One of the most fascinating articles that I’ve read in a long, long time appeared earlier today at the Spiegel. It’s about, as the headline of this post indicates, how Hitler won over the German people. It’s a reasonably long but might interesting read. Below follow some excerpts and thoughts of my own, but be sure to read the whole thing.

There were still many Germans who were skeptical of Hitler when he became chancellor in 1933. But Führer propaganda and military success soon turned him into an idol. The adulation helped make the Third Reich catastrophe possible.

“Today Hitler Is All of Germany.” The newspaper headline on Aug. 4, 1934 reflected the vital shift in power that had just taken place. Two days earlier, on the death of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler had lost no time in abolishing the Reich Presidency and having the army swear a personal oath of unconditional obedience to him as “the Führer of the German Reich and People.” He was now head of state and supreme commander of the armed forces, as well as head of government and of the monopoly party, the NSDAP. Hitler had total power in Germany, unrestricted by any constitutional constraints. The headline implied even more, however, than the major change in the constellation of power. It suggested an identity of Hitler and the country he ruled, signifying a complete bond between the German people and Hitler.

The referendum that followed on 19 August 1934, to legitimize the power-political change that had occurred, aimed at demonstrating this identity. “Hitler for Germany — all of Germany of Hitler” ran the slogan. As the result showed, however, reality lagged behind propaganda. According to the official figures, over a sixth of voters defied the intense pressure to conform and did not vote “yes.” In some big working-class areas of Germany, up to a third had not given Hitler their vote. Even so, there were one or two tantalizing hints that Hitler’s personal appeal outstripped that of the Nazi regime itself, and even more so of the Party. “For Adolf Hitler yes, but a thousand times no to the brown big-wigs” was scribbled on one ballot-paper in Potsdam. The same sentiment could be heard elsewhere.

The propaganda machine was constantly at work. It was impossible for Germans to escape it. Whenever they turned on the radio, they heard propaganda. Whenever they turned open a newspaper, they read propaganda… when they walked on the streets they saw posters with Hitler depicted on it with a catchy slogan…

Hitler was everywhere.

In 1936, however, “the trust of the people in the personality of the Führer is currently undergoing a crisis,” a Gestapo report said. The reason: the party’s big-wigs lived as if there was no tomorrow. They didn’t worry about money, they spent bigtime, while normal Germans were extremely poor.

That was soon forgotten, however. Only one day after the report appeared, German troops marched into the Rhineland. Western democracies had said they wouldn’t accept Hitler taking back the Rhineland, but when he did; nothing happened.

Germans saw it as a huge victory and as payback for their humiliation during and after World War I. “The domestic problems of previous months — shortage of foodstuffs, high prices, low wages and, in Catholic areas, much antagonism towards the regime over the struggle between the church and state were temporarily forgotten in the euphoria,” The Spiegel reports.

“Apart perhaps from the immediate aftermath of the astonishing victory in France in summer 1940, Hitler’s popularity was never higher than at the height of his foreign-policy successes in 1938.” The Rhineland move increased his popularity, so did the annexation of Austria.

Sebastian Haffner plausibly reckoned that Hitler had succeeded by 1938 in winning the support of “the great majority of that majority who had voted against him in 1933.” Indeed Haffner thought that by then Hitler had united almost the entire German people behind him, that more than 90 percent of Germans were by that time “believers in the Führer.” In the absence of any genuine test of opinion, and in conditions of intimidation and repression for those who might dare to challenge official propaganda, when the only public opinion which existed was that of the regime’s agencies, such a figure can only be guesswork, and is probably too high. At the same time, it seems hard to deny that the regime had won much support since 1933, and that this owed much to the perceived personal “achievements” of Hitler. The personalized focus of the regime’s “successes” reflected the ceaseless efforts of propaganda, which had been consciously directed to creating and building up the “heroic” image of Hitler as a towering genius, to the extent that Joseph Goebbels could in 1941 with some justification claim the creation of the Führer Myth to have been his greatest propaganda achievement.

That is, of course, fascinating, all the more so because - by then - it was bloody obvious for anyone living in Germany that the Jews had a major problem. They were persecuted. They were stripped off their rights. They were put in camps. Yet Hitler became popular.

It was a manufactured consensus, a propaganda construct, with repression of political opponents, “racial enemies” and other outsiders to the proclaimed “national community” as the other side of the coin. The “superman” image of Hitler amounted to the central component of the fabrication. Already before the “takeover of power” it had been the creation of the most modern, hugely successful, political “marketing” strategy of its time, masterminded by Goebbels. And once the monopoly of state control of propaganda fell into Nazi hands in 1933, there was no obstacle in the mass media to the rapid spread of Hitler’s “charismatic” appeal.

It goes on for 3.5 pages after this. Again, it’s a very interesting read, all the more so because we - like the Germans themselves - can learn from it, as to never make the mistake the Germans made.