Ok, I’m going to make this short and sweet. All I ever hear is what a genius Adolph Hitler was. In fact, it seems like spouting off about what a genius Hitler was will automatically make you the “smart guy” around any coffee shop or college campus these days. Well, personally, I think he had charisma, and he knew how to manipulate people and get them all riled up, but as far as intelligence I don’t see why he deserves so much credit. So what’s the deal? Provide sites if at all possible.
Wasn’t it “Adolf”?
Anyway, no, he was not a genius. There is scant evidence he was a genius. He had some things he was good at; he was a good public speaker (and he worked hard on it, it wasn’t just natural talent) and had a lot of political acumen. He had a good memory. He had a very good sense of people’s weaknesses, and for what motivated people and what got their juices flowing - important things for a fascist leader to understand.
On the other hand, he was paranoid and had a serious authoritarian complex. He had difficulty understanding abstract and complex concepts, and so did not really know much about economics or strategic warfare, rather bad weaknesses to have when you’re fighting a world war. It is typical of people who are cunning but not enormously intelligent to concern themselves with small details and ignore strategic issues - something Hitler did all the time. He knew how to motivate, but didn’t really know how to organize.
The notion that Hitler was a genius is a popular myth, I believe, for two reasons. First of all, it allows to to rationalize the horrors of Nazi Germany by ascribing them to a demon and his immediate minions, while holding “Germans” as a group blameless; that’s why you also hear people say “Well, most Germans didn’t even know what was happening to the Jews!” which is nonsense. It’s hard to accept that responsibility for the horrors of the time lie in the hearts of millions of people, so it’s easier to blame one.
Secondly, if you’re going to rationalize that by saying it was all Hitler’s fault, you sort of HAVE to make him a genius or else you can’t explain how one bozo could start World War II.
Excellent, but short and easily accessible accounts of Hitler’s strengths and weaknesses can be found in Keegan’s The Face of Command and Dixon’s On the Psychology of Military Incompetence. Another good, straightforward explanation that focueses on Germany more than just Hitler is in Overy’s Why The Allies Lost. All available at a bookstore near you.
Whoa, what kind of coffee shops are you hanging out at? Suddenly I’m having visions of guys with shaved heads and swastika tattoos making grande lattes and stocking the pastry bin.
I would seem to me that Hitler knew what the German people wanted and how to convince them that he knew how to get it for them. In short, I think he was a good spellbinder.
But, having once gained power he didn’t have much of a clue about how to run a nation. He seemed to have some grand visions, e.g. the autobahns and serviceable car for the people, the volkswagon.
In politcal ideas he was a bust. He wrote that Germany needed living room for its people and the place to get it was in the east because the Slavs there were unfit for anything but servitude anyway (his idea not mine). This lead him to attack Poland starting a general war, and even worse for Germany, he attacked the USSR. This was much to vast a territory for Germany to defeat as long as the USSR just kept fighting. Hitler didn’t have enough logistical resources to ever overrun and control all of Russia and the rest of the USSR.
All in all, Hitler seems to have been a good corporal in WWI. Maybe he could have been a decent sergeant or even unterleutenant, but that’s about it.
I think many historians today use the term “lazy dictator” to describe Hitler’s rule - both over his party and later over Germany.
Basically Hitler placed himself at the center of a movement, but largely let others (Goebbels, Goering, Himmler, Speer, etc.) actually define and lord over the different branches of Nazism and the different functions of the German state. As long as their s[heres were overlapping and no one else could really rival Hitler as the center of the state, Hitler didn’t have to do much of anything. Hitler himself was usually occupied with grandiose daydreams (building a new capital “Germania”) after the war, and fancying himself and ‘artist’ and architect.
When the war was underway, Hitler saw himself as sort of a second Napoleon - and often interfered in his generals military planning. In the end, as I’m sure you’ve all heard, his military decisions were often so mistaken that the Allies held off from attempts to assassinate Hitler - he was actually an Allied ‘asset’ as he often disregarded his most able commanders.
Also, there are some people (some Holocaust deniers, others just misinformed) who point out that there is no evidence that Hitler himself planned details of the Holocaust itself, and that only Himmler was responsible for whatever they believe happened. The fact that Hitler was a lazy man who was unable carry out any time consuming project from beginning to end, and generally jumped from one scheme to another makes this illusion possible to them.
That’s a rather narrow-minded view, Dave.
Hitler was politically far more skilled than perhaps any other leader of his day - and realize this includes FDR, Stalin, and Churchill. He outmanuvered every European power, and competantly used every tool in his military and political arsenal.
In fact, had he not invaded the Sov Union, I suspect the outcome would have been very different in the short run at the least. He may not have been a genius, but genius is overrated - Hitler knew people, and he tended to find the chinks in everybody’s armor.
Really, things started to fall apart in December 1941. By then the German offensive petered out at the gates of Moscow and Stalingrad, while Hitler’s declaration of war may have brought critical US aid to Soviet Russia and England.
Things most definitely did NOT start to fall apart in December 1941. Stalingrad did not take place until the winter of 1942-1943, and the real turning point in the Eastern Front, Kursk, was not until some months after that. Things may have slowed down in December 1941 west of Moscow, but the German offensive went gangbusters right through most of 1942, especially after the spring thaw was done.
Furthermore, U.S. aid to the UK and the USSR was flowing well before the German declaration of war on the U.S. However, German military setbacks didn’t really start to pile up until 1943.
I guess i’m a little unclear, too, as to how Hitler was more skilled than Churchill. Churchill was a remarkable war leader.
Hitler was not a military genius which is probably a good thing; else all of us might be posting in German.
However, he was a genius at politics. As William L. Shirer related in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, he correctly estimated the strengths and weaknesses of the major political parties in Vienna and why they succeeded and failed in reaching the masses. He figured out how to use the weaknesses of the Weimer Republic against itself. He managed to prevent the Strassers, Goebbels and other left-leaning Nazis from taking over the party, intellectually seducing Goebbles until his side until the war’s end and managing to use Gregor Strasser for several years. Until September 1939, he correctly gauged how far he could push Britian and France without triggering war. He manipulated Stalin fairly well.
RickJay: Sorry, but Hitler had quite a capacity for organization. Read the early parts of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich where Shirer describes the early days of the Nazis. Also see William Sheridan Allen’s The Rise to Nazi Power for further examples of how well the Nazis were organized.
As to your comment about he worked hard at oratory. Every genius works hard at their lines of endeavor.
My impression has always been that Hitler was very lucky to have as his enemies, especially in Western Europe, people who were profoundly sick of war and who thought that appeasment and/or a static defense like the Maginot Line was the way to avoid it. What Hitler really had going for him, in the early days, was his boldness in taking advantage of this, often in the face of his much more cautious staff. This state of affairs didn’t change until Churchill took over in England.
Yes but its easy to be bold. Look at history, the bold moves always have success. short term at least. only by striking do you gain land. Holding on to it is the key. Hitler seemed to have fallen into the ageold trap of using his resources up before he could get a defensable position. He needed England. but got distracted by Russia.