Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website: https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
A Dolf Hitler passed the long, summer days of his 1924 incarceration in the Landsberg fortress reliving his past. Each day he retired to a large and sunny room to dictate the story of his “Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice” to his admirers, Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess. As he paced the room, Hitler subjected his memories of childhood in upper-Austria, youth in Vienna and Munich, young manhood at the Western front, and political awakening in postwar Munich to the scrutiny of his accumulated political wisdom at thirty-five. He vindicated his ideas by an examination of his life revealing how personal experiences led him to knowledge and truth in page after page of poor prose.
1 Bullock, Alan, Hitler, A Study in Tyranny (New York, 1961), p. 92Google Scholar.
2 See article by Ewart, Edmund Turner, “To Hitler via Two Men,” The American Scholar, Vol. 6 (Winter, 1937), 3ffGoogle Scholar.
3 Hitler, Adolf, Mein Kampf, trans, under the auspices of DrJohnson, Alvin (New York, 1939), pp. 154–155Google Scholar.
4 Ibid., p. 158.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., p. 130,
7 Ibid., p. 137
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., p. 153.
10 Ibid., p. 157.
11 Stein, Alfred, “Adolph Hitler and Gustave Le Bon,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 6. Jahrgang (06, 1955), 36Google Scholar.
12 Ibid., 368.
13 Many scholars have briefly noted this. Such statements as that by Frederick L. Schuman are frequent: “From the hated Marxists he had learned to appreciate and to practice the collective hypnosis of oral agitation and of mass demonstration.” Schuman, Frederick L., The Nazi Dictatorship, a Study in Social Pathology and the Politics of Fascism, 2d edition (New York, 1936), p. 22Google Scholar.
14 Mein Kampf, p. 54.
15 Ibid., p. 56. For a further discussion of Hitler and the principle of infallibility, see Gerth, Hans, “The Nazi Party: Its Leadership and Composition,” The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XLV (01, 1940), 518–520Google Scholar.
16 Mein Kampf, p. 56.
17 Ibid., pp. 277–279, 818–821.
18 Ibid., p. 711.
19 Grossmann, Stephan, “Oratory in Munich,” The Living Age, 302 (07 12, 1919), 96Google Scholar, translated from Die Neue Freie Presse (n.d.).
20 Zarek, Otto, German Odyssey (London, 1941), pp. 86–87Google Scholar.
21 Graf, Oskar Maria, Wir sind Gefangene. Ein Bekenntnis aus diesem Jahrzehnt, p. 338Google Scholar.
22 Zarek, , German Odyssey, p. 94Google Scholar. Prof. Lujo Brentano was a professor at the University of Munich.
23 Mein Kampf, pp. 707–708.
24 Ibid., p. 708.
25 Rilke, Rainer Maria, Wartime Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke 1914–1921 (New York, 1940)Google Scholar, letter No. 54 to Dorothea Freifrau von Ledebour, December 19, 1918, pp. 106–107.
26 DrMuller, Ernst-(Meininger), Aus Bayerns schwersten Tagen: Erinnerungen und Betrachtungen aus der Revolutionszeit (Berlin and Leipzig, 1924), pp. 106–107Google Scholar.
27 See the vivid description in Rilke, , Wartime Letters, letter No. 50 to Clara Rilke, 11 7, 1918, pp. 100–102Google Scholar. The same letter can be found in Selected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1902–1926 (London, 1947), pp. 281–282Google Scholar.
28 See the description of one such session in Graf, , Wir sind Gefangene, p. 429Google Scholar.
29 Mein Kampf, p. 715. A French reporter from the Temps in Munich noted a difference in susceptibility between those soldiers who had been at the front and those who had not. See Gentizon, Paul, La revolution allemande (novembre 1918–Janvier 1919) (Paris, 1919), p. 99Google Scholar.
30 Needless to say, not all Hitler's speeches followed this pattern exactly. Hitler was a master at sensing the mood of his audience and varied his remarks accordingly. It is, however, interesting to read some of Hitler's early speeches with this sequence in mind. Hitler's earliest printed speech adheres to this pattern especially well. See The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922– August 1939 (London, 1942), trans, and edited by Baynes, Norman H., Vol. I, 4–21Google Scholar.
31 Mein Kampf, pp. 152–153.
32 Rauschning, Hermann, The Voice of Destruction (New York, 1940), p. 238Google Scholar.
33 Totischus, Otto D., They Wanted War (New York, 1940), p. 4Google Scholar.
34 Hofer, Eric, The True Believer, Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (New York, 1951), p. 143Google Scholar.
35 Huxley, Aldous, The Devils of Loudun (New York, 1952), p. 320Google Scholar.
36 Mein Kampf, pp. 715–716. H. G. Baynes compares Hitler's powers of conversion to the primitive powers of voodoo rites: “He is indeed a magician who stumbled upon a new way of using the primitive forces of nature for dark, satanic ends.” Baynes, H. G., Germany Possessed (London, 1941), p. 127Google Scholar. See also the superficial discussion in Lambertson, F. W., “Hitler the Orator. A Study in Mob Psychology,” The Quarterly Journal of Speech,” Vol. XXVIII (04, 1942), 123–131CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 Hofmiller, Josef, Revolutionstagebuch 1918/19. Aus den Tagen der Münchener Revolution (Leipzig, 1938)Google Scholar, diary entry for November 13, 1918, p. 54.
38 Escherich, Forstrat Georg, Von Eisner bis Eglhofer: Die Münchener Revolution von November 1918 bis zum Zusammenbruch der Räteherrschaft (Munchen, 1922), Heft I, 7Google Scholar.
39 See numerous statements in Ibid., Heft I, and Hofmiller, , Revolutionstagebuch, pp. 118, 203–204Google Scholar.
40 Graf, , Wir sind Gefangene, pp. 454–460Google Scholar.
41 Grossmann, , “Oratory in Munich,” p. 96Google Scholar.
42 Mein Kampf, p. 695.
43 Pope, Ernest R., Munich Playground (New York, 1941), p. 213Google Scholar.
44 Mein Kampf, p. 721.
45 Ibid., p. 715.
46 Ibid., p. 513.
