In your opinion why was Hitler so popular with his countries population in the begining?

I get your drift, and the parallels are instructive lessons on the fallibility of we the electorate. Times were tough, and people were both looking for scapegoats and prepared to accept ridiculous promises that were preposterous on their face; the rationale being, “what does it matter if this guy says and does things that are psychotic? Perhaps what the country needs now is a decisive psychopath. Ring any bells?

If you really want to know, read the thoughts of a German, written as it happened.

Victor Klemperer was born a Jew. But as a World War I veteran, married to a nominal Christian, he was almost literally the last Jew on the list for deportation to the camps.

Dresden was bombed into oblivion the day before his scheduled deportation. He walked away and survived by mixing in with the other refugees in the last days of Nazi rule.

In the 1920s, Germany was in chaos, and Hitler appealed to people who wanted order and to Make Germany Great Again.

The Nazis took over the media early. Their manipulation of the people through print and radio was called the “American style” because the Nazis adopted the techniques of American advertising and Hollywood in shaping public opinion. The masses believed in Nazism for the same reason people today believe they “need” gluten-free water.

They also took over education, dictating the lessons and writing the books. A young soldier at the outset of the war in 1939 had virtually no knowledge of anything outside of Nazi propaganda.

Anyway, Klemperer’s diaries tell you exactly what people were saying on the street. throughout the rise of the Nazis and the war.

And they tell you the horror of looking at those events as a rational man, not a dupe of the propaganda.

Here’s a short article on Klemperer

Here’s the first diary, covering 1933 – 1941.

Simple answer: He had an economy that sucked, to a large degree from paying of WWI debt from another war that Germany started.

So the country was beaten down and in financial peril. Hitler’s appeal was that he said the right things to the disaffected people. And he blamed everyone but the Germans. (Jews, Gypsies, Communists).

In my opinion, Hitler was so popular with his country’s population was because he promoted renewed pride in the German people.

“And he blamed everyone but the Germans. (Jews…”

I“n my opinion, Hitler was so popular with his country’s population was because he promoted renewed pride in the German people.”

The Jews were Germans. Not for your White Pride purposes, but they were Germans.

That’s one thing that REALLY pissed off Victor Klemperor. The Nazis succeeded with hatred and violence against Germans and German culture.

He was proud to be a German – the people that were advanced in science and literature and the arts. He was disgusted with the un-German culture that saturated Germany under the Nazis.

Because he was sweet worded and told people what they wanted to hear. He had charisma and brains to know when and what to say and how to say it.

Thank you for your answers and really thank you @stanleybmanly for really getting this question.

He was loud, aggressive, bold, uncompromising. He projected strength.
That is why people believed him when he promised them to solve all their problems.
That is why they accepted the scapegoat he dragged out.

Didn’t he promise to make Germany great again?

Hitler got 30% of the vote. I think there was a subsequent vote where he got almost 40%? Check me.

I’ve always thought that Hitler rose during a time of economic difficulties, and he spoke to German pride. I think a lot of Germans truly felt they were better, superior, than others. Other citizens of other countries, and also “others” within their country. Hitler played to that feeling of superiority.

He said what everyone was thinking.

And do you see any parallels @JLeslie ? Just wondering????

^^Sure, of course. Especially during Trump’s run. My dad kept telling me Trump is just like Hitler in his technique to get elected. I told my dad, “Hitler won.”

He seemed to be an alternative to the communists.
I appreciate that history is not a popular subject in the public education system.

^ “Alternative”

So he was the alt-right of his day.

Gullible Germans…who knew?

Adolf was fundamentally a lucky, unlucky bastard.
Lucky to happen to be in the right place at the right time & unlucky because if only his art was of a standard good enough he could’ve avoided all that nasty unpleasantness.
Comparisons to Trump though are laughably over the top, but hey…run with it if it makes you feel better.

^ agree. Being a loudmouth bufoon is not nearly enough to be compared with a lunatic responsible for deaths of millions and popularising one of the most vicious ideologies ever (and shitty art).

It’s early. Hitler worked hard for many years before he got to be responsible for the deaths of millions.

It probably won’t lead to that, but if you don’t recognize the roots of fascism today, you don’t know history.

@josie You made me laugh. I hated history.

I think almost all leaders use some of the same techniques so it’s easy to find similarities here and there. People called Pres. Bush Hitler-like, and Obama. Trump seemed to be a little more extreme in his willingness to push the envelope. Time will tell. He seems to be entertaining some questionable people as appointees. We’ll see.

@Call me Jay You either give accurate, undeniable, unbiased evidence that Trump is actually a Nazi and I’ll believe you. Otherwise, don’t make fancy, baseless comparisons just because you don’t like him.

@Sneki95 I did not say or infer that Trump is a Nazi. I said “roots of fascism”.

Umberto Eco grew up in Fascist Italy. 50 years later, in 1995, he wrote about the characteristics of fascism, trying to define a term that gets thrown around loosely.

This is adopted from his fourteen point list. Feel free to look and see if you can find any corresponcence to present-date circumstances.

1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”

2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”

3. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”

4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”

5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”

6. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”

7. The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”

8. The humiliation by the wealth and force of their enemies. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”

9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”

10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”

11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”

12. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”

13. Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”

14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

There original is here – Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco

How does any of that prove that we are living in the time of the “roots of fascism”? You didn’t give me evidence, just someone else’s words, with ‘draw your own conclusion” implication.

Besides, #5 is incorrect. Fear of intruders does not equal racism, and #14 is unclear. How exactly did “modern fascists” set up a new vocabulary?

@Sneki95 If you want to know more about Eco’s essay and why it’s relevant today, feel free to read the original. That’s why I gave a link. What I posted is a paraphrase.

Comparisons to Trump though are laughably over the top, but hey…run with it if it makes you feel better.
@ucme I’m just sorta comparing the two at the very beginning not the long haul, lets all hope Trump won’t be even a fraction as bad as Hitler became, but only time will tell.
He is off to a frightening good start with picking his staff with extreme right wingers one a known nationalist.

@SQUEEKY2 I wasn’t directing the point at any individual, which includes yourself, think more of a collective “you” & you’re more or less there.