Known for a bottomless mendacity
Michiko Kakutani reviews a book about Hitler’s ascent. The review never mentions Trump, but Trump is present in nearly every word. (“Germany” is the main exception.)
How did Adolf Hitler — described by one eminent magazine editor in 1930 as a “half-insane rascal,” a “pathetic dunderhead,” a “nowhere fool,” a “big mouth” — rise to power in the land of Goethe and Beethoven? What persuaded millions of ordinary Germans to embrace him and his doctrine of hatred? How did this “most unlikely pretender to high state office” achieve absolute power in a once democratic country and set it on a course of monstrous horror?
Yes how? And how did Donald Trump rise to the Republican nomination in the land of Lincoln and Sondheim? What persuaded millions of ordinary Americans to embrace him and his doctrine of hatred?
Mr. Ullrich, like other biographers, provides vivid insight into some factors that helped turn a “Munich rabble-rouser” — regarded by many as a self-obsessed “clown” with a strangely “scattershot, impulsive style” — into “the lord and master of the German Reich.”
See what I mean? It’s Hitler but it’s Trump.
• Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who “only loved himself” — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and what Mr. Ullrich calls a “characteristic fondness for superlatives.” His manic speeches and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his capacity for self-control, even his sanity. But Mr. Ullrich underscores Hitler’s shrewdness as a politician — with a “keen eye for the strengths and weaknesses of other people” and an ability to “instantaneously analyze and exploit situations.”
• Hitler was known, among colleagues, for a “bottomless mendacity” that would later be magnified by a slick propaganda machine that used the latest technology (radio, gramophone records, film) to spread his message. A former finance minister wrote that Hitler “was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth” and editors of one edition of “Mein Kampf” described it as a “swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.”
Check, check, check, check.
• Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising “to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness,” though he was typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a golden age for the country, Mr. Ullrich says, the better “to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker. Everywhere you looked now, there was only decline and decay.”
Remember Trump in the debate? Talking about Chicago? “You walk down the street you get shot.”
• Hitler’s repertoire of topics, Mr. Ullrich notes, was limited, and reading his speeches in retrospect, “it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences” with “repeated mantralike phrases” consisting largely of “accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future.” But Hitler virtually wrote the modern playbook on demagoguery, arguing in “Mein Kampf” that propaganda must appeal to the emotions — not the reasoning powers — of the crowd. Its “purely intellectual level,” Hitler said, “will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach.” Because the understanding of the masses “is feeble,” he went on, effective propaganda needed to be boiled down to a few slogans that should be “persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
At the moment it’s looking less likely that he’ll be elected, but even if he’s not, it’s terrifying that he’s gotten this far. This is a massive blot on our record, and it’s not going away any time soon.
It’s all the more frustrating when people who should be better-versed in history dismiss these parallels as facetious or somehow asinine (or, more often, hyperbole). They are anything but—they’re terrifying.
But Mr. Ullrich underscores Hitler’s shrewdness as a politician — with a “keen eye for the strengths and weaknesses of other people” and an ability to “instantaneously analyze and exploit situations.”
How does that apply to Trump?
I’ve walked down the streets of Chicago – I have never been shot. I realize there are areas that are much more dangerous than where we stayed, but Trump doesn’t differentiate. He wants us to think that we nice, middle-class, white people are getting gunned down just for daring to walk down the street.
Even in the more dangerous areas of town, it is possible to walk down the street without getting shot. There are problems, yes, but they won’t be fixed by anything Trump is proposing. Bernie Sanders had a better chance; Hillary has a better chance. They’ll actually try to solve real problems, not trump up fake problems in order to put in draconian solutions that wouldn’t fix the non-existent problem, and will only make real problems worse.
Re Day/how does that apply:
Generally, I’d say he exploited the current situation in the US Republican party very much as described. The groundwork was largely done, certain wedge issues (immigration, especially) already established. The field was relatively weak, in terms of name recognition, confidence on stage; he walked in with reality TV bombast, and got incredible mileage. As I think you should get from that ‘instantly’, especially, though, it’s not about a systematic, overarching strategy so much as a by-the-seat-of-your-pants thing. He looks for the other guy to stutter, to blink, and dives in. It’s trained reflex, from years watching and making TV, mostly. Knows too, how to feel the room, serve a crowd the red meat it wants. And even that’s a bit of a trick of knowing to pick your battles. In a rally, alone on stage, he’s particularly effective. Against someone who’s got his number, it depends on whether he can find a way to dominate, get inside their head.
And that is why I _hope_ he’s about to die a grisly, miserable, and richly earned death I will very much enjoy watching. Team Hillary appears to get this. The trick isn’t to deny him _any_ weakness; he’ll always find something his gut tells him he can use. The trick is to minimize whatever he thinks he’s homing in on, and come back anyway, harder, make him defend, embarrass him, fuck with his sense of the situation. Nothing kills a short-term strategy player like this like resilient, tested self-confidence, a good poker face, and a lot of ammunition.
“You walk down the street you get shot.”
He’s right actually. You (black person) do get shot walking down the street… by the police.
The German-Swiss psychiatrist Alice Miller devoted a chunk of her book ‘For Your Own Good’ to exploring why and how Hitler was able to manipulate the thoughts and emotions of Germans to such an insane degree while most observers found him ridiculous. She blames a lot on abusive child-rearing, power-worship etc. etc. Still worth a look.
And we still have an historical tendency to credit the Germans with greater power and competence than they actually had. Lindbergh gave the world and estimate of Luftwaffe power in 1936 that was FAR in excess of any actual strength they ever achieved. In 1940, the German army had fewer tanks, and relied more on horse-drawn transportation than the Allies.
It was on the basis of insane risk-taking and indifference to any sort of prudence that the Germans got as far as they did. Its only after Barbarossa that our memory registers how functionally crazy they’d been all along.
Saw a clip of Trump at Wednesday rally, (9-28) saying, ‘don’t miss this moment’, and promising to fix every problem for every American” man and woman. He knows he’s slipping and is now posting of the savior of the nation.
John @ 6 – well…what happened in the spring of 1940 wasn’t anybody’s imagination. Maybe the Germans did it all by yelling “BOO” really really loud, but I doubt it.
But they didn’t have the depth to sustain it. Once the US got in and started churning out planes like so much bars of soap, they were done for.
(Adding: I just bought Ullrich’s thing (ebook), but will have to wait until after work to begin it, I guess…
Beyond its topical potential utility, this hopefully not alarming anyone, I’ve always had a strange, conflicted attitude toward these figures you could almost call sympathy. Honestly, I suspect maybe it’s I’ve some narcissistic tendencies of my own, and I’m always curious: how do they get these places, what does that feel like. Even Trump, honestly, I sometimes feel this strange pity. Yes, he needs to be stopped; no pity changes this, and as above, I want to be there when he is. But l still can’t help wondering what it’s like inside that messed up head.)
That’s interesting. I don’t have that. I have sort of the opposite – not wanting to know what it’s like inside that messed up head, because it must be such a wind-swept desolation, with horrible gnomes popping up all the time.
Panic and emptiness, to quote Forster.
Re 11/12:
Thank you. You have just reminded me why I need to spend some time with my children. (Or, really, just about anyone who isn’t Trump.)
Really. I can’t begin to express how I resent it that this mess has forced me to pay attention to Trump when I’ve been able to avoid it for SO LONG.
Ophelia, @9
“Once the US got in and started churning out planes like so much bars of soap, they were done for.”
…and the Soviet Union, which was the real agent of destruction for the German army, not the Western Allies.
John the Drunkard, @6
“And we still have an historical tendency to credit the Germans with greater power and competence than they actually had.”
The Nazis produced the world’s first operational jet fighters and bombers, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. The Wehrmacht is regarded by many historians as being superior in training and tactics to any Allied army at the time. The problem for the Nazi regime was that it was directed by corporal Hitler, not by competent generals. As to the Nazis being ‘functionally crazy’, by attempting the “lightning war” strategy once too often, the US has applied the same tactics to Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan with equally disastrous results.
John, I’m fascinated by the national/racial myths and hype that go unchallenged in the pop-history understanding of Nazi Germany (well history generally but Nazis are the case in point).
Myths like: Germans are singularly excellent at organizing and engineering and Nazis were super-Germans who were even better at organizing.
If you look at the Western front you see time and again the US out-engineered and out-organized Germany. A simple example is the US duece and half truck type. Standardized. Easy to build, easy to maintain in the field. This same truck was provided to the Soviets and played a large role on the Eastern Front too.
As Ophelia says US factories churned out planes (and everything) like soap. This wasn’t just dumb luck and scale. US engineers were better at stripping expensive materials and processes out of the end product. I’ll offer tactical radio sets as an example. The US walkie-talkie was cheap, portable and robust. German sets were packed full of rare and expensive metals. And required two men to carry.
As to Nazi organisation. They refused to let women go to work. They refused to ration civilian consumption. They didn’t even ration war production. During the war Messerschmidt once ordered 2,000 tonnes of aluminum (a ridiculously expensive metal at the time). They received 20,000 in error. The excess was used to make ladders for local vineyards.
Hitler took a personal hand in weapons development, delaying and generally stuffing up systems that might have made a huge difference. Like the Me 262 fighter jet.
@16
The Nazis made a huge impression on the Western Allies, because evil and brave is a scary combination.
Not saying they were uber-competent or anything (there’s a name for people who worship the Wehrmacht: wehraboo, like a weeaboo).
But a German army would not have surredered in say, Singapore, after suffering minor casualties and facing an enemy inferior in numbers. They’d have fought until the city was a pile of ruins, never mind what this would have meant to the civilian population. Western Allies (not to mention the Italians) behaved more sanely and humanely, but cowardice is an underappreciated virtue.
@ John #06
If we’re talking 1940 then we’re mostly talking about the Battle of France. You’re right that if you combined the BEF and the French forces they had more tanks than the German army – 3383 compared to 2445. The French also had more artillery – fielding 11000 pieces compared to 8000. However you can’t look at numerical superiority alone to predict a victory. In many respects the BEF and the French armies were locked in WW1 strategic thinking. At this point they only deployed tanks as infantry support in what were known as “penny pockets” rather than as a force in their own right as the Germans did. The Germans also made better use of their airforce and paratroops – a good example is the attack on the impressive Belgian fortress of Eben Emael. The fort was virtually impregnable from ground attack due to its thick walls. The Germans loaded paratroops on gliders, landed on the roof and blasted their way in.
The allied forces did not make use of radio so their response times were much slower than the Germans who took advantage of miniaturisation technology to equip all their tanks with radio. The BEF and the French armies still relied on field telephones.
The German economy had been rebuilt over the previous ten years by rebuilding the munitions industry – solving their unemployment problem. Despite this being observable to all European politicians no one was willing to admit where this had to lead. Almost all Euro government ministers had personal experience of the horrors of WW1 and none were willing to lead Europe into war again. This is why when 1939 and the invasion of Poland finally forced their hands no one was ready. Germany was tooled up and looking for land with the mineral and fuel resources to enable those factories to keep up production. Yes, temporarily shorter in numbers than the BEF and France, but psychologically much readier for war with officers – especially the Panzer Corps – expected to display an independence and flexibility of thought that was unheard of in the BEF and French Armies.
What you call “insane risk taking” was part of that independence of thought. It was also very effective. It’s what allowed Germany to steamroll through Europe in five weeks. Their army was mobile, their commanders flexible, intelligent and bold. Strategically, it took the allies a couple of years to catch up to that level. If Hitler had actually listened to his experienced Generals and not overridden their recommendations (not open up a second front in Russia, allow troops to pull back when it was evident the offensive had failed etc, etc) there is a certain chance the war would have been much longer (look at the more evenly matched troops and commanders in North Africa for examples of what might have happened) and a likely one that the German’s could have won.
The Nazis and their policies were despicable but the ordinary German Army was an efficient, intelligent, effective force. It’s necessary to separate the two out.
@Seamonster #16
Some misconceptions here.
The Nazis certainly pushed the idea of “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” for women but by 1937 every woman was legally required to perform a “duty year” and work “patriotically” in a factory. Within 3 months of the act passing women made up 1/3 of the German workforce. By 1939 all unmarried women had to complete a year’s “labour service” before being able to seek paid employment. By 1943 Fritz Saukel (plenipotentiary for labour conscription) called up 3 million women aged 17 – 45 though less than 1 million actually entered the labour force.
Rationing was introduced for German civilians – in August 1939 and then further reduced in April 1942 to
8000 grams of bread (about a half loaf a day), 1200 grams of meat (less than a 10th of lb. of meat per day), 600 grams of general foods and 130 grams of sugar. Prior to 1942 meat and bread had not been rationed. It’s also worth pointing out that simply having the stamps did not mean the food was actually available.
It was also well known that officers in occupied areas would send suitcases full of rare foods back to their families.
“…What persuaded millions of ordinary Germans to embrace him and his doctrine of hatred?”.
1. He promised to make Germany great again.
2. He promised to give them jobs – to be the greatest Jobs-Reichskanzler in history
3. He told them it was all someone else’s fault
4. they didn’t bother to overcome their political apathy or laziness for long enough to look at Hitler and see what he and his organization were. As always democracy was/is not a spectator sport.
Steamshovelmama – you’re giving us an excellent history class here. Thank you!
I’m glad it wasn’t a major derail!
I’ve been interested in WW2 for thirty years and, while I’m stronger on the European and North African theatres than the Pacific, I’ve come to admire the ordinary German army. On the whole, anyway. There are some unpleasant aspects to the Polish and Eastern campaigns that are directly attributable to the effect of Nazi propaganda on the low level troops but overall they were a professional, honorable and above all patriotic fighting force who should be considered separately from Nazi politics. Unlike the Japanese armies which elevated cruelty to sickening heights.
And lest anyone consider allied forces lily white – it’s worth researching the rape of German women by allied troops.
And like so many people I’m seeing frightening similarities between the late 1920s and 1930s and the political climate in both Europe and the US right now. Of course, there is a theory that WW2 was just another flare up of an ongoing global war that occupied most of the 20th century – and has spilled over into the 21st.
The best description was one I saw on tumblr: “It’s like we’re living during the paragraph in the textbook headed, “Factors Leading to…” and followed by maps with lots of arrows.”
Same here, about seeing the frightening similarities. It makes my damn blood run cold.
Steamshovelmama, interesting commentary that matches much of what I’ve read over the years. Still I learnt new stuff, so thanks. A minor aside, the ration allocations in your 19. 8000g of bread is a huge amount. A standard loaf is around 750-800g (2 pounds give or take), so 8000g is well in excess of a half loaf. Similarly the meat allocation (roughly 2.75 pounds). Is it possibly you have a decimal point misplaced, or does that allocation represent a household ration? If not it’s so generous as to not really be a ration at all.
Re: “It’s like we’re living during the paragraph in the textbook headed, “Factors Leading to…” and followed by maps with lots of arrows…”
That.
(Started the book last night. The weird part: the strange feeling it should have been avoidable. As in, sure, those ‘factors’ are starting to show, but they seem so strangely petty, so far (WWI not yet through). Like, okay, there are tensions… But sometimes you get the feeling people would start atrocities over someone taking their yogurt from the lunch fridge, after talking themselves up to it, long enough.)
@Rob #24
That would be a weeks rations so just over 1 kg of bread per day per person – I’ve always assumed that 1930s German bread came in large loaves – the kind of big, oval very dense rustic loaf. That’s was a reduction from 10 600 g prior to the reduction. It sounds generous but given you weren’t guaranteed anything on the ration that might well be the major part of your diet. Equally the 170g per day of meat sounds a lot but it represented a maximum, not a guaranteed amount.
Interestingly, although the German ration was more generous than the British, in Britain bread wasn’t rationed until after the war was over. Not many people these days realise the British were on severely rationed food right up until July 1954. And the post war rationing was worse than the war time allocation.
German rationing could be more generous because of their access to farmland in Europe. Problems were more with allocating labor to food production than actual supplies.
Ah, a weeks ration. That makes much more sense. I’ve heard that the post war rationing, and even the scarcity for years beyond that is at least partially to blame for the current lack of culinary skills and high quality traditional cooking in the UK now. TV shows like River Cottage attempt to restore interest in such traditional foods.
Steamshovelmama,
“Unlike the Japanese armies which elevated cruelty to sickening heights.”
Yes, indeed, Japanese barbarism seems to have been forgotten by history and particularly by the Japanese themselves, but not by the Chinese and other Asian nations. There’s some unfinished business there.
Rob,
” I’ve heard that the post war rationing, and even the scarcity for years beyond that is at least partially to blame for the current lack of culinary skills and high quality traditional cooking in the UK now”–unless you class the pretentious Heston nonsense as ‘high quality cooking”.
I’m not sure if we can blame WW2 for that. We’re both citizens of a former British colony.. Thank God for continental European and Asian immigration.