Read and share this rather extraordinary NYT book review of Volker Ullrich's "Hitler"

[swag]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/books/hitler-ascent-volker-ullrich.html

Go read the whole thing. DU's "fair use" rules allow me only to post this small excerpt.

In ‘Hitler,’ an Ascent From ‘Dunderhead’ to Demagogue

By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

. . .

“In a sense,” he says in an introduction, “Hitler will be ‘normalized’ — although this will not make him seem more ‘normal.’ If anything, he will emerge as even more horrific.”

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.”

• 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.”

• Hitler was an effective orator and actor, Mr. Ullrich 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 socially liberal middle classes, he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with spectacular elements borrowed from the circus. Here, “Hitler adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners,” Mr. Ullrich 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.
Continue reading the main story

• 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.”
. . .

• Hitler’s rise was not inevitable, in Mr. Ullrich’s opinion. There were numerous points at which his ascent might have been derailed, he contends; even as late as January 1933, “it would have been eminently possible to prevent his nomination as Reich chancellor.” 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 Germany’s political parties to compromise had contributed to a perception of government dysfunction, Mr. Ullrich suggests, and the belief of Hitler supporters that the country needed “a man of iron” who could shake things up. “Why not give the National Socialists a chance?” a prominent banker said of the Nazis. “They seem pretty gutsy to me.”

. . . more

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/books/hitler-ascent-volker-ullrich.html

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...

[Warpy]

2. Hitler had always been a political animal

who pretty much started his career at the end of WWI and blaming the Jews and the Communists for everything that was wrong with the world.

That's a basic difference with Drumpf right there, he knew how the political system worked. The Raging Cheeto doesn't.

[ColemanMaskell]

3. Well written! Dang. That's good.

"The unwillingness of Germany’s political parties to compromise had contributed to a perception of government dysfunction, Mr. Ullrich suggests,"
That's just gold.
Don't expect Trumpettes to read it, but it's good.
Thanks for sharing.

[lapfog_1]

4. Last day of June 1934

On the night that Ernst Roehm died voices rang out
In the rolling Bavarian hills
And swept through the cities and danced in the gutters
Grown strong like the joining of wills

Oh echoed away like a roar in the distance
In moonlight carved out of steel
Singing "All the lonely, so long and so long
You don't know how I long, how I long
You can't hold me, I'm strong now I'm strong
Stronger than your law"

I sit here now by the banks of the Rhine
Dipping my feet in the cold stream of time
And I know I'm a dreamer, I know I'm out of line
With the people I see everywhere

The couples pass by me, they're looking so good
Their arms round each other, they head for the woods
They don't care who Ernst Roehm was, no reason they should
Just a shadow that hangs in the air

But I thought I saw him cross over the hill
With a whole ghostly army of men at his heel
And struck in the moment it seemed to be real like before
On the last day of June 1934


--

Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

[Fast Walker 52]

8. what is that from?

[lapfog_1]

9. Al Stewart - Year of the Cat - Last Day of June, 1934

[Fast Walker 52]

10. wow, I had no idea... I've heard the title song

but not that one. Cool -thanks

[Nitram]

5. Thanks for the nice summary.

[HuckleB]

6. K & R!!!

[tblue37]

7. K&R for visibility. nt