I’ve always been told that Hitler was a masterful public speaker; that his support can largely be explained by his compelling, if not mesmerizing hold on crowds. This narrative is not common, it’s universal.
Sometimes I think this is emphasized over how much the crowds approved of the content of his speech.
How do native German speakers feel when they view footage of Hitler? Do you think the reputation is earned?
Not any kind of expert but I imagine his speeches have to be seen in context of the time, by the people hearing them live. What was it like for an average German dealing with high prices, high inflation, on the heels of being fucked for years by WW1 reparations in Versailles? Then along comes a leader who yes is a good speaker charismatic etc but also that leader’s message fits super nicely into the public sentiment of the time.
Reading the text of his speeches almost 100 years later cannot possibly provide the same experience.
Politician hardly talk to the crowd with direct words, because it requires a level of nationalism and populism to still be convincing. A lot of solutions aren’t nice to the common folks. Take taxes for instance, most don’t like paying them. And if there are hard times and there’s just one person who promises you a better life, it’s compelling to follow. Hitler had a certain way of talking that made you feel emotions, in a time of desperation. And he promised solutions by declaring enemies.
Not to start with US politics here, but you can certainly look at how Trump talks and you see the same playbook. The same similarities. The same way of seeking for an enemy and also the false promises. Others talk like him too, but this is so recent.
In school, we never just watched a Hitler speech and were asked “here, have a look, whatdaya think?” It is always, from the beginning, embedded in critical, solemn reminders to see it as the darkest chapter in history. We (at least in my school education) were taught how easily masses are manipulated by emotions, groupthink crowd dynamics and psychology. How strong and blinding tribalism can be.
So to answer your question, what do I, as a German whose grandfather fought in France for the bad guys feel when I see a Hitler speech?
Anger for people who lose their capacity for rational thinking and let themselves be blinded by emotions. Anger about rethoric. And a deep unsettling sense of dread, shame and sadness.
Any way you can bring some of those critical-thinking skills over here to the US, by chance?
In all sincerity, great comment.
In the deepest of ironies, the Allies set Germany up post-war to do a far better job with their governing and constitution (yes, yes, nothing is perfect!) than the US can do with it’s own. Especially with the critical and analytical eye on its own history.
The US just keeps sweeping everything under the rug called “When America Was Great” while ignoring the parts that were racist, colonialist, etc.
One of the rare instances of the Shock Doctrine leading to a positive outcome.
I fully agree. So much sadness, seeing the uninformed, doing the same mistakes we warn for every day. It’s depressing, because even if you try to look at the brighter side and at the larger part of people who are kind and anti fascism. To know that group dynamics could destroy all of this in a year. Humans are capable of the worst, even when they believe in acting in good faith. Truth is, we humans are too easily manipulated and fear of isolation when standing up to the crowd makes people cowards. What is “good” is sadly just a matter of perspective and not even a question about quantity. When times get dire, the people will follow the easy solution.
I want to believe we have gotten better and “wehrhafte Demokratie” is not just a throwaway slogan. In sum, “only” about 25% are voting populist, be it put of protest, spite, for your own benefit ot out of crooked conviction. That means 75% are still somewhat reasonable and I want to see this as a positive thing.
We (at least in my school education) were taught how easily masses are manipulated by emotions, groupthink crowd dynamics and psychology. How strong and blinding tribalism can be.
Very cool. Wish we had more of this in my culture.
Still doesn’t seem to work.
Tribalism + fearmongering propaganda + times of financial hardships is more effective than education.
See: afd popularity in germany
Short answer: Yes he was a talented speaker and a great manipulator. He knew what the crowd wanted to hear and he could express it very well. However, this is a great simplification.
Longer answer: The problem is we view his speeches from todays perspective. The world now is very different so we can only assume how germans felt at the time. If you are really interested in it, I suggest to read some books from Erich Maria Remarque. These show from the perspective of the time how it could have come to this. Germany, once a proud superpower, was devastated after the First World War. The heavy defeat, supply problems, hyperinflation and all that struggle, provided the breeding ground for all kinds of radical factions. It was no wonder a demagogue like Hitler was so well received back then. From today’s perspective, this is not really possible to judge. The Allies knew that this could not happen again after the Second World War. Thats why the Marshall Plan was introduced, which led to Germany maturing into a modern western democracy.
I agree with you generally, but I strongly disagree that we today cannot understand the perspective of the time. We (Americans) just elected Imperial Supreme God Emperor Trump based on the same fascist ideas that drove people to Hitler back then
Great author and books. Reads much like Hemingway. People in Germany were pissed about the conditions imposed by the loss of WWI and the effects of it. Hitler promised to overturn what a lot of people felt was unjust. A lot of emotion, especially anger, echoed what a lot of people must have felt at the time. If you’re in a tunnel, and someone shines a light, you follow it.
I’m not a native German speaker, but I figure I should add some bit of context.
Acting on stage is far different than acting on a camera. Facial expressions are exaggerated. The body is used more to communicate emotion. Speech is louder and more exaggerated. Most stage actors have to be told to tone down their acting when switching to film or TV because you can see more acting on a screen than in person.
Hitler gives his performances as a stage performer, but we are watching his performances on film in close-up.
Listen for yourself and decide how compelling it is.
That was interesting, it was quite a bit more boring than I expected, I know that sounds glib and immature but it’s just when I hear about figures like that whipping people in to a frenzy I kind of assumed there’d be a bit more emotional appeal and a lot more peaks and valleys to the emotional affect. There’s definitely times where I see it working, at the very beginning of the clip shortly after the original audio sample it seemed compelling, it’s a bit more theory dense than I’d have expected but I guess I tend to forget that that was what he was selling, not just the warmongering he’s famous for in English speaking countries.
I think this offered a bit of a window in to what it must have been like, but unfortunately the AI seemed to suffer a bit as time went on, especially accent wise. He started out sounding like a particular variety of English, as in from England in the UK, but with an oddly Australian lilt then briefly dipped in to just Australian without the English then a very long section of being an American which also corresponded to a change in the vocal quality to being more hoarse and broken. I don’t know a lot about AI tools but I would wager this might have had to do with limited training data, maybe only that speech itself was used, in fact given the pretty short section at the beginning that said “original audio sample”, maybe just that snippet was used to extrapolate the rest of the AI rendition of the rest of the transcribed and translated speech. That would explain why it seems so emotionally homogeneous throughout which probably lessens the charisma that’s supposed to have been so famous. Judging by his physicality in that original sample I get the impression that even within the context of raving anger and self righteousness that in reality he imbued his speeches with more variety of tone than we’re getting here. It feels like the AI had to do the best it could over a pretty long and dense text of the speech from an audio sample smaller than the resulting output, that might explain the meandering accent too. Also worthy of mention is the part where there’s a particularly hard to parse and pretty long sentence that bafflingly leads directly in to a verbatim repetition of that exact same sentence, which definitely sounds like a glitch, I feel possibly like the confusingness of the sentence itself might perhaps be a translation issue as well.
An interesting aspect to me is how the tone and style of the speech, especially in the early section before things start going off the rails feel really reminiscent of an Australian politician called Malcolm Roberts and lo and behold if Hitler had to pick favourites from Australia’s current political landscape, I think he’d be making his top ten.
That language is at a very much higher grade level and complexity to that of the current political discourse. Wow.
We’ve regressed
It’s compelling enough that the youtube comments are full of people being actively compelled 85 years later
That’s a really cool, creative and useful way to apply AI. Tja is for sharing
Unbelievable.
It’s sort of the anti-Clinton, full of wonkish facts of the time, but like the coming admin, directed towards blame and hate.Which too-often snags the common person in to a vague basket of ‘yeah, we gotta get those guys!’ sentiment.
Just read the comments, and have to add, don’t forget the mastermind behind his speeches. Goebbels. Hitler’s performance is for a native speaker of today a bit of too much anger, loud, and a rolling “r” nobody actually speaking in germany. It’s like a special Hitler-accent, if someone tries to speak like that, everyone know it’s about making a Hitler-Joke.
Just like this guy.
Well for lack of a better comparison, it’s kind of like a Trump rally. Not quite, of course, the style Trump applies is tailored to the current American sensibilities, with his silly little dances and whatnot. But the way he wields anger and hate and “patriotism” to get a rise out of the crowd seems very much alike. And yeah, it’s sadly undeniable that Hitler had a talent for this. Greater one than Trump maybe.
Greater one than Trump maybe.
Hopefully!!!
Indeed. We shall find out it seems.
We now have the benefit of hindsight of what Hitler and his system ended up doing, so when we hear a Hitler speech today, we know a lot more than the crowds who were listening to it at the time did; this causes some bias in answering this question honestly.
It is true that his speeches are hardly ever boring. He was able to switch between a calm and an aggressive speaking style depending on what was fitting for what he was saying, sometimes within a very short time. This is true of some, but not all, other politicians too.
that his support can largely be explained by his compelling, if not mesmerizing hold on crowds.
Don’t forget that there was massive propaganda to create this narrative, especially after the power grab for the NSDAP and Nazi movement.
I think he was likely good at instilling anger in his temporary audience. There’s a lot of emotion transported.
Also important to note: The 1933 power grab and the totalitarian regime in the next 12 years wasn’t Hitler’s work alone. The German electorate, Hindenburg and those who followed knew what they were doing.
Pushing back, I don’t think they knew what they were doing. Hindenburg and the elites in power thought that by granting a little power to Hitler, they could control him and use his popularity for their own ends.
Unfortunately, like Keyser Söze, Hitler and the brown shirts were willing to push and push beyond what was previously deemed acceptable to get what they wanted. They were willing to take power by whatever means served them best: violence, arson, intimidation, grievance, and the country was eating it up.
When I hear these speeches, I think that he was a great manipulator. Not one with valuable content.
i usually cant understand his accent and have to watch with subtitles.
I wish I could link you the AI-translated hitler speeches, but they seem to have been removed from youtube.
Apparently a bunch of libs were going “Hey wait he was right” instead of “Holy shit I literally speak of immigrants and trans people the same way hitler spoke of jews”
The random meandering into completely unrelated topics is also fitting.
Jesus Christ, dude.
I think its an important question to delve into if you are an American right now. Some could use with some introspection
It’s also just an interesting question.
If you’re drawing an analogy to Trump, setting aside the many other things that aren’t parallel, Trump is a terrible orator. I mean, most US Presidents are at least decent, but Trump is horrendous.
Biggly. The biggliest in the history of the universe. Everyone’s saying, not me, but some people are saying bigglier than Hitler!
Edit: I was mistaken that Hitler was elected, thank you to Sem who corrected me below. Hitler ran for office but lost, and was appointed to chancellor by the winner Paul von Hindenburg. When von Hindenberg died a year after Hitler was appointed to chancellor, Hitler succeeded him and abolished the office of president and declared himself Furher und Reichskanzler
I think it’s pretty important that people are willing to grapple with the fact that people will gladly buy into hatred and fascism when a charismatic populist sells it to them as the ails of their people.
Hitler was elected*. If we want to avoid the mistakes of the past, we have to be willing to confront the reality of how they happened in the first place. Hitler spoke to real fears and anxieties people had, and promised things they truly wanted, like a great nation they could take national pride in once again.
Hitler was never elected in a fair election. He rose to power first through back room deals, and once he had the power of the state, he used it to influence the next elections and concentrate power.
Thank you for correcting me, I was mistaken.
If I understand corectly, he was appointed Chancellor by the Paul Von Hindenberg who won the 1932 election that Hitler had also run in, and rose to power as the successor to von Hindenburg after Hindenburg died in 1934
I’ve edited my original comment
Interesting, that wasn’t my understanding, looks like I need to go learn some more about that and see if I was mistaken
Thanks :)
