With a lighter heart
A remark said to be by Hitler in Mein Kampf – although, oddly, when I look it up on Google I find it quoted (and attributed to Hitler in Mein Kampf) in a wide array of books but not in MK itself. I would think normally the original source would be the first result. So this is said to be Hitler:
The mass meeting is necessary if only for the reason that
in it the individual, who in becoming an adherent of a new
movement feels lonely and is easily seized with the fear of
being alone, receives for the first time the pictures of a greater
community, something that has a strengthening and encour-
aging effect on most people. The same man, in the frame of
a company or a battalion, surrounded by all his comrades,
would set out on an attack with a lighter heart than he
would if left entirely to himself. In the crowd he always
feels a little sheltered even if in reality a thousand reasons
would speak against it.
There’s a purpose to all these fascist rallies.
Guess it’s not exactly explicit from this passage, but it’s really been striking me how much dislike Hitler seemed to have for almost everyone. Including his followers. Hell, maybe especially his followers. Been reading that Ullrich bio (still puttering through it … busy year), and I really do get a picture of a very critical, unkind person. Watching him charm people (which, of course, he does regularly), it’s almost like watching a horror movie; you want to warn the target to run, even knowing you’re just talking to the screen. Yes, somehow, he seems sweet to you, but just under that skin is a whole lot of hateful ugly. He’s being nice because he needs you, that’s all. What he’ll say about you under his breath or behind your back a moment later, you don’t even want to know.
Might also be my own twitchy history wiith people who do seem to love them a good demagogue, and will rally readily to whichever anti-intellectualism told they’re oh so salt of the earth, but I’ve always kinda suspected there’s a certain insecurity in people who are most taken in by these things. The passage above, to whoever’s credit, does seem insightful enough. Some neediness, that you can short circuit their empathy for certain others easily enough just by telling them they’re loved, they belong, this is their place. And you can tell them to their faces they’re sheep and they need you to lead them, and instead of spitting in your face, or treating your complex with bemused pity, they thank you. To people who actually like themselves, on their own, and others besides, I can’t see this coming off as so appealing.
You are being sarcastic here aren’t you? Please don’t tell me that you thought he was an affable little chap who just went through a dark patch from around 1935 onwards.
Anybody who can send hundreds of thousands of his own countrymen to certain death in an attempt to conquer Russia, with explicit orders to “fight to the last man, to the last bullet” (Stalin issued the same orders to his troops defending Russia) isn’t exactly a people person.
I believe that he only ever genuinely liked his German Shepherd dogs. People, not so much.
For the record and because I’m a total geek, I looked at two (superficially) apparently independent English translations of Mein Kampf and the quote is there in both.
Having said that, aspects of the translations differ at the various random points in the book I sampled, but the quote is there, word for word in both, exactly as quoted by Ophelia, which is slightly suspicious. I don’t know how people go about translating books, though. I know only that my personal translation would certainly be different because my German is fairly shit.
Thank you for doing that! I wasn’t particularly suspicious that it was fake, but rather doing a full disclosure that I hadn’t actually confirmed that it’s from MK.
It does seem odd that that passage is exactly the same in two different translations.