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The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 943
EAN: 9780192802064
ISBN: 0192802062
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: December 13, 2001
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editorial Review:
Before writing the first volume of his substantial biography of Adolf Hitler, Ian Kershaw focused on the popular appeal of the Nazi dictator in The "Hitler Myth". Arguing that "the sources of Hitler's appeal must be sought ... in those who adored him, rather than in the leader himself," Kershaw shows how Hitler's public image welded together antagonistic forces within the Nazi state, mobilized the nation for war, and contributed to the ethos that animated systematic and genocidal violence.
Responding to historians who maintain that Hitler's personality or ideological fixations accounted for his broad acceptance, Kershaw argues that, in the early 1930s, a sizable plurality of Germans hungered for an omnipotent Führer to stand above the political disharmonies of the Weimar state. Later, foreign policy and military victories attracted many more to the Hitler legend. However, victories were the price for popularity; and Hitler became more and more bloodthirsty as both his image and regime foundered under the blows of the Allied powers. The Hitler myth, then--a cultural phenomenon the Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels claimed as his greatest propaganda triumph--became a fundamental cause for the collapse of the Nazi State.
Kershaw's authoritative history of political culture in Hitler's Germany forcefully demonstrates that the Führer's popularity rested less on "bizarre and arcane precepts of Nazi ideology than on social and political values ... recognizable in many societies other than the Third Reich." In our present political environment, which repeatedly features outcries for "leadership" from pundits and public servants alike, the disturbing lessons of The "Hitler Myth" are an urgent warning. --James Highfill
Few, if any, twentieth-century political leaders have enjoyed greater popularity among their own people than Hitler did in the decade or so following his rise to power in 1933. The personality of Hitler himself, however, can scarcely explain this immense popularity or his political effectiveness in the 1930s and '40s. His hold over the German people lay rather in the hopes and perceptions of the millions who adored him.
Based largely on the reports of government officials, party agencies, and political opponents, Ian Kershaw's groundbreaking study charts the creation, growth, and decline of the "Hitler myth." He demonstrates how the manufactured "Fuhrer-cult" served as a crucial integrating force within the Third Reich and a vital element in the attainment of Nazi political aims. Masters of the new techniques of propaganda, the Nazis used "image-building" to exploit the beliefs, phobias, and prejudices of the day. Kershaw greatly enhances our understanding of the German people's attitudes and behavior under Nazi rule and the psychology behind their adulation of Hitler.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Rebuts the Allied-Bombing-Ineffective Myth
Ever so often, a new book comes out that purports to show that the Allied bombing of Germany did not contribute to the Allied victory. If anything, we are told, the destruction of cities only stiffened German resistance and made the Germans cling more to Hitler than ever before.
Kershaw examines these contentions and finds them wanting. He says: "The overall conclusion was that bombing did not stiffen morale, but seriously depressed it: fatalism, apathy, defeatism, and other psychological ... Read More
Rating: - A Fundamentally Flawed but still Interesting Work
Historian Ian Kershaw, later to scribe a monumental two-volume biography of Hitler, here tries, in one of his early works on Nazism, to assess the creation, acceptance, and downfall of the "Hitler Myth" among the German people. In essence, the Myth of Hitler is that of a charismatic leader and hero of the people upon whom the people bestow traits, characteristics, and motives that simply do not gibe with the facts.
The Hitler Myth reached its zenith in 1941 at the same time that the Third ... Read More
Rating:  - Solid work
Kershaw is probably more famous now for his two part bio of Hitler, but he wrote this book around 1980 and it is still one of the best works on how propaganda painted a picture of the Fuhrer. What one finds out through reading this book is a glmpse into everyday life for Germans, how propaganda kept Hitler's popularity up despite the popularity of the Nazi Party declining, and how propaganda gave the general public a distorted view of Hitler. We also see how the public could have supported someone like ... Read More
Rating: - A solid, interesting survey
"The Hitler Myth" is essentially a charting of the effectiveness of--though not an in-depth investigation of--the propaganda machine relative specifically to how the German populace viewed Adolf Hitler from the late 1920's through the duration of the war. Kershaw measures the propaganda machine's effectiveness through 1) opinion poll results, 2) voting figures, and 3) anecdotal documentation, especially reports from Nazi Party functionaries regarding what might today be called "the word on the street."
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Rating: - interesting preview
AN INTERESTING PREVIEW OF HIS LATER CLASSICS ON THE LIFE OF HITLER HUBRIS AND NEMESIS
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