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Der Fuehrer (The Fuhrer)
published January 1944
I once owned this book, but I recall its writing being a bit stifling in a somewhat older style. So, I passed it on. Now, my being older and more familiar with history and politics, I would like to give it another chance. The importance of learning from past mistakes of others is partly why. The other reason being the authoritarian politics we are seeing in our current times.
Below is a book review I came across by David Drury. It is a lesson in recognizing the methods used by one of the most atrocious, politically evil, authoritarian dictators to cross the pages of history. The Internet Archive link I've provided at the bottom of this post is where you can find the book for free, in print form as well as read-a-long audio.
The first few pages read like the "Book of Revelation" warning of things to come. After witnessing all our current 47th president has said and done since taking office earlier the year, it makes you wonder whether he is following the blueprint laid out by this most evil of authoritarian dictators. After all, Hitler emulated Joseph Stalin's revolutionary ruthlessness in eliminating opponents, particularly the old elite.
What it all shows is authoritarian dictators can and do borrow the methods of other dictators, possibly their enemies, regardless of how cruel, barbaric and heinous the crime. And evil is what evil does!
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fertile Soil for Nazi SeedReviewed in the United States on November 22, 2016
It has become an internet truism that as an online discussion proceeds forward the probability of someone comparing their opponents to Nazi's or Hitler approaches 1 (Godwin's Rule).
This adage of course gives birth to another (I'll call it
Viam Dimittere Godwin's Rule)... that after the mention of Godwin's Rule in an online discussion, the likelihood of all participants dismissing the comparison as over-reaction also approaches 1 at an ever faster pace than it approached Godwin's Rule.
Thus we are at risk of repeating history by not learning it, which is another truism that people roll their eyes at, thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
One of the best experiences for me about 8 years ago in learning about Nazism and Hitler was by reading "Der Fuehrer" which is a first person perspective, published in 1944, of someone who saw Hitler's rise to power. Through this book I learned so very much about:
1) How branding was used (nearly 100 years ago now) to create an iconography and identity for those without it
2) How Hitler used the mistakes of others to gain advantage, ever pragmatic. The rise to power is perhaps more interesting to me than all the other work on Nazism after they were in power, in part because it receives less attention, and also because it informs our ability to not repeat history.
3) How Hitler's movement worked around his weaknesses, and leveraged his strengths, energizing a movement.
4) How so many Germans were complicit in this movement, not fully aware of the depths of depravity they were heading towards, as the frog warmed in the kettle slowly for two decades.
5) How much innuendo and double-speak was used, including denials and misdirection on the treatment of Jews, whereby nothing overtly "scary" to the broader public was offered, and instead the "systematic stuff" was done behind the scenes, only doing just enough to terrify others but make the majority feel safe and powerful.
6) How economic motivators, of those marginalized by global economic forces out of their control, are almost all that is needed to motivate a mob to become a movement. The everyday people (volk) are never more motivated than by the fact that they are poorer this year than last year, or this decade than last decade, or that their children might be poorer than they are now. Simply put,
7) I learned how much of this was just politics. It wasn't like the movies or documentaries... it was just everyday politics in Germany. It was more like watching Meet the Press than Indiana Jones.
8) I also learned how many people thought that Hitler was a bit of a joke--that they were embarrassed by him--and the typical reaction of opponents was not to attack him but to dismiss him. This gave him the room to operate, and in a sense by being dismissed he was always underestimated (inside the Nazi party at first, then inside Germany, then in Europe, then around the world), right up until Nazi Troops took Paris if you think about it.
8) Also, I think that there are parallels between all kinds of other political forces (sometimes over-used as in Godwin's Law), but one I thought of recently when reading The Atlantic Monthly's piece on the "weaponization of social media" was the parallel to ISIS, which did much of the above... In a functional way, ISIS has more parallels to Naziism than other Radical Islam groups, in my opinion.
There are other excellent works on Hitler out there but this one is my personal favorite as it is sort of "stuck in time" on what it was like in Germany in the 20s and 30s. Today, rather than analyzing, myself, on PEOPLE that are "like Hitler" I instead tend to focus much on what Konrad Heiden focused on: the conditions that were present and the way in which they were leveraged to birth a movement that changed the world (for the worse) more quickly than almost any movement in history. Germany in the 20s and 30s was fertile soil for the horrid Nazi seed, and Hitler was the sower.
This adage of course gives birth to another (I'll call it
Viam Dimittere Godwin's Rule)... that after the mention of Godwin's Rule in an online discussion, the likelihood of all participants dismissing the comparison as over-reaction also approaches 1 at an ever faster pace than it approached Godwin's Rule.
Thus we are at risk of repeating history by not learning it, which is another truism that people roll their eyes at, thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
One of the best experiences for me about 8 years ago in learning about Nazism and Hitler was by reading "Der Fuehrer" which is a first person perspective, published in 1944, of someone who saw Hitler's rise to power. Through this book I learned so very much about:
1) How branding was used (nearly 100 years ago now) to create an iconography and identity for those without it
2) How Hitler used the mistakes of others to gain advantage, ever pragmatic. The rise to power is perhaps more interesting to me than all the other work on Nazism after they were in power, in part because it receives less attention, and also because it informs our ability to not repeat history.
3) How Hitler's movement worked around his weaknesses, and leveraged his strengths, energizing a movement.
4) How so many Germans were complicit in this movement, not fully aware of the depths of depravity they were heading towards, as the frog warmed in the kettle slowly for two decades.
5) How much innuendo and double-speak was used, including denials and misdirection on the treatment of Jews, whereby nothing overtly "scary" to the broader public was offered, and instead the "systematic stuff" was done behind the scenes, only doing just enough to terrify others but make the majority feel safe and powerful.
6) How economic motivators, of those marginalized by global economic forces out of their control, are almost all that is needed to motivate a mob to become a movement. The everyday people (volk) are never more motivated than by the fact that they are poorer this year than last year, or this decade than last decade, or that their children might be poorer than they are now. Simply put,
7) I learned how much of this was just politics. It wasn't like the movies or documentaries... it was just everyday politics in Germany. It was more like watching Meet the Press than Indiana Jones.
8) I also learned how many people thought that Hitler was a bit of a joke--that they were embarrassed by him--and the typical reaction of opponents was not to attack him but to dismiss him. This gave him the room to operate, and in a sense by being dismissed he was always underestimated (inside the Nazi party at first, then inside Germany, then in Europe, then around the world), right up until Nazi Troops took Paris if you think about it.
8) Also, I think that there are parallels between all kinds of other political forces (sometimes over-used as in Godwin's Law), but one I thought of recently when reading The Atlantic Monthly's piece on the "weaponization of social media" was the parallel to ISIS, which did much of the above... In a functional way, ISIS has more parallels to Naziism than other Radical Islam groups, in my opinion.
There are other excellent works on Hitler out there but this one is my personal favorite as it is sort of "stuck in time" on what it was like in Germany in the 20s and 30s. Today, rather than analyzing, myself, on PEOPLE that are "like Hitler" I instead tend to focus much on what Konrad Heiden focused on: the conditions that were present and the way in which they were leveraged to birth a movement that changed the world (for the worse) more quickly than almost any movement in history. Germany in the 20s and 30s was fertile soil for the horrid Nazi seed, and Hitler was the sower.
This is the demon who speaks out of the book.
‘We shall talk with the people on the streets and squares,’ says the demon, ‘and teach them to take the view of political questions which at the moment we require. For what the ruler says to the people spreads through the whole country like wildfire, the voice of the people carries it to all four winds.
‘We’ — the demon always says ‘We’ — ‘shall create unrest, struggle, and hate in the whole of Europe and thence in other continents. We shall at all times be in a position to call forth new disturbances at will, or to restore the old order.
‘Unremittingly we shall poison the relations between the peoples and States of all countries. By envy and hatred, by struggle and warfare, even by spreading hunger, destitution, and plagues, we shall bring all peoples to such a pass that their only escape will lie in total Submission to our domination.
‘We shall stultify, seduce, ruin the youth.
‘We shall not stick at bribery, treachery, treason, as long as they serve the realization of our plans. Our watchword is: force and hypocrisy!
‘In our arsenal we carry a boundless ambition, burning avidity, a ruthless thirst for revenge, relentless hatred. From us emanates the specter of fear, all-embracing terror.’ (from Der Fuehrer page 2)
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