re-awaken Germany and restore the country's
greatness. This was Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazis.
Within the Nazi Party, the beginnings of a personality cult around Hitler go
back to 1922-3, when some party members were already comparing him with Napoleon
or describing him as Germany's Mussolini. Of course, Hitler only gradually
established an unchallengeable authority within the party, initially having to
contend with some powerful factions of opposition. And although his own concept
of leadership was already becoming more 'heroic' in the year before his Putsch
attempt, it was only during imprisonment following its failure that he came to
believe that he himself was Germany's predestined great leader. During the
following years in which the Nazis were little more than a minor irritant in
German politics, the 'Hitler Myth' was consciously built up within the Movement
as a device to integrate the party, to fend off leadership challenges, and to
win new members. The introduction in 1926 of a compulsory 'Heil Hitler'
fascist-style greeting and salute among party members was an outward sign of
their bonds with their leader. Pseudo-religious imagery and fanciful rhetoric so
ludicrous that it even occasionally embarrassed Hitler became commonplace in
references to the leader in party publications.
Before 1930, the nascent Fuhrer cult around Hitler found an echo among at most a
few hundred thousand followers. But with the Nazi Party's breakthrough in the
1930 election (which brought it 18.3 per cent of the vote), the Fuhrer cult
ceased to be merely the property of a fanatical fringe party. The potential was
there for its massive extension, as more and more Germans saw in Nazism Ð
symbolised by its leader Ð the only hope for a way out of gathering crisis.
Those now surging to join the Nazi party were often already willing victims of
the 'Hitler Myth'. Not untypical was the new party member who wrote that after
hearing Hitler speak for the first time, 'there was only one thing for me,
either to win with Adolf Hitler or to die for him. The personality of the Fuhrer
had me totally in its spell'. Even for the vast majority of the German people
who did not share such sentiments, there was the growing feeling Ð encouraged by
Hitler's profile even in the non-Nazi press Ð that Hitler was not just another
politician, that he was a party leader extraordinary, a man towards whom one
could not remain neutral. He polarised feelings between bitter hatred and
ecstatic devotion, but he could no longer be ignored, or shrugged off as a
political nonentity.
For the thirteen million Germans who voted Nazi in 1932, Hitler symbolised Ð
chameleon-like Ð the various facets of Nazism which they found appealing. In his
public portrayal, he was a man of the people, his humble origins emphasising the
rejection of privilege and the sterile old order in favour of a new, vigorous,
upwardly-mobile society built upon strength, merit, and achievement. He was seen
as strong, uncompromising, ruthless. He embodied the triumph of true Germanic
virtues Ð courage, manliness, integrity, loyalty, devotion to the cause Ð over
the effete decadence, corruption, and effeminate weakness of Weimar society.
Above all, he represented 'struggle' Ð as the title of his book Mein Kampf
advertised: struggle of the 'little man' against society's 'big battalions', and
mortal struggle against Germany's powerful internal and external enemies to
assure the nation's future. More prosaically, for the many still less convinced,
he headed a huge mass movement which, given the weak and divided Weimar parties,
seemed to other the only way out of all-embracing crisis.
Still, not one German in two cast a vote for Hitler's party in the March
election of 1933 Ð held five weeks after Hitler had been appointed Chancellor in
an atmosphere of national euphoria coupled with terroristic repression of the
Left. Most Germans remained either hostile to, or unconvinced by, their new
'people's Chancellor', as the Nazi press dubbed him. Within the diehard ranks of
the persecuted socialist and Communist left, of course, the hatred of Hitler and
all he stood for Ð which in many respects was accurately foreseen Ð was
implacable. In Catholic quarters, deep suspicions lingered about the
anti-Christian tendencies of Nazism Ð though there was already a growing
readiness to distance Hitler himself from the 'dangerous elements' in his
movement. And bourgeois circles continued to see in Hitler the social upstart
and vulgar demagogue, mouthpiece of the hysterical masses, the head of a party
containing some wild and threatening elements Ð but a man, with all his faults,
who could have his uses for a time. Attitudes towards Hitler in early 1933
varied greatly, therefore, and were often heatedly negative.
Three factors at least have to be taken into account in explaining how,
nevertheless, the Fuhrer cult could, within a strikingly short time, extend its
hold to wide sections of the population, and eventually to the overwhelming
majority of Germans. Of crucial significance was the widespread feeling that the
Weimar political system and leadership was utterly bankrupt. In such conditions,
the image of a dynamic, energetic, 'youthful' leader offering a decisive change
of direction and backed by an army of fanatical followers was not altogether
unattractive. Many with grave doubts were prepared to give Hitler a chance. And
compared with the pathetic helplessness of his predecessors as Chancellor, the
apparent drive and tempo of government activity in the months after he took
office seemed impressive.
Secondly, the gross underestimation of Hitler again paved the way for at first
reluctant or condescending, and then wholehearted, enthusiasm for the way he
apparently mastered within such a short time the internal political situation
which had seemed beyond the capabilities of an upstart rabble-rouser. Thirdly,
and most importantly, Hitler embodied an already well-established, extensive
ideological consensus which also embraced most of those, except the Left, who
had still not given him their vote in March 1933. Its chief elements were
virulent anti-Marxism and the perceived need for a powerful counter to the
forces of the Left; deep hostility towards the failed democratic system and a
belief that strong, authoritarian leadership was necessary for any recovery; and
a widespread feeling, even extending to parts of the Left, that Germany had been
badly wronged at Versailles, and was threatened by enemies on all sides. This
pre-existing wide consensus offered the potential for strong support for a
national leader who could appear to offer absolute commitment, personal
sacrifice, and selfless striving in the cause of inner unity and. outward
strength.
By 1933, Nazi propaganda had been highly successful in establishing 'charismatic
authority' as the organisational premise of the Nazi Party, and then in
portraying Hitler to Nazi sympathisers as not just another party leader, but as
the Leader for whom the nation had been waiting Ð a man of incomparably
different stature to contemptible party politicians. The most important
propaganda step now remained to be taken: the conversion, for the 'majority of
the majority' that had still not supported Hitler in March 1933, of his image
from that of leader of the Nazi Movement to that of national leader.
Given the fact that Nazi propaganda now enjoyed a virtual monopoly within
Germany, and that those taking a less than favourable view of Hitler's qualities
were now incarcerated or silenced by fear and repression, the scene was set for
the rapid establishment by the end of 1934 of the full-blown Fuhrer cult of an
almost deified national leader. No doubt many Germans found the extremes of the
now omnipresent Hitler cult nauseating. But they were for the most part coming
to accept that Hitler was no ordinary head of government. Above all, one could
not ignore his 'achievements': 'order' had been restored; unemployment was
falling rapidly; the economy was picking up strongly; Germany was beginning to
stand up for itself again in the world. The record seemed to speak for itself.
By 1935, Hitler could be hailed in the Nazi press Ð and there was by now hardly
any other press to speak of inside Germany Ð as the 'Symbol of the Nation' who,
having struggled as an 'ordinary worker' to establish Germany's 'social
freedom', had now, as a one-time ordinary 'Front soldier', re-established
Germany's 'national freedom' Ð a reference to the recent reassertion of German
military sovereignty. The message being conveyed was that people and nation
found their identity, their 'incarnation', as it was put, in the person of the
Fuhrer. To this weight placed upon Hitler's 'achievements', Goebbels added the
pathos of the human qualities of the Fuhrer: his simplicity and modesty, toil
and endeavour for his people, mastery of all problems facing the nation,
toughness and severity, unshakable determination though flexibility of method in
the pursuit of far-sighted goals. With all this went the intense loneliness and
sadness of a man who had sacrificed all personal happiness and private life for
his people. This extraordinary catalogue of personal virtues Ð making the
'human' Hitler almost inhuman in the degree of his perfection Ð was set
alongside the political genius of the Fuhrer as a human counterpart to the image
of the lofty, distant statesman. It amounted to almost a mirror of contemporary
bourgeois values Ð characteristics with which almost everyone could find some
point of association.
Difficult though it is to evaluate, evidence of the receptivity to this image Ð
drawn both from sources from within the regime and those hostile to the Nazi
system Ð lends strong support to Goebbels' claim in 1941 that the creation of
the 'Hitler Myth' had been his greatest propaganda achievement. The powerfully
integrative force of Hitler's massive popularity seems undeniable. Goebbels
might have added, however, that the way had been paved for him by the constant
exposure to rabid chauvinist-imperialist values pumped into the population for
decades by a stridently nationalist press (excepting the publications of the
Left) and by a variety of forms of 'socialisation' in schools, the bourgeois
youth movement, the army, and an entire panoply of 'patriotic' clubs, leagues,
and associations.
Of course, the political culture was far from a unitary one, and not all Germans
were affected. As is well known, the socialist subculture remained relatively
immune. Those 'schooled' in the traditions of the Socialist and Communist
parties continued throughout the Third Reich to be the least susceptible to the
appeal of the 'Hitler Myth'. To a lesser extent, the Catholic subculture was
also resistant to the full extremes of the Fuhrer cult, though strong traditions
of authoritarianism and especially endemic anti-Marxism allowed for substantial
inroads. Clearly, therefore, Hitler's popularity was far from complete, the
Fuhrer cult far from uniform in its impact. However, detailed examination of an
extensive mass of sources relating to the formation of popular opinion and
attitudes in the Third Reich suggests at least seven significant bases of the
'Hitler Myth' which can be singled out.
Firstly, Hitler was seen as the embodiment of strong and, where necessary,
ruthless enforcement of 'law and order' Ð the representative of 'popular
justice', the voice of the 'healthy sentiment of the people'. An example can be
seen in the great gains in popularity which accrued to him in spring 1933 as a
result of the brutal Nazi onslaught on the Left, 'clearing away' the Socialist
and Communist 'enemies of the state'. Even more spectacular as an illustration
is the extraordinary boost to Hitler's popularity following the ruthless
massacre of members of his own Movement Ð the leaders of the highly unpopular SA
Ð in June 1934. In reality, the purge of the SA leadership served to crush a
destabilising element in the regime and further the power-political ambitions of
the army and the SS. But none of this was reflected in Hitler's image following
the purge. As even opponents of the regime acknowledged, Hitler's blood-letting
was hugely popular, welcomed as a blow struck for law and order Ð 'popular
justice' eradicating corruption and immorality within the Movement. The
propagated image of a leader upholding public morality corresponded closely with
commonly-held values and prejudices Ð for instance, in the condemnation of
rowdiness and disorder, venal corruption and homosexuality. In what was a
complete inversion of reality, Hitler was seen to be signalling a triumph for
values associated with 'normality'.
Secondly, Hitler was seen as representing the national interest, putting the
nation first before any particularist cause and wholly detached from any
personal, material, or selfish motives. Crucial to this image was the way, after
1933, in which propaganda succeeded in isolating Hitler from the growing
unpopularity of the Nazi Party itself. The wholly positive resonance of the
portrayal of Hitler, the national leader, contrasted vividly with the sullied
reputation of party functionaries, the 'little Hitlers', whose corruption and
greed, jumped-up arrogance and highhandedness, pettiness and hypocrisy, were a
daily scandal. And whereas the local party officials bore the brunt of extensive
and real daily discontent, Hitler's popularity was cushioned by the myth that he
was being kept in the dark about the misdeeds of his underlings, was unaware of
the just complaints of his people.
Without at least the prospect of an improved living standard, the extent of the
effective integration produced > by the 'Hitler Myth' would have been difficult
to achieve. A third, extremely important, component of the perceived Fuhrer
image was, therefore, that of the architect and creator of Germany's 'economic
miracle' of the 1930s. Part of the apologetic of the post-war era was, of
course, that despite his 'mistakes', Hitler had revamped the economy, rid
Germany of unemployment, and built the motorways. This is itself testimony to
the penetrating and enduring features of this aspect of the contemporary Hitler
image. Certainly, by 1939 it was difficult to deny that economic conditions in
Germany, for whatever reasons, had improved dramatically since the Depression
era. However, more than in any other sphere, perceptions of Hitler's image in
the context of economic and social policy were determined by experiences which
divided for the most part along class lines.
The working class remained the social grouping least impressed by the 'economic
miracle' and relatively immune to the image of Hitler as the creator of
Germany's striking new prosperity. After all, with their own standard of living
pinned down to Depression levels in the years 193336, most industrial workers
saw no particular reason to offer marked signs of gratitude to the Fuhrer.
Through repression and intimidation, low wages, and longer hours, the 'economic
miracle', as most realised, was being carried out on their own backs.
Nevertheless, as the underground worker resistance was forced to admit, Hitler
undoubtedly did gain some popularity among workers for 'his' work creation and
the economic recovery which 'he' had brought about. And in the first years of
the Third Reich in particular, the 'socialist' aspect of the Hitler image also
struck a chord among many of the poorer Germans who were recipients of the
'Winter Aid'. Even so, on the whole it appears that the image of the economic
miracle-worker, the restorer of Germany's prosperity, had its greatest appeal
among those sectors of the population who benefited most from the economic boom
of the rearmament period: the middle class, who, despite their unceasing
grumbling, continued to provide the main base of support for the regime and
devotion to Hitler to at least the middle of the war.
Fourthly, in matters affecting established institutions and traditions, Hitler
was seen as a 'moderate', opposed to the radical and extreme elements in the
Movement. An obvious example is the 'church struggle'. Whenever fundamental
institutions nr basic traditional props of both major Christian denominations
were under attack Ð as in the Nazi attempt in 1934 to abolish surviving
Protestant bishoprics with a firm tradition of independence, or to remove
crucifixes, the symbol of Christianity itself, from Catholic schoolrooms in 1936
and again in 1941, Hitler was looked to as the defence against the 'wild
elements' in the party.
His apparent non-involvement in, or aloofness from, the bitter conflicts, before
finally intervening to end the disturbance Ð put down to party radicals and the
'new heathenism' associated above all with Rosenberg Ð and 'restore order', left
Hitler's standing among churchgoers relatively unscathed, despite the slump in
popularity of the party. Grotesque as it seems, Hitler himself continued to be
widely regarded as a God-fearing and deeply religious man. Even church leaders
with a reputation for hostility to Nazism were persuaded of his sincerity,
belief in God, and acceptance of the role of Christianity and the churches.
Their public avowals of obedience to the Fuhrer and recognition of his
leadership and achievements played no small part in helping to give legitimation
to the 'Hitler Myth'.
Fanatical commitment to uncompromising and ruthless action against the 'enemies
of the people' was a fifth crucial component of Hitler's image. But he was
regarded as condoning only lawful, 'rational' action, not the crude violence and
public brutalities of the party's distasteful 'gutter' elements. No one could
have been left in any doubt, for instance, of Hitler's fanatical anti-Semitism
and determination to exclude Jews from German society. And at the beginning of
his career, anti-Semitism had been a keynote of almost all his speeches and must
have been a dominant component of his popular image among early converts to
Nazism. However, during the period of the party's major electoral successes,
anti-Semitism appears to have featured less prominently in Hitler's public
addresses, and was less important as an electoral drawing card than has often
been presumed Ð tending mainly to function as a general touchstone for other
propaganda themes.
After 1933, Hitler was extremely careful to avoid public association with the
generally unpopular pogrom-type anti-Semitic outrages, particularly of course
following the nation-wide 'Crystal Night' pogrom in November 1938. In the years
when his popularity was soaring to dizzy heights, moreover, Hitler's public
pronouncements on the 'Jewish Question' were less numerous than might be
imagined, and, while certainly hate-filled, were usually couched in abstract
generalities in association with western plutocracy or Bolshevism. In these
terms, bolstering the passive anti-Semitism already widespread among the German
people and lending support to 'legal' measures Ð for the most part popular Ð
excluding Jews from German society and the economy, Hitler's hatred of the Jews
was certainly an acceptable component of his popular image, even if it was an
element 'taken on board' rather than forming a centrally important motivating
factor for most Germans. Even during the war, when his vitriolic public
onslaughts on the Jews came far more frequently and contained dire allusions to
their physical extermination, the signs are that this was not a centrally
formative factor shaping attitudes towards Hitler among the German people.
Sixthly, Hitler's public profile in the arena of foreign affairs stood in stark
contrast to reality. He was commonly seen here as a fanatical upholder of the
nation's just rights to territory 'robbed' from Germany in the peace settlement
after the First World War, a rebuilder of Germany's strength, and a statesman of
genius Ð to which his astounding run of diplomatic coups seemed to offer ample
testimony. Amid the widespread, deep fears of another war, he was also,
astonishingly, seen by many as a 'man of peace' who 'would do everything he
could to settle things peacefully' (as one then youthful observer later came to
describe her feelings at the time) Ð a defender of German rights, not a
racial-imperialist warmonger working towards a 'war of annihilation' and
limitless German conquest. Hitler's imposing series of 'triumphs without
bloodshed' directed at 'peace with honour' Ð tearing up the Versailles
settlement, winning back the Saar, restoring 'military sovereignty', recovering
the Rhineland, uniting Austria with Germany, and bringing the Sudetenland 'home
into the Reich' Ð won him support in all sections of the German people and
unparalleled popularity, prestige, and acclaim.
Finally, there is Hitler's image, when war came, as the military strategist of
genius, outwitting Germany's enemies in an unbelievable run of Blitzkrieg
victories, culminating in the taking of France within four weeks when a
generation earlier four years had not been enough. Even after the war started to
turn sour for Germany in the winter of 1941-2, the unpopularity of the party and
its despised representatives at home continued for a time to stand in stark
contrast to the image of the Fuhrer's devotion to duty in standing with his
soldiers at the Front. However, according to Max Weber's model, 'charismatic
leadership' could not survive lack of success. And indeed, as 'his' astonishing
run of victories turned gradually but inexorably into calamitous defeat, the
tide of Hitler's popularity first waned rather slowly, then ebbed sharply. The
decline accelerated decisively following the catastrophe of Stalingrad, a defeat
for which Hitler's personal responsibility was widely recognised.
The 'Hitler Myth' was now fatally flawed. In the face of defeats, personal
losses, misery, and sacrifice, the earlier successes began to be seen in a new
light. Hitler was now increasingly blamed for policies which had led to war. His
much vaunted strong will, resolution, unshakeable determination, and absolute
fanaticism were regarded more and more not as attributes but as the main
stumbling blocks to the longed-for peace. With no more successes to proclaim,
Hitler was now reluctant even to speak to the German people. The new image put
out by Goebbels of Hitler as a latterday Frederick the Great Ð distant majesty
finally triumphant in the face of extreme adversity Ð symbolised the growing
gulf.
Important reserves of popularity remained to the end. Hatred of the Allies
prompted by terror bombing campaigns partially benefited Hitler and the regime
for a while; some temporary vain hopes were placed in the Fuhrer's promises of
new weapons which would accomplish the desired 'retaliation'; a short-lived
upsurge of support and proclamation of loyalty followed the attempt on his life
in July 1944 Ð an indication that a successful coup might have encountered a new
version of the 'stab-in-the-back' legend; and surprisingly large numbers of
prisoners-of-war in the west continued till the end to avow their belief in
Hitler. But the potency of the 'Hitler Myth' had vanished. Eloquent commentary
on this is a report on a remembrance ceremony at the war memorial in the little
Bavarian alpine town of Markt Schellenberg on March 11th, 1945:
When the leader of the Wehrmacht unit at the end of his speech for the
remembrance called for a 'Sieg-Heil' for the Fuhrer, it was returned neither by
the Wehrmacht present, nor by the Volkssturm, nor by the spectators of the
civilian population who had turned up. This silence of the masses had a
depressing effect, and probably reflects better than anything the attitudes of
the people.
Unquestionably, the adulation of Hitler by millions of Germans who may otherwise
have been only marginally committed to the Nazi ideology, or party, was a
crucial element of political integration in the Third Reich. Without this mass
base of support, the high level of plebiscitary acclamation, which the regime
could repeatedly call upon to legitimise its actions and to take the wind out of
the sails of the opposition, is unthinkable. It also enabled the specifically
Nazi elite to free itself from dependence upon the support of traditional
conservative ruling groups, thereby boosting the autonomy of the 'wild men' in
the Movement. Without the degree of popular backing which Hitler was able to
command, the drive, dynamism, and momentum of Nazi rule could hardly have been
sustained.
The Fuhrer cult necessarily influenced the relations of the Nazi leadership
itself with Hitler, as well as those of the traditional ruling elites.
Inevitably, it surrounded Hitler with toadies, flatterers, and sycophants,
shielding him from rational criticism or genuine debate, and bolstered
increasing detachment from reality. Nor could Hitler himself remain impervious
to the extraordinary cult which had been created around him and which came to
envelop him. His own person gradually became inseparable from the myth.
Hitler had to live out more and more the constructed image of omnipotence and
omniscience. And the more he succumbed to the allure of his own Fuhrer cult and
came to believe in his own myth, the more his judgement became impaired by faith
in his own infallibility and guidance 'by providence', enabling him to 'go his
way with the certainty of a sleepwalker'. His room for manoeuvre now became
restricted by his own need to protect the 'Hitler Myth' and sustain his
prestige, aware as he was that if Nazism lost its forward momentum and
stagnation set in, Hitler's own popularity and the mass base of the regime's
support would be fatally undermined. To this extent, it has been claimed with
some justification, that 'Hitler well understood his own function, the role
which he had to act out as "Leader" of the Third Reich', that he 'transformed
himself into a function, the function of Fuhrer'.
FOR FURTHER READING: Ernest K. Bramsted, Goebbels and National Socialist
Propaganda, Pt. IIl (Michigan University Press, 1965); Michael H. Kater, 'Hitler
in a Social Context', Central European History, 14 (1981); Ian Kershaw, 'The
Fuhrer Image and Political Integration', in: Hirschfeld and Kettenacker (eds.),
Der Fuhrerstaat: Mythos und Realitat (Stuttgart, 1981); L. Kettenacker,
'Hitler's Impact on the Lower Middle Class', in: D. Welch (ed.), Nazi
Propaganda. The Power and the Limitations (Croom Helm, 1983); Joseph Nyomarkay,
Charisma and Factionalism in the Nazi party (Minneapolis, 1967); J.P. Stern,
Hitler (Collins, 1975).
Author: Kershaw, Ian
