Hitler's Charisma (54 page)

Hitler with an adoring group of young supporters. Hitler always targeted the young in particular, believing that this strategy would help ensure the future of the Nazi movement for a thousand years. (
illustration credit i1.10
)

A propaganda poster from 1933 showing President Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler. It reads: “The Reich will never be destroyed when you stay united and loyal” and was thus a deliberate attempt to link Hitler with the more “respectable” Hindenburg. (
illustration credit i1.11
)

Hitler at the 1934 Nazi rally in Nuremberg—the rally featured in the film
Triumph of the Will
. These rallies, with their elaborate staging, played a vital part in the creation of a “charismatic” aura around Hitler. (
illustration credit i1.12
)

A number of correspondents noticed how the crowds—and women in particular—were almost ecstatic in the presence of Hitler at parades and rallies. (
illustration credit i1.13
)

A gigantic crowd of Austrians gathered in the Heldenplatz in the centre of Vienna to hear Hitler speak on 15 March 1938, and to celebrate the union of Austria with Nazi Germany. (
illustration credit i1.14
)

Ludwig Beck, Chief of Staff of the German Army in the 1930s. He never found Hitler “charismatic” but felt that he still offered the best chance of a German rebirth. Beck realised too late that Hitler would lead Germany into a war that it would lose. (
illustration credit i1.15
)

Hitler as Chancellor of Germany and Führer of the German people in the 1930s. Here he demonstrates his famous “stare.” He would hold the eyes of the person looking at him much longer than was normal. (
illustration credit i1.16
)

Once the Nazis gained power, German Jews were hugely at risk. Here Nazi stormtroopers humiliate a Jewish man and non-Jewish woman who were in a relationship. (
illustration credit i2.1
)

German shops damaged during
Kristallnacht
—the “night of the broken glass”—on 9–10 November 1938. Nazi stormtroopers ran almost beserk through Germany, smashing Jewish property, burning synagogues and attacking Jews. (
illustration credit i2.2
)

In the wake of the
Anschluss
—the union between Germany and Austria in 1938—there was an outpouring of anti-Semitic action. Austrian Jews are forced to scrub the streets. (
illustration credit i2.3
)

Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, visits Germany during the Sudetenland crisis. He was unable to comprehend that Hitler, the leader of a cultured European state, might actually
want
to provoke a European war. (
illustration credit i2.4
)