Hitler And The Germans Ian Kershaw Analysis

Ian Kershaw’s article “Hitler and the Germans” analyzes the approach used to assert Hitler’s position in German politics. The main theme of this article is the creation of the “Hitler myth” and its spread throughout German society. This critique will discuss Kershaw’s argument and how effective it was. Kershaw argues that Hitler’s personality was not the key to his success and neither was his own personal Weltanschauung. He believes that it would be more accurate to study the popular image of Hitler, what the average German would have experienced. Kershaw refers to this popular image as the “Hitler myth.” He suggests that there was a two-sided approach to creating this image, one being the use of new propaganda techniques by advisors like …show more content…
The goal was to strike a balance between a hero who would sacrifice everything for his country, and someone that could have been your next door neighbor. Kershaw’s collection of evidence from this time shows that the public was very receptive to these tactics. However, Kershaw does not give all of the credit to Goebbels. He also acknowledges that the values of the nationalist press, which had drenched the German population for decades at that point, helped to make Goebbels’ job that much easier. The population was already primed for ideas like this. Kershaw then divided the Hitler myth into seven ‘bases’ (Bessel p.48). One of bases was that Hitler was viewed as the epitome of a strong and ruthless leader and enforcer of the law. Kershaw uses Hitler’s purge of SA leadership as an example of this. Many German citizens were pleased with Hitler’s actions regarding the SA because to them it showed that he was dedicated to acknowledging and tackling the corruption that resided even within his own movement and he was not going to protect criminals simply to save face. The second was that Hitler was viewed as being representative of Germany and Germany’s interests and he put the nation’s well-being before the interests of any other particular group. …show more content…
Kershaw claims that the true reason why the Hitler myth was able to spread the way it did was because the things Hitler and his team claimed to have done were actually happening. Whether or not Hitler was responsible for the upturn in the economy, it was still happening. The success of the military, whether or not it had to do with Hitler, was actually happening. Once the success of the military came to a halt, so did support for Hitler. He was no longer able to provide “results” to back up his