At the close of the Second World War, the entire civilized world was spiritually if not physically devastated by the havoc of total global war and was horrified by the discovery of Nazi concentration camps in which, within approximately five years, over eleven million Europeans had been slaughtered. In the wake of this terrible destruction it became clear that propaganda had played an enormous role in enlisting the support of the Germans in waging war against the world and in perpetrating hitherto unimaginable atrocities. The purpose of this paper is to examine the speeches of Adolf Hitler between the time he took power in 1933 and the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 to discover how he had gained general support for his own dictatorial actions and how he had prepared the Germans psychologically for war.

In the book, The War that Hitler Won, Robert Herzstein describes the nature of Nazi propaganda:

The Nazis appealed to the highest German values and perverted them. They used the lowest instincts of an unhappy nation and built a successful campaign based upon "idealism" and hatred.¹

He continues, describing Adolf Hitler:

Hitler was dead inside, lacking (as Speer put it) an emotional core, a man who wished to overcome his hatreds and resentments by sheer power and destruction.²

This picture, however, of a spiritually corrupt maniac perverting the higher instincts of the German people and alluring them to destruction is not accurate of the years immediately preceding the war from the time Hitler took power. In these years, it is true, Hitler appealed to their highest values, but rather than perverting the values themselves, he applied them to distorted truths, always committing himself to freedom and peace while concealing his real intentions. By telling the Germans that he was a divinely inspired leader, dedicated to protect Germany from internal and external enemies, he convinced the Germans that his cause was theirs and rallied their support.

The "Weltanschauung" which Hitler presented to the German people was alarmingly bleak. Germany was surrounded by enemies -- unscrupulous capitalist nations to the west and vicious Bolsheviks in the east. Political instability in Europe and enemies within Germany itself made the world which Hitler portrayed a dangerous one. Hitler constantly spoke of Germany's right and struggle to exist, as if the problems which it faced were no ordinary ones, but were concerned intimately with the survival or extinction of the entire German race. In presenting an unstable, threatening view of the world, Hitler sought to convince the Germans that drastic action would be required to counter these evils.

One of the most infamous examples of ruthless exploitation of Germany by dishonest western capitalists, according to Hitler, was the defeat in 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles. In April of 1939, Hitler said:

We know the power that defeated Germany at that time. It was the power of a falsehood, the poison of a propaganda which shrank from no distortion, from no untruth, over against which the German Reich stood virtually defenseless, because it was unprepared for it.³

Hitler blamed the defeat on Jewish traitors and Allied deceit. In 1933 he said, "We surrendered because many a German... trusted in the assurances of a certain statesman, namely, President Wilson."⁴

Having been lured into a sense of false security by Wilson's fourteen points, Germany had trustingly laid down its weapons only to have an unjust peace dictated to it by the allies.⁵ Germany had sought peace, but had been rewarded for its naiveté with vindictiveness and abuse. This was, according to Hitler, a perfect example of the nature of the western capitalists as compared with Germans -- the former having no scruples, the latter being peace-loving and downtrodden.

According to Hitler, these ruthless politicians had inflicted a treaty which could never provide a lasting peace. They had forced the verdict of guilt upon the vanquished Germans, and had made the "concept of victor and vanquished... the bases of a new international and legal social order."⁶ In a speech in Octobe, 1933, Hitler said,

But in the case of many millions of people it inevitably fanned the feelings of hatred against a world order which made possible permanent defamation of and discrimination against a great people merely because they had the misfortune after heroic resistance, to lose a war which was forced upon them.⁷

All nations that were a party to the conflict, argued Hitler, claimed no responsibility for the outbreak of hostilities in 1914. Only bitterness could be the result of the Allied accusations of guilt.⁸ Hitler commented on how the Allies should have conducted themselves:

Um wieviel notwendiger aber ist es dann, sich überall zu bemühen, dass aus einer solchen überzeugten Schuldlosigkeit aller nicht erst recht eine dauernde Feindschaft für immer wird, und dass nicht durch eine unnatürliche Verewigung der Begriffe "Sieger" und "Besiegte" eine ewige Rechtsungleichheit entsteht, die die einen mit begreiflichen Hochmut, die anderen aber bitteren Grimm erfüllt.⁹

Not only had the treaty's vindictiveness filled Germans with "bitter despair," but was extremely unfair in its provisions:

The present fateful tensions in Europe, which we now experience, are also the result of that folly which believed that the natural rights of nations could be circumvented.¹⁰

The very problems which Wilson had tried to alleviate with his fourteen points had been recreated in central Europe by the territorial arrangements of the Treaty of Versailles. The Allies had imposed, according to Hitler, settlements that could naturally lead only to unrest and contention in Europe.¹¹

Germany faithfully fulfilled the obligations imposed upon her, in spite of their intrinsic lack of reason and the obviously suicidal consequences of this fulfillment.¹³

The League of Nations, never truly what its name implied since the United States had never joined, had been created in order to maintain the unjust status quo perpetrated by the treaty.¹⁴ Thus, according to Hitler, the Treaty of Versailles had been manufactured by scheming capitalists to permanently depress Germany and leave it open to exploitation.

Germany, Hitler taught the Germans, had a natural right to "lebensraum" -- "living space" -- based upon need. Other nations, he argued, like France and Britain had land masses greatly out of proportion with their populations, while Germany had to struggle with a population density of three hundred sixty people per square mile. Any idiot, he claimed, could make a comfortable living with so much land, but the Germans were forced to be resourceful and ingenious to survive.¹⁵ His explanation for this unnatural imbalance was that "there are politicians today who seem to feel themselves safe only when the means of livelihood in neighboring states are as unfavorable as possible."¹⁶ He compared the English protest that Germany needed no colonies because it could buy all its raw materials to the question of Marie Antoinette,

...who at the sight of the revolutionary mob roaring for bread remarked in surprise why, if they people did not have bread, they did not eat cake.¹⁷

Hitler did not openly discuss the possibility of Germany going to war aggressively to gain "lebensaum," but he alluded that if the leaders of foreign powers continued to deprive Germany of the means of its sustenance, that it would be forced into some sort of confrontation. Hitler had, by depicting Germany as deprived, exploited, and seeking on the means of its survival, put the entire blame for a violent international conflict on the supposedly greedy and short-sighted politics of the western capitalist nations.

The other great threat to Germany's survival was, according to Hitler, Bolshevism, more sinister and more terrible than the evils of the Versailles Treaty. "...Communism," explained Hitler, "is the forerunner of death, national destruction and extinction."¹⁸ It was a "doctrine of world hate"¹⁹ which taught "godlessness and [acted] accordingly."²⁰ Bolshevism was especially to be hated by the Nazis, for it expounded "doctrinnaire theories to be accepted by all nations without regard for particular character," and "international class conflict... [by] terror and force."²¹ Bolshevism was the destroyer of private property, initiative, and incentive.²² It was another great threat to the existence of Germany.

These two evil world forces, Bolshevism and corrupt western capitalism, had, according to Hitler, joined together with the Jews to form an international conspiracy against Germany:

Thus, we too in Germany have experienced this close tie between Jewish capitalism and theoretical Communistic anti-capitalism.... Moscow Bolshevism is the honoured ally of capitalistic democracy.²³

In spite of the fact that Hitler accused the Jews of siding with the capitalists, he also attributed to them the Bolshevik movement as well.²⁴ The Jews had been transformed into a paradoxical anathema, the antithesis of the German race. If Germany had an enemy, it was naturally Jewish inspired. The Jews were the controllers of press, film, radio, theater, and literature.²⁵ Whether Hitler's attribution of international conspiracy to the Jews was the result of a psychological fixation or of his desire to utilize an already powerful anti-Semitism in Germany is unsure. He did, however, succeed in depicting the Jews as alien and hostile -- close allies of corrupt capitalism and Moscow Bolshevism.

One other institution which Hitler attacked mercilessly, not as a threat but as a weakness, was democracy:

In all ages it was not democracy that created values, it was individuals. However, it was always democracy that ruined and destroyed individuality. It is madness to think and criminal to proclaim that a majority can suddenly replace the accomplishment of a man of genius....²⁶

Democracy was inefficient, and placed everyone, according to Hitler, on the same mediocre level. It was the "intellectual cause of anarchy,"²⁷ and therefore naturally susceptible to the Bolshevik infection.²⁸ Hitler attacked British and French hypocrisy in their supposed dedication to democracy when, in fact:

All these colonial empires have... not come about through plebiscites, much less democratic plebiscites of the people living in them, but have been acquired by naked and brute force.²⁹

Hitler openly scorned the old Weimar Republic, an institution which he described as "foreign" and unsuited to German character and needs:

Die politische Führung der Nation aber lag zu dieser Zeit in den Händen von Männern die geistig nur in der Welt der Siegerstaaten wurzelten.³⁰

Hitler thus justified to the Germans his hostility toward western democracy, which supposedly proclaimed high ideals, but was, according to Hitler, inefficient, self-destructive, and hypocritical.

Hitler had presented a world full of overwhelming, conspiratorial forces; other nations had been too weak to resist them -- Germany was virtually alone in its struggle. In such a world, there would be little hope for peace, security or justice. Hitler presented himself and the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) as the saviors of Germany. They would stand for the rights of the down-trodden, they would drive out the Jew and the capitalist, and they would not flinch before the Bolshevik. Hitler painted a world in hues of black and white; either one was righteous and a National Socialist, or one was evil and a member of the Jewish conspiracy.

Hitler claimed divine inspiration both for himself and for the German people. According to Hitler, the defeat in 1918 had been the result of German unworthiness to receive Providential aid. But now the German people had humbled themselves and had turned to God in prayer. God had raised them to a new, respectable level, and would aid them in the struggle for "freedom, the future, honor, and... peace."³¹ Hitler had become the prophet of this new Zion community:

With the certainty of a somnambulist I will continue on the path which Providence has shown me.... Above every earthly judge stands the Almighty God. It is his place to decide what is right and what is not right. God's voice is in this case the people's voice. You are my Volksgenossen, are therefore my judge, you alone.³²

Hitler repeatedly gave thanks to the Almighty God for his support of the Nazi movement: "He has blessed our labors...."³³ He even occasionally offered public prayers to God that He would support the National Socialists and bless Germany. n this manner, he associated himself with higher, more spiritual values and claimed on his side the omniscience and omnipotence of God.

Not only did Hitler present himself as a divinely inspired leader, but also as a peace loving statesman. "I was a musketeer," he reminded Germans, "I went through the war from down under with all its horror and terror."³⁴ He assured all that, "The present generation of this new Germany... has suffered too deeply... to contemplate treating others in the same way."³⁵ He said in a speech of March, 1933:

Der Welt gegenüber aber wollen wir, die Opfer des Krieges von einst ermessend, aufrichtige Freunde sein eines Friedens die endlich die Wunden heilen soll, unter denen alle leiden.³⁶

Not only did he declare himself a friend of peace, but he also affirmed the futility of any global conflict in an ironically prophetic statement of May, 1933: "The outbreak of such madness would necessarily cause the collapse of the present social and political order."³⁷ He publicly dedicated himself to peaceful coexistence:

...I solemnly repeat this assurance here, that between ourselves and France, for example, there are no grounds for quarrel that are humanly thinkable.³⁸

Hitler, besides telling the Germans that he was a divinely inspired statesman, also presented himself as an efficient administrator. Out of the "chaos" of the Weimar Republic, had risen a regime which gave Germany "order," "discipline," "new energy," and "unity."³⁹ The new government had, according to Hitler, all the supposed virtues of a democracy without its weaknesses. "I myself... come from the people," he said.⁴⁰ In an address of May, 1935, he contended,

...I feel myself just as responsible to the German people as would any parliament. I act on the trust it has placed in me and carry out its mandate.⁴¹

He proclaimed the aims of National Socialism to be to "educate slaves to be German citizens,"⁴² to end disunity, to replace "the perpetual vacillation" of the old regime with "the solidity of a government to which our people can again give unshaking authority."⁴³ Hitler did indeed bring about many impressive visible advances, still considered by many Germans, according to Erhard Klöss in 1967, to have been of value: 4.26 million (more than two thirds of the unemployed national labor force) put back into work, the building of the Autobahn, and the reviving of German industry without socialization.⁴⁴ Hitler used his own successes to the best advantage by contrasting the relative economic prosperity of 1936 with the despair of the 1920s and early 30s.⁴⁵ Nazism had done much more for Germany than democracy had, and Hitler used this fact to convince the Germans of his own sincerity and of the superiority of authoritarianism.

This economic advancement and restoration of stability had been part of a program intended to restore German pride after the chaos and injustice of Versailles, but was also part of a struggle to combat the Bolshevik threat in Germany. By putting an end to political instability in Germany.⁴⁶ Hitler saved it, and possibly Europ from "the most frightful catastrophe of all time."⁴⁷ Hitler warned the nations of Europe of the terrible consequences of refusing to "awaken to the danger of the Bolshevik infection..."⁴⁸ He had also done his part to combat the red threat; where were the other nations? He defended his arrests, imprisonments, and execution of communists as a reaction to the violence originally perpetrated by these "Moscow criminals."⁴⁹ Hitler committed himself and Germany in these pre-war years to oppose Bolshevism no matter how lonely the fight.

Today, Hitler's words evoke little among most people except a mixture of mild curiosity and ridicule. With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to dismiss Hitler as a proven and incurable liar, and thus ignore his speeches and writings as fallacious and unsound. Such a dismissal is, however, shallow and foolhardy, for there was once a time when an entire nation accepted these words and gave its support to the man who spoke them. In order to understand why this happened, and how it can be avoided in the present, it is necessary to examine Hitler's words with a clear mind and in the context of their time.

Hitler was niether consistent nor logical in his speeches. For instance, he attacked the concept of democracy, reviling its inefficiencies and anarchistic tendencies, while claiming himself to be a man of the people who carried out its mandates. He accused the western nations of being corrupt and unscrupulous, but simultaneously assured them that "there [were] no grounds for quarrel that [were] humanly thinkable" with them.⁵⁰ It is possible that Hitler felt no need to be consistent in his attacks on the western nations and their values because he did not consider them to be consistent either. It is, however, more likely that Hitler merely adapted his logic and current of thought to the situation and the audience which he addressed. Hitler often used broad generalizations without offering supportive evidence, for instance his claim that Moscow Bolshevism was closely allied with capitalistic democracy. Occasionally, he would support his statements with hearsay statistics or distorted facts, but generally he merely threw out his bold assertions in a spirit of great assurance.

Hitler made up for this deficiency in logic and consistency, however, with an effective rhetoric and the use of emotionalism. Hitler espoused in his speeches higher values, which when associated with distorted truths rallied sympathy and support. A good example of this is in his assertion that Germany had faithfully paid the war reparations debts demanded by the Treaty of Versailles in spite of their pernicious nature. Here he evokes sympathy by depicting a Germany which is determined to honestly submit itself to unjust demands at the hands of merciless and foolish creditors -- in effect, 'turning the other cheek.' He appeals to the virtues of honesty and justice. Unfortunately the description is fallacious since Germany did not faithfully pay off the reparations. Hitler made good use of common fears and 'folk logic.' He was not the first to express paranoia about the spread of communism, nor would he be the last unscrupulous politician to take advantage of a popular fear of communism. The excesses of Nazism often receive all the attention in the Second World War, while the brutal fascist regimes which sprang up in Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland and other European states out of a fear of communism are ignored. The McCarthy ear was another example of this 'red paranoia' that drove even the United States to extremes of which most Americans are today ashamed. Hitler also exploited the common notion that nationalism was good and that all Germans have a right to live in the same state, apparently something which we no longer accept, at least in the case of Germany. Hitler's association of God with the state was not unusual or peculiar to the Nazi regime, as the reading of a number of patriotic American anthems will attest.

Hitler also made use of the self-fulfilling prophesy. By accusing the Versailles Treaty of establishing a situation "impossible" to the creation of a lasting peace, it became exactly what he accused it of being as he sought to destroy its provisions. In truth, it was not the treaty which made peace impossible, but those to ignore it and the League of Nations as a medium of redress for injustices. Finally, Hitler depicted the world in dichotomous terms. All things were either black or white, good or evil. This provided the Germans the opportunity to make clear, simple choices which required no thought. Such a clearly defined world easily enabled one to find one's purpose and to actively attach oneself to an inspiring cause. Hitler's rhetoric and 'folk logic' had thus served to cover the inherent inconsistencies and faulty logic of his words.

Between 1933 and 1939, Hitler presented himself as a savior to the Germans, and committed himself to a struggle for their preservation and welfare. He exploited common fears, appealing to higher values and mixing these with distorted truths to give his claims credence. In a world of increasing violence, political instability, and economic despair, it is necessary for great caution to be exercised that the members of modern democratic society do not succumb to the lies of individuals who seek to destroy that democracy. If the citizens of a nation which claims 'rule by the people' as its governing principle do not take personal responsibility for their actions, but rather allow an individual or institution to take their freedom by removing their responsibility, the sufferings and death of a generation of Europeans have occurred in vain.

Notes

1. Robert Edwin Herzstein, The War that Hitler Won: The Most Infamous Propaganda Campaign in History (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1978), p. 18.

2. Ibid., pp. 19-20.

3. Wilhelmshaven, April 1, 1939: Völkischer Beobachter, April 3, 1939, quoted in Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Words: Two Decades of National Socialism, 1923-1943, ed. Gordon W. Prange (Washington, D.C., 1944), p. 225.

4. Berlin, October 24, 1933: Völkischer Beobachter, October 26, 1933 quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 223.

5. Berlin, May 21, 1935: Völkischer Beobachter, May 22, 1935, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, pp. 233-234.

6. Berlin, May 17, 1933: Völkischer Beobachter, May 18, 1933, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, pp. 201.

7. Berlin, January 30, 1934: Völkischer Beobachter, January 31, 1934, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 205.

8. Rundfunkrede vom 14. Oktober 1933, as quoted in Adolf Hitler, Reden des Führers, ed. Erhard Klöss (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co.Kg., 1967), p. 122.

9. Translation: "But how much more important is it then, to make every possible effort, that from such a clear lack of fault, that continuing hostility is not allowed to develop forever, and that the peoples' memories of this catastrophe are not artificially preserved to the end that they develop and eternal sense of injustice through an unnatural perpetuation of the titles "Victor" and "Vanquished," which naturally gives the former a sense of pride but fills the latter with bitter despair." Ibid.

10. Berlin, March 7, 1936: Völkischer Beobachter, March 8, 1936, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 166.

11. Berlin, October 24, 1933: Völkischer Beobachter, October 26, 1933, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 205.

12. Berlin, May 17, 1933: Völkischer Beobachter, May 18, 1933, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 200.

13. Ibid.

14. Berlin, February 20, 1938: Völkischer Beobachter, February 21, 1938, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, pp. 47-48.

15. Berlin, December 10, 1940: Völkischer Beobachter, December 11, 1940, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, pp. 29-33.

16. Berlin, March 7, 1936: Völkischer Beobachter, March 8, 1936, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 166.

17. Adolf Hitler, "Speech of Chancellor Hitler at Nuremberg, September 9, 1936," International Concilliation. no. 324 (1936):546.

18. Berlin, May 10, 1933: Völkischer Beobachter, May 11, 1933, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 254.

19. Hitler, Concilliations, p. 553.

20. Berlin, May 21, 1935: Völkischer Beobachter, May 22, 1935, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 256.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.

23. Nuremberg, September 12, 1938: Völkischer Beobachter, September 13, 1938, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 51.

24. Berlin, January 30, 1937: Völkischer Beobachter, January 31, 1937, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 260.

25. Berlin, January 30, 1939: Völkischer Beobachter, January 31, 1939, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 82.

26. Berlin, March 2, 1933: Völkischer Beobachter, March 3, 1933, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 42.

27. Nuremberg, September 9, 1936: Völkischer Beobachter, September 9, 1936, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 44.

28. Nuremberg, September 14, 1936: Völkischer Beobachter, September 15, 1936, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 46.

29. Berlin, February 20, 1938: Völkischer Beobachter, February 21, 1938, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 47-48.

30. Translation: "The political leadership of the nation, however, lay at this time in the hands of men who were rooted intelectually only in the world of the victor states," Hitler, Reden, p. 121.

31. Cologne, March 28, 1936: Kölnischer Zeitung, March 30, 1936, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 91.

32. Munich, March 14, 1936: Völkischer Beobachter, March 16, 1936, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 91.

33. Berlin, January 30, 1937: Völkischer Beobachter, January 31, 1937, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 92.

34. Cologne, March 28, 1936: Kölnischer Zeitung, March 30, 1936, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 170.

35. Berlin, May 17, 1933: Völkischer Beobachter, May 18, 1933, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 161.

36. Translation: "We, once considered the victims of the war, want, however, to be upstanding friends of peace throughout the world, who will finally heal the wounds under which all suffer." Rede vom 21. März 1933 in der Garnisonkirche zu Potsdam, quoted in Hitler, Reden, p. 92.

37. Berlin, May 17, 1933: Völkischer Beobachter, May 18, 1933, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 161.

38. Adolf Hitler, On National Socialism and World Relations: Speech Delivered in the German Reichstag on January 30th 1937 (Berlin: M. Müller und Sohn K.G., 1937), p. 30.

39. Ibid., p. 12.

40. Ibid., p. 13.

41. Berlin, May 21, 1935: Völkischer Beobachter, May 22, 1935, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 44.

42. Hitler, World Relations, p. 13.

43. "Wir wollen an die Stelle des ewigen Schwankens die Festigkeit einer Regierung setzen, die unserem Volke damit wieder eine unerschütterliche Authorität geben soll." Rede vom 21. März 1933 in der Garnisonkirche zu Potsdam, quoted in Hitler, Reden, p. 91.

44. Hitler, Reden, p. 75.

45. Hitler, Concilliation, p. 543.

46. Berlin, October 14, 1933: Völkischer Beobachter, October 15/16, 1933, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 203.

47. Berlin, May 21, 1935: Völkischer Beobachter, May 22, 1935, quoted in Hitler, Hitler's Words, p. 256.

48. Hitler, World Relations, p. 32.

49. Ibid., p. 7.

50. Ibid., p. 30.

Bibliography

Herzstein, Robert Edwin. The War that Hitler Won: The Most Infamous Propaganda Campaign in History. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1978.

Hitler, Adolf. Hitler's Words: Two Decades of National Socialism, 1923-1943. Edited by Gordon W. Prange. Washington, D.C., 1944.

_________. On National Socialism and World Relations: Speech Delivered in the German Reichstag on January 30th 1937. Berlin: M. Müller und Sohn K.G., 1937.

_________. Reden des Führers. Herausgegeben von Erhard Klöss. München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, 1967.

_________. "Speech of Chancellor Hitler at Nuremberg, September 9, 1936." International Concilliation, no. 324 (1936):538-555.