Hitler's decision-making

Split from "Why did Hitler attack Poland in 1939?"

Izaak, you do continue to judge Adolf as if you had been making these decisions. Now, to me you seem a clever, well-educated chap with both logic and common sense. I seem to remember us agreeing that Adolf Hitler was not exactly the most sensible person in all history. Obviously, yourself and Mr Hitler are going to see the world through 'slightly' different eyes.

You cannot wonder why a deluded nutball, who passionately believed his race to be superior to all others, did not behave in a rational manner.

 

Ok, ok. I remember, our agreement, Ricky, and I stand by it. But I wanted some more answers form our participants. Sometimes you can find a golden nugget in a poster. And this question interests me a lot. Besides, I wanted to hear some opinions on pre-war Poland, a not exactly harmonious country, but still – dear to my heart.
Ooops, when someone begins to say something nice about me, it usually means something is wrong….even very wrong with me.
You say nutball etc. about Le Corporal. But I still can´t understand how come that an intelligent, educated nation could have worshipped him. I know, some people are charismatic; the Treaty itself and the post-Versailles plight of Germany was very unfortunate. Still, I would like to understand the reasons for his fantastic career ( apart from Stalin´s machinations ). The very psychology of the mass psychosis is fascinating, the mechanism of charisma. Don’t you think, Gents?

 

Populism is not too hard to work with for a charismatic person. What you do is you appeal upon a fear, or an irritation of the masses and build whatever policy you want around that emotion. People will follow you because you represent one of their own heartfelt emotions; remember that while a large amount of any people is intelligent, an equally large amount usually is not. Plus, the greatest amount of votes the NSDAP ever had was 43%, in an election they rigged, manipulated and influenced on all sides. Not too impressive I'd say.

 

I know the bell curve of IQ, Roel!
Afterwards he became much more popular, however, ain´t I right?
It´s the phenomenon of charisma that haunts me. How does it work? Such a nobody like him!
I understand, the Pope might be appealing (educated, wise etc.) – but also here, you don´t just gather 5 mln people because you talk 7 languages and say wise things. Media? I don´t think it´s the only explanation. I have been doing some thinking on it but I am still in the dark.
What was so special about Hitler? What was he doing with these people, also western leaders, who (initially) fell for his spell? Stalin was kind of similar, privately, at least. Was it Churchill who said that he and Roosevelt the cripple, both rose automatically “like schoolboys” when Stalin entered.

 

Why was he so popular?

A number of reasons.

1) Charisma - check out footage of Hitle making a speech compared to Churchill making a speech...

2) An effecient propaganda machine. Few western nations had really bothered with these, and people were taken in.

3) Claiming to be able to right the wrongs caused to Germany by both outside & internal enemies - evven if some of the wrongs & enemies were just propaganda.

4) He delivered. Germany became strong again. Unemployment withered, people were fed, the currency stabilised, and Germasny started to regain military power & overthrow Versailles.
Now, much of the deliverance was phony - Unemployment fell because he refused to count women in the figures, for example. Many of the wrongs he delivered Germany from were created by his propaganda machine :roll: .

 

I think you shouldn't be looking for one reason but rather to add up all the little reasons that, as you say, can't independently account for Hitler's huge popularity before 1939. Some people must have simply fallen for the "great leader" cult he created, the propaganda, and the image of a man achieving his goals and defying international forces once again; others may have been swayed by his insistence that wrongs they felt as wrongs needed to be righted, and his claim that people they often hated were responsible. Yet others may have thought of him as what Germany needed because they were simply antirepublican, and more others felt they could use him for their own purposes once he was in power. Everything contributed its own little share of NSDAP-followers.

 

Maybe they just felt flattered because he called them the "master race". :smok:

 

Paul Schmidt, H.´s interpreter, again and again writes that Hitler deeply impressed many foreign visitors. Some, coming to him as opponents, were leaving under a sort of spell. He writes somewhere that he believed it was the way he was looking at his interlocutors was somehow special.
Some persons remained quite unimpressed, though. Among others – Eden, Francois-Poncet, Molotov, Franko, Horthy, Antonescu. Speer, being an inteligent observer, was unable to define the powerful influence Hitler had on him.
So, it´s not so much his achievements, as the man´s very personality that played the trick. One thinks of famous hypnotizers and the like.

 

Not necessarily. Certain people have the ability to reach people in a way others can't, because of their mannerisms, their behaviour or simply the fact that they try. In the case of Hitler, I'm not sure if he was one of these people who naturally put people at ease and in a friendly mood, but if he was this is a powerful trait. I wonder if the people you mention as having avoided the "spell" had certain characteristics in common that made them less socially impressable.

 

Or put it as a mixture of 'charisma' and PR...

Look at Churchill making a speech. Stands still, hands on lapels, drones on.

Look at Hitler making a speech. Dramatic guestures, paces about, intonation in the speech, lots of shouting, etc etc. Much more appealing.
My fiancee has said that watching a film of Hitler speak she can practically tell what is being said, his delivery is so impressive (she does not speak much German). Think how intense he must have been (and was according to most accounts) in person.

People who exhibit restless energy tend to be followed. Or at least be fascinating to most.

 

To me he lookes comical. Maybe because I know, he has been such a lazy ignorant. (I do expect a storm now).

 

Not really - hindsight is a marvellous thing.
Remember, Hitler was but the second of his kind in living memory - the first being dear Benito Mussolini.

 

Right, hindsight.
I still can´t understand that charisma fenomenon. Some just have it.
Some have it and work to make it better. Hitler did. He was actually training his speeches infront of the mirror, incl. all the rage, hatred etc.
Do you need charisma to become an actor too? Or you find out you have some of it , work and become an actor. I mean - an ACTOR?

 

It was his form of manifest destiny , or auchsless ( it's probably spelled wrong)

 

canadian.... you are right! I think you hit the pot with one word. The man was simply testing his destiny.

What is most appalling about Hitler for me is how he despised all humanity, including the Germans. Remember his orders of "scorcher earth" and his wish that the rest of Germans who didn´t die were not worth living anyway.
This shows better than anything that the whole war was a big ego trip for him. Lebensraum, the great German nation....it was all lies. The only thing it was all about was himself and his genius.
The man was filled with hate for all the world. Maybe including himself.

 

You're probably right, but this doesn't explain his rise to power or the enormous charisma that he apparently had, giving those near him hope and resolve even up to the last hours. This doesn't sound at all like anything that could be generated by the deep hatred that Hitler had for everything that failed (including himself).

 

I have also shard Izaak's fasciantion with how such a nobody as Hitler was able to gain control of a great nation.
When I think of Hitler three images almost always come to mind:

1) Charly Chaplin in the "Great Dictator"

2) Chanucy Gardner in "Being There"

3) The Emperor's new clothes fairy tale

I think all three of these say something about how Hitler was able to lead the German people into self delusion. Hitler was the ultimate opportunist. He owed many of his "victories" to what in hindsight looks to be incredible luck and people seeing more there than there really was. His support appears to have stemmed as much from no one wanting to look "wrong" as to the strong arm tactics of the SA or Gestapo.
I once saw a fascinating program on how Hitler's public appearances were always staged for maximum pyscological impact. Flickering flames in the night, long anticipatory drum rolls and trumpet peals, minutes of absolute silence finally broken by this (little) man alone in the light. I was terrified at how easy it is to manipulate human beings at an animal level.

 

Mr Rommel. I have just been trying to say that he did not give a damn for Lebensraum, Jews or Germans. He was on a mega-ego trip, all along.

Mr Roel, Le Corporal´s personal charisma (much amplified by technical means, as Canabmbridge so well pointed out) does not exclude his basic inferiority complex and his, as I surmise, hate for the world.
JUST THE OPPOSITE! Often small, despised men develop into great charismatic dictators precisely because their hatred makes them crave control over others. Only by controlling others they can be safe from their derision. Or so they hope.

Of course, 99,9999% of unhappy dwarfs end up as unhappy, frustrated failures. But sometimes, albeit rarely, they develop into monsters and "circus directors" of their countries or more.

 

I have often wonderd why Der Furher never seriously tried his amazing diplomatic skills after Poland and France. Why not try the "Well, NOW I've got everything I want, there's no need to be upset here" routine or something equally convincing. As far as I know, he never made any real diplomatic initatives after August 1939. Just some even more meaningless and even more obviously insincere platitudes following Dunkirk. I have wondered if a victory at Kursk would have been used to set the stage for a diplomatic settlement with the Soviets based on their "obviously" being unable to defeat the Germans.

 

You know, Mr Canambridge, I think you know, equally well as I do, that Hitler´s diplomacy before Poland was a smokescreen. After Poland - it was maybe even a real effort to make peace with the West, because he had no interest at all in fighting West. He Smashed Poland out of his vanity also, I think. He wanted to see his toys to move and shoot. He wanted to show his Germans: look, I am a great warlord. It always helps a dictator to show his population that his army is great and proud.

After France, he was not in doubt that the World´s Judentum is after him. He considered Churchill to be a chief exponent of World´s plutocracy and Jewish interests. A naive Hess might have his hopes, but Hitler knew that he was "one or two bridges" too far by then. He couldn´t possibly expect the British to believe him or even tolerate him as a major power on the Continent. He was in avery sense of the word LAWLESS.

Peace feelers with the Russians after Kursk? Never heard of. I expect he would in some way have discussed it with someone in his nearest environment. Knowing that he bragged over his successes and ideas all the time, one would expect him to brag about a brilliant idea to win Kursk and talk with Stalin. But no. No such bragging.

It was at that time also politically and militarily impossible. Stalin was already fully recuperated and bent upon final victory. Nothing but that would have satisfied him. He also knew that he can, no matter what, count on American help. He was in a win position in any case. He was obviously totally free to talk with Hitler. His propaganda and his grip on power was strong enough to do anything he liked. But the perspective of a few million Russians more or less lost in this war was of no importance to him. Stalin loved the Russian nation - but only as a cannon-meat, as a tool of the World Revolution.
I think, Hitler´s peculiar psychical trait was, that he believed in his own good fortune and genius. In the war in Russia it was Everything or Death. And nothing in between. Even in hisbunker in Berlin he also, at least once in a few days, util Wenck´s offensive failed, had fits of hope that the war is winnable. How could he have doubts in the time of Kursk?