Why would 13M Germans vote for a guy with a small moustache?

[kentonio]

Repressive measures and fears of Russian occupation played their part but it seems Hitler still had a grip on the popular imagination right up until the end of the war, which is extraordinary when you think about it, and very hard to imagine now.

The clever bastard based his entire government around the concept of 'working towards the Fuhrer' which meant that he very rarely gave specific written orders for things, but rather let his subordinates know what he wanted and let them work out how it should be carried out. It meant that he could claim credit for everything that went right, and avoid blame for things that went wrong. Some huge disaster? Oh, that was General X's fault, the Fuhrer never ordered that, and there's not a signed order anywhere to prove he did. It was a wild, crazy governmental style that was accompanied by multiple people/departments being given responsibility for the same things, and them being expected to fight each other with the strongest gaining power and the weakest being kicked down the political ladder. Seems insane now.

[Alexander's Horse]

Quite true and leading to the common belief "if only the Fuhrer knew" disasters and the many imposts of the chaotic nazi state would have been avoided.

Some clever research has shown that contrary to the impression created by allied wartime propaganda the German population wasn't controlled by fear. There was a vast terror machine to be sure but this was only turned against the German people right at the end of the war, in 1945. The Gestapo for example controlled German cities with surprisingly small teams of agents. This was because widespread informing on suspect citizens made close surveillance unnecessary. The machinery of the nazi state buttressed the regime at all levels. It was almost impossible to avoid affiliation to some nazi organisation or another, like the Hitler Youth or the League of German Maidens, where everyone was watched by other ordinary citizens. The main source of monitoring of the German mood, to finetune the regime's message, was Goebbels propaganda machine, not the SS or Gestapo.

Complicity in Hitler's crimes and thus the need stick with him to the end was another binding, particularly for the armed forces, as was the oath to Hitler, which many German officers took as a matter of honour, perversely also seen by them as somehow exonerating the armed forces from crimes.

The nazi regime had a way of implicating everyone. The Sixth Army for example, before it was destroyed at Stalingrad was involved in crimes against humanity all the way from their jumping off point for the invasion of Russia, including the wholesale maltreatment of Russian POWs, the massacre of Jews at Barbi Yar outside Kiev and other places, and the wilful and quite inexplicably callous starvation of the population of Kharkov, Russia's third largest city, in the winter of 1941. They were involved in a vast monstrous criminal enterprise, and that was only one army.

[MOBIUS]

A better question might be how long before the tiny mustache comes back in fashion!

Richard Herring, Hitler Moustache. Very funny, I saw him up at the Edinburgh 'Fringe' Festival a few years back...

[kentonio]

I'm a huge Richard Herring fan, even since Fist of Fun and This Morning With Richard Not Judy. Saw him when he came to Newcastle last year to do Talking ****'.

Have you heard his podcasts? Pretty awesome.

[Main_Brain]

One curious aspect of Hitlerism which has been pointed out by a number of historians, probably first by AJP Taylor, is that Hitler is the most popular leader that Germany has ever had up to the present day.

His popularity soared after the fall of France and it was only after the disaster at Stalingrad that it started to slip. But he still remained popular. The allied bombing offensive in 1944 and battlefield defeats from 1942 onwards further dented Hitler's popularity but it was strong enough to keep Germany fighting to the bitter end. Recent research indicates Hitler's "spell" wasn't broken until 1945, after the failure of the Ardennes offensive, the loss of East Prussia and the realisation that Germany was going to be invaded and the "wonder weapons" weren't going to materialise or change the course of the war if they did appear. It was too late by then.

Source?

http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fpanorama%2Fzeitgeschichte%2Fhitler-und-die-deutschen-passive-mitlaeufer-mit-schlechtem-gewissen-a-454213.html&act=url

[Dinner]

I don't see Hitler as ever being the "most popular" especially since he never actually won an election but dozens of other leaders actually have.

[kentonio]

I don't see Hitler as ever being the "most popular" especially since he never actually won an election but dozens of other leaders actually have.

He was quite staggeringly popular.

[Kidlicious]

Someone fell asleep in class during that film.