Hitler's Charisma (55 page)

Hitler watches as victorious German troops pass by in celebration of the subjugation of Poland. The Nazis, assisted by the Soviets who attacked Poland from the East, had taken little more than a month to defeat the Polish army. (
illustration credit i2.5
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Hermann Göring, Commander-in-Chief of the German air force, Walter von Brauchitsch, head of the army, and Adolf Hitler (from left to right) in the spring of 1941. These three men would play crucial roles in the invasion of the Soviet Union just a few weeks later. (
illustration credit i2.6
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Hitler in Munich after the initial attempt to defeat the Red Army in 1941 had failed. But many still had faith in him as a charismatic leader. (
illustration credit i2.7
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A military conference attended by the Italian leader, Benito Mussolini (far left) in April 1942. Next to Mussolini is Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Operations staff of the German Armed Forces High Command (OKW), then Hitler, then Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Head of OKW, then Ugo Cavallero, Chief of the Italian Supreme Command and finally Eckhard Christian, a Luftwaffe staff officer. (
illustration credit i2.8
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Hubert Lanzinger’s portrait of Hitler, as a knight in shining armour holding a Nazi standard, reflects a desire to see Hitler as a heroic figure from German myth. (
illustration credit i2.9
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Hitler plots his next move in the summer of 1942 as German troops advance east into the Russian heartland. Heinrich Himmler, on the left of the photograph, has just organised a massive increase in the killing capacity of Nazi death camps. (
illustration credit i2.10
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A member of a German
Einsatzgruppen
shoots a Soviet civilian—most likely a Jew—after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. These killing squads operated behind the front line, and by the autumn of 1941 were murdering Jewish women and children as well as men. (
illustration credit i2.11
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German soldiers are marched out of Stalingrad as prisoners of war after the German defeat in February 1943. Nearly 100,000 Germans were captured by the Red Army at the battle of Stalingrad—and the vast majority would die in Soviet captivity. (
illustration credit i2.12
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Hitler with his dog Blondi. Hitler had been fond of dogs for many years—he had been distraught when a fox terrier he had adopted in the First World War went missing. Blondi died in the Führerbunker in April 1945 when Hitler ordered a sample of poison to be tried on the dog before he took it himself. (
illustration credit i2.13
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A pensive Hitler during a flight in 1943. With the Soviets fighting back on the Eastern Front and American forces already in Britain preparing for an Allied invasion of France, prospects for the Nazis were bleak. (
illustration credit i2.14
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Hitler talks to decorated Luftwaffe officers at the Berghof in 1944. These young men will have been taught about the “infallibility” of their “charismatic” Führer since 1933. (
illustration credit i2.15
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Hitler’s theatrical gestures were an important part of his speech-making. What mattered most to Hitler was the emotion he generated in his speeches as he attempted to make a connection with his audience. (
illustration credit i2.16
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