How well known was Hitler in Germany at this point? He was a relative nobody in WWI, so I'm curious how he can have been a 'demi-god' just 5 years or so later.
After WWI, the political situation in Germany was pretty volatile. Lots of extreme politics. Hitler started giving talks about German politics and how Jews were to blame for everything. At this point, his only income was a soldier's pension iirc.
He was the 55th person to join the Nazi party (he later forged his membership card to say he was #7). But the Nazi leadership (more organizers at that point) were impressed with Hitler's speaking abilities and thought they could use him to promote the party. So they started setting him up at different venues and events.
He developed a reputation for being a guy with strong opinions about politics and his speeches were pretty entertaining for people, so more showed up. All of this was pretty local to Munich at this point.
Eventually Hitler and some of his friends got this idea that they could overthrow the government, hence the Beer Hall Putsch. He wasn't really famous at the time, but he was a popular figure in certain circles, so when the Putsch failed, he was sent to prison instead of being executed for treason.
In prison he wrote Mein Kampf, essentially painting himself as a figure who loved Germany persecuted by a government that had sold Germany to foreign powers. As a best selling author, he became a celebrity.
Ian Kershaw's Hitler Hubris and Nemesis is really good if you're interested in the topic.
I wonder just how popular the "sold homeland to foreign powers" narrative was throughout history. Kind of reminds me of the sentiment some of the people I know have towards the situation in Poland - the narrative is that all our industry was sold off to foreigners and that the government should reverse this process to bolster the economy.
One of the most interesting classes I took as an undergrad was a history course that focused on the challenges that faced Jews during and after the diaspora, and how they met those challenges while somehow managing to preserve their culture, faith, and a shared sense of identity over the course of--literally--millennia as a minority group inside other cultures and empires. Maristella Botticini's The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492 is one of a few rather fascinating books on the subject.
I thought the book only became a best seller after 1933, or am I wrong?
"Was quasseln denn die Krittler\\vom bayerischen "Schorf"?\\ Hier gibt es keinen Hitler\\und keinen Ludendorff.
Was unken denn die Käuze\\vom Monarchistenputsch?\\Kein Mensch malt Hakenkreuze.\\Was futsch ist, gilt für futsch.
Ihr hört die Konstatierung\\nur zweifelnden Gesich's?\\So fragt halt die Regierung:\\die weiß von allem nichts.
Fragt nur den Herrn von Knilling,\\der wiederum Minist-\\er und sein eigner Zwilling\\von anno achtzehn ist."
(cf. Ratatöskr: Zur Beruhigung, in: Simplicissimus, vol. 27, München: Simplicissimus-Verlag, 1922--1923, p. 500)
If anything Hitler was - like some present day politicians - an absolute master at identifying frustration in various strata of society and harnessing that frustration to propel himself to power.
The race and class politics was strictly a proxy for the only thing Hitler ever really spoke about: power by all means.
I know it's often a mix of both with demagogues, but I wonder how much he saw the fight against supposed enemies (Jews, Communists, Slavs) as a virtuous and net-positive goal vs. a means to an end.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/19kkox/at_th...
For example, he found himself in the National Socialist party for nearly no other reason than they welcomed him for his charisma and he saw a weak leadership he could exploit.
The exposed nationalist & socialist ideologies, economic principles & race discrimination were things he quickly pushed aside time and time again when he felt they didn't align with power gain.
Some things like socialist and economic principles were ignored more often than nationalism and race discrimination which centralised his power.
I don't think anyone could ever accuse Hitler of being an ideologue or zealot for any cause other than his personal interest.
Then again, listening to half of an audiobook on the matter isn't really the same thing as living or properly studying it, so kindly tell me what's what if you're in a better position to speculate.
It's incredible with what precision some of these sentences can be transplanted nearly a hundred years and be just as applicable. You wouldn't know if this was about the past or the present when taking that sentence out of context.