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UBC: The 'Hitler Myth'
Dec. 22nd, 2009 02:54 pmKershaw, Ian. The 'Hitler Myth': Image and Reality in the Third Reich. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Oddly enough, I found an excellent one sentence summation of the thesis of this book in the next book I picked up, H. W. Koch's The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development 1922-1945 (1975): "Since he [Hitler] never said what he meant by 'nationalism' or by 'socialism' he could be, at least for a time, all things to all men" (p. 41). Kershaw's book is an examination of the public image of Hitler, particularly among non-Nazis, and how he managed to stay "all things to all men" for a phenomenally long time. The fundamental excuse which maintained Hitler's popularity, which Kershaw cites evidence for again and again and again, is that Hitler didn't know what his subordinates were doing (when in truth, of course, although the Nazi government was a wildly chaotic machine, no one with Hitler's paranoid and micromanaging character would have tolerated for a second the kind of ignorance people were attributing to him). Every time the Nazi government did something unpopular, Hitler was exculpated, so that Hitler and the NSDAP became widely separated in the minds of non-Nazis, while of course to members of the Nazi Party, Hitler was the NSDAP. Hitler's own very careful practice of speaking in generalities, and toning down his rabid fervor on certain subjects such as the "Jewish Question," and concealing his implacable determination to lead Germany into war, meant that people could project onto him whatever they needed to believe in and keep that quite separate from the dismal day to day realities of living in a fascist state. Kershaw also charts the decline and fall of Hitler's public image, starting with Stalingrad--Germany's first major defeat in WWII was also the first time that the Nazis' propaganda and lies were directly contradicted by inconvenient reality, and after that the chasm just kept getting wider and wider. Hitler's popularity, being built on lies and misdirection and--crucially--success after success, could not survive the truth of defeat.
I have one other creepily interesting observation, which is that the standard defense of "Hitler doesn't know what his subordinates are doing" would later be picked up by the Hitler apologist, David Irving, who used it in Hitler's War to argue that Hitler was not responsible for the genocide of the Jews.
Oddly enough, I found an excellent one sentence summation of the thesis of this book in the next book I picked up, H. W. Koch's The Hitler Youth: Origins and Development 1922-1945 (1975): "Since he [Hitler] never said what he meant by 'nationalism' or by 'socialism' he could be, at least for a time, all things to all men" (p. 41). Kershaw's book is an examination of the public image of Hitler, particularly among non-Nazis, and how he managed to stay "all things to all men" for a phenomenally long time. The fundamental excuse which maintained Hitler's popularity, which Kershaw cites evidence for again and again and again, is that Hitler didn't know what his subordinates were doing (when in truth, of course, although the Nazi government was a wildly chaotic machine, no one with Hitler's paranoid and micromanaging character would have tolerated for a second the kind of ignorance people were attributing to him). Every time the Nazi government did something unpopular, Hitler was exculpated, so that Hitler and the NSDAP became widely separated in the minds of non-Nazis, while of course to members of the Nazi Party, Hitler was the NSDAP. Hitler's own very careful practice of speaking in generalities, and toning down his rabid fervor on certain subjects such as the "Jewish Question," and concealing his implacable determination to lead Germany into war, meant that people could project onto him whatever they needed to believe in and keep that quite separate from the dismal day to day realities of living in a fascist state. Kershaw also charts the decline and fall of Hitler's public image, starting with Stalingrad--Germany's first major defeat in WWII was also the first time that the Nazis' propaganda and lies were directly contradicted by inconvenient reality, and after that the chasm just kept getting wider and wider. Hitler's popularity, being built on lies and misdirection and--crucially--success after success, could not survive the truth of defeat.
I have one other creepily interesting observation, which is that the standard defense of "Hitler doesn't know what his subordinates are doing" would later be picked up by the Hitler apologist, David Irving, who used it in Hitler's War to argue that Hitler was not responsible for the genocide of the Jews.
