(10-04-2014, 03:02 PM)wfmyers1207 Wrote: If you're interested in this part of history I recommend Shirer's book, and "Inside The Third Reich", Speer's autobiography. The latter was also made into a TV mini-series back in the 70's. Excellent cast (Derek Jacobi played Hitler, Rutger Hauer as Speer and John Geilgud as Speer's father). I recommend it, if you can find a copy. The last I heard it was only available on VHS!
(Speer was the only high ranking Nazi who freely admitted to his crimes, and the only one spared the death penalty.)
Excellent thesis and especially good examples to demonstrate your point, but I've always felt that the cult of personality wasn't only contingent upon the person it also required the right atmosphere to allow the so called 'power' to work. If Germany had not been so punitively dealt with after the first world war especially by the French, then I don't think Hitler would have had quite the fertile ground upon which to cast his seeds of hate. When you were looking at an economy that was crashing into oblivion, it was not surprising that the people in question clutched at anything that firstly placed blame on someone else for the disaster and also provided a fix for their problems. I imagine they took the easy route and believed what they were being fed and glossed over the irrationality of the doctrine and actively ignored the heinous crimes being committed, so long as food was on their table and they weren't the ones in the crosshairs. A very shortsighted way of viewing the world, but one that many people throughout history have chosen to follow, I suppose because no one wants to think they are gullible enough to fall for irrational rhetoric, but somehow if we were all to step back and look at the swill most politicians slop our way and how the majority of the so called modern educated western world laps it up, are we that much better, I really do wonder sometimes...
Doctor: You betrayed me … betrayed my trust. You betrayed our friendship, you betrayed everything that I’ve ever stood for. You let me down!
Clara: Then why are you helping me?
Doctor: Why? Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?
Clara: Then why are you helping me?
Doctor: Why? Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?