#whoshitler

[unclejimmie-blog1]

Hitler? Stop comparing him to Hitler! Oh, wait, never mind...

I know it is a tired cliche, “he’s Hitler!” But recently read this book review on a new book about Hitler. I removed the names so you could compare without the prejudice. 

Enjoy!

“The Author, like other biographers, provides vivid insight into some factors that helped turn a “[profession] rabble-rouser” — regarded by many as a self-obsessed “clown” with a strangely “scattershot, impulsive style” — into “the lord and master of the [country].”

• [Unexpected Elected Official] was often described as an egomaniac who “only loved himself” — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and what the Author 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 the Author underscores His 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.”

• He was known, among colleagues, for a “bottomless mendacity” that would later be magnified by a slick propaganda machine that used the latest technology [various media networks and social media] to spread his message. A former finance minister wrote that He “was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth” and editors of one edition of his “Book” described it as a “swamp of lies, distortions, innuendos, half-truths and real facts.”

• He was an effective orator and actor, the Author reminds readers, adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his audiences. Although he concealed his anti-Semitism beneath a “mask of moderation” when trying to win the support of the [disenfranchised peoples], he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with spectacular elements borrowed from the circus. Here, “He adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners,” Author writes. He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds’ fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order.

• He increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising “to lead [country] 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, Author 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.”

• His repertoire of topics, Author notes, was limited, and reading his speeches in retrospect, “it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences” with “repeated mantra-like phrases” consisting largely of “accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future.” But He virtually wrote the modern playbook on demagoguery, arguing that propaganda must appeal to the emotions — not the reasoning powers — of the crowd. Its “purely intellectual level,” He 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.”

• His rise was not inevitable, in the Author’s opinion. There were numerous points at which his ascent might have been derailed, he contends; even as late as [date], “it would have been eminently possible to prevent his nomination as [elected position].” He benefited from a “constellation of crises that he was able to exploit cleverly and unscrupulously” — in addition to economic woes and unemployment, there was an “erosion of the political center” and a growing resentment of the elites. The unwillingness of [country]’s political parties to compromise had contributed to a perception of government dysfunction, the Author suggests, and the belief of His supporters that the country needed “a man of iron” who could shake things up. “Why not give this [guy] a chance?”

• His ascension was aided and abetted by the naivete of domestic adversaries who failed to appreciate his ruthlessness and tenacity, and by foreign statesmen who believed they could control his aggression. Early on, revulsion at his style and appearance, the Author writes, led some critics to underestimate the man and his popularity, while others dismissed him as a celebrity, a repellent but fascinating “evening’s entertainment.” Politicians, for their part, suffered from the delusion that the dominance of traditional conservatives in the cabinet would neutralize the threat of [his] abuse of power and “fence him in.” “As far as his long-term wishes were concerned,” the Author observes, “his conservative coalition partners believed either that he was not serious or that they could exert a moderating influence on him. In any case, they were severely mistaken.”

• He, it became obvious, could not be tamed — he needed only five months to consolidate absolute power after becoming [elected official]. “[Political party]” were brought into line, the Author writes, “with pressure from the party grass roots combining effectively with pseudo-legal measures ordered by the Administration government.”

• He had a dark, Darwinian view of the world. And he would not only become, in the Author’s words, “a mouthpiece of the cultural pessimism” growing in right-wing circles in the [country], but also the avatar of what another author identified as a turning away from reason and the fundamental principles of a civil society — namely, “liberty, equality, education, optimism and belief in progress.” End of book review.

Pretty scary stuff when you use history to compare trends and events. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/books/hitler-ascent-volker-ullrich.html?_r=0

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