The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich

by Ian Kershaw

Book Overview

Few, if any, twentieth-century political leaders have enjoyed greater popularity among their own people than Hitler did in the decade or so following his rise to power in 1933. The personality of Hitler himself, however, can scarcely explain this immense popularity or his political effectiveness in the 1930s and '40s. His hold over the German people lay rather in the hopes and perceptions of the millions who adored him.

Based largely on the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192802062
• ISBN13: 9780192802064
• Release Date: December 2001
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Rebuts the Allied-Bombing-Ineffective Myth

Ever so often, a new book comes out that purports to show that the Allied bombing of Germany did not contribute to the Allied victory. If anything, we are told, the destruction of cities only stiffened German resistance and made the Germans cling more to Hitler than ever before. Kershaw examines these contentions and finds them wanting. He says: "The overall conclusion was that bombing did not stiffen morale, but seriously depressed it: fatalism, apathy, defeatism, and other psychological effects were all more strongly encountered among bombed than unbombed sections of the population. And much of the hate and anger aroused by the bombing was channeled against the Nazi regime which was blamed for its failure to ward off the attacks." (p. 207). Estimates are cited which indicate that a third of the German population suffered directly from Allied bombing, a quarter of all German homes were at least damaged, and that nearly five million Germans had to be evacuated (p. 202). This is in addition to the over-300,000 deaths. Both the German and the early-postwar Allied sources agree on the demoralizing effect of Allied bombing. For instance, consider the situation soon after the bombing of Schweinfurt: "Already after the first raid in August 1943, SD agencies in Lower Franconia reported widespread shock and depression among the population, even among the previously `reliable' sections who had been convinced of German victory." (p. 203). Kershaw could have made his case stronger by focusing more on the level of German war production that existed in the face of Allied bombing as compared with the level of German war production that would have existed had the Allied bombings not taken place. One must also remember, from a strictly military point of view, that the lost productivity from the disruptions and dislocations, of urban-industrial infrastructure, caused by area bombing, was usually much greater than the lost productivity caused by the immediate deaths, injuries, and destruction.

A Fundamentally Flawed but still Interesting Work

Historian Ian Kershaw, later to scribe a monumental two-volume biography of Hitler, here tries, in one of his early works on Nazism, to assess the creation, acceptance, and downfall of the "Hitler Myth" among the German people. In essence, the Myth of Hitler is that of a charismatic leader and hero of the people upon whom the people bestow traits, characteristics, and motives that simply do not gibe with the facts. The Hitler Myth reached its zenith in 1941 at the same time that the Third Reich was becoming the largest empire the world has ever known. Small wonder then that the German people supported Hitler in his ever expanding grabs for land and power. In this respect Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbel's claim that he created the "Hitler Myth" may be a case of the tail wagging the dog. In any event, author Kershaw makes a marvelous attempt to understand how and why the Hitler Myth started, how it grew and was sustained, and what led to its destruction. In so doing he focuses not on Hitler the person as a myth but on the people who were the real source of the Hitler Myth, the people of Germany who bought into the myth. The basic resources for his analysis are based on two different, and competing, records. One major resource is internal reports of the government and Nazi Party agencies on the state of the attitudes, feelings, and morale of the German people. The other major resource is reports made by agents within Germany of the Social Democratic Party, initially as a party in opposition and then as a party in exile. One of the early goals of the Nazi Party after it wrested power from Hindenburg was to coalesce the Nazi Party vision of Hitler as the embodiment of the Nazi movement to Hitler becoming the embodiment of the State and Germany itself. (One reason Hitler eliminated Ernest Roehm in the Night of the Long Knives was that Roehm, with his 2-3 million man private army of Brownshirts (the SA) behind him, was a direct rival to Hitler for the affections of both the Party and the country. E.g., at the 1933 Nuremberg party rally the focus was almost equally on Roehm and Hitler; at the 1934 party rally, held shortly after eliminating Roehm, the focus was solely on Hitler.) Author Kershaw's work makes an excellent effort at trying to understand the phenomenon whereby Hitler and the State became one and the same in the minds of, apparently, most Germans by 1939-40. The work, however, is not, and cannot, be definitive because the sources he uses to make his conclusions are first, biased by nature, and two, secondary, not primary. (Assessments of the Nazi Party reports also seem to be heavily based on only one part of the country, Bavaria.) That being said, the results are nonetheless fascinating and well worth reading to anyone interested in trying to gain a better understanding of Hitler, Nazism, or World War II.

A solid, interesting survey

"The Hitler Myth" is essentially a charting of the effectiveness of--though not an in-depth investigation of--the propaganda machine relative specifically to how the German populace viewed Adolf Hitler from the late 1920's through the duration of the war. Kershaw measures the propaganda machine's effectiveness through 1) opinion poll results, 2) voting figures, and 3) anecdotal documentation, especially reports from Nazi Party functionaries regarding what might today be called "the word on the street." What ends up being Kershaw's most strongly stressed observation in the text is the persistence in Nazi Germany of public "excusablility" of Hitler (my clumsy term, not Kershaw's) or a sort of "blame transfer" (again, my inadequate term) that existed relative to any negative news or regime mistakes. In other words, when things went wrong, the public--in a seemingly maniacal way--held onto a "BUT IT'S NOT THE FURHER'S FAULT" mentality. Concomitant to this reality is the extent to which the Nazi Party was actually actively disliked by huge swaths of the population of Germany from quite early on (pre-war), and even more so by the beginning of hostilities with the Allies. Nonetheless, none of that displeasure seemed to get applied to Hitler himself until much, much later. Kershaw's fairly convincing stream of written evidence shows that the public persistently disassociated Hitler from the over-zealous policies, corruption, or flat-out bad ideas and brutish stupidity of the Nazi regime by assuming that Hitler was being misinformed by sycophants, or was being foiled by the pernicious British, or was simply too absorbed with genius foreign policy and thus distracted from domestic concerns, etc. In fact, the evidence suggests that during many points of the Third Reich's embarrassing reign, at least up until the defeat at Stalingrad, when the popularity of the Nazi Party worsened, Hitler's personal popularity actually increased. The "why" behind all this is tricky, and Kershaw is honest enough to say so, admitting that he doesn't have a complete answer. But, his exhaustive research over the years has helped. Clearly, he thinks that the Nazi propaganda machine and its persistent application is the principle reason for the amazing success of the "Hitler myth." Or, to put it in modern pundit parlance: "It's the media, stupid." Control of communications by savvy, Machiavellian manipulators like Joseph Gobbles allowed for Hitler to always be positioned (literally, too!) in the best possible light, no matter what the national or international circumstances. A secondary but important factor in the vitality of the Hitler myth was simply a desperate German thirst for leadership (decisive leadership or at least decisive-sounding) in the wake of 20 years of highly dysfunctional adolescent democracy burdened by rank corruption and destabilized by what was at the time the compelling Communist alternative, Communism having not then been discredited anywhere in the

interesting preview

AN INTERESTING PREVIEW OF HIS LATER CLASSICS ON THE LIFE OF HITLER HUBRIS AND NEMESIS

Great Book on understanding Nazi Propaganda

In the late summer months of 1933 and 1934, groups of German citizens flocked to Berghof hoping to catch a glimpse of Adolf Hitler walking through the countryside . Filled with a zealous belief for the `Hitler Myth', post World War I Germany surrendered itself to Nazi propaganda. Responding to the humiliating treaty of Versailles and the economically unstable Weimar Republic, Hitler took on the Weberian characteristics of charismatic leadership . Unconditional loyalty and unquestioned faith in the Fuhrer rekindled historical notions of charismatic authority within the German psyche. Only after millions of European deaths and an Allied imposed peace could Germany finally tear itself away from the spell of Adolf Hitler. Unlike other chroniclers and scholars of the Nazi regime, Ian Kershaw in his book The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in The Third Reich, examined the subtle distinction World War II German citizens carried in their assessment of Hitler and the Nazi Party. According to Kershaw, Hitler realized that the personality cult constructed around him could be used to cement the integration of the Nazi Party and the German populace. Indeed, the spell of Hitler or the myth of Hitler did not always exactly correspond with the German populace's perception of the Nazi Party. Throughout his well documented work, Kershaw makes the case that the `Hitler Myth' held a different form of allegiance within World War II Germany. The `Hitler Myth' unlike the Nazi party, prevented the German citizen from abandoning the Fuhrer in his quest for European dominance . It was trust in Hitler not in allegiance to the Nazi Party that propelled many German citizens to fight through World War II, despite food shortages and mounting casualties. Only after the dropping of 1,202,000 tons of bombs in 1944 did the majority of the German populace awaken to the reality of the Third Reich and realize the linkage between the devastating policies of the Nazi party and `The Hitler Myth'. The separation of the Fuhrer from the Nazi party began with the incarceration of Adolf Hitler at Landsberg in 1924. Prior to his jailing, Hitler merely saw himself as an intrepid vanguard for a future National Socialist dictator . Only after a period of gestation when Hitler read voraciously, wrote Mein Kampf, and received countless party visitors did the future Fuhrer bloom to the realization that he could carry the mantle of National Socialism and assume the untapped potential of the `Hitler Myth'. Only a year prior to Hitler's incarceration, the German populace viewed the Munich orator as little more than a "vulgar demagogue". With his Landsberg transformation, Hitler assumed the reigns of the Nazi Party. Appealing to the German middle classes, Hitler promoted a message of anti-Marxism and strong authoritarian leadership. While assuming political power for the Nazi Party, Hitler subtly cultivated his own cult of personality and authority by issuing a 1933 directive thr