Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

leader. However puzzling and extraordinary, the underlying thrust of Hitler’s self-depiction has found a surprising degree of acceptance. 36 But, though not inaccurate in all respects, it requires substantial modification and qualification.

6
THE ‘DRUMMER’

‘I am nothing but a drummer and rallier.’
    Hitler, to Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, 1922
‘Our task is to give the dictator, when he comes, a people ready for him!’
    Hitler, in a speech on 4 May 1923
‘Not from modesty did I want at that time to be the drummer. That is the highest there is. The rest is unimportant.’
    Hitler, at his trial, 27 March 1924

When Hitler assumed the leadership of his party in July 1921, he was still no more than a beerhall agitator – a local celebrity, to be sure, but otherwise scarcely known. The takeover of the party leadership itself followed internal squabbles – of little moment to the outside world – within the intrinsically fractious
völkisch
movement. The NSDAP certainly made a great deal of noise, and had made its presence felt on the Munich political scene. But it was hardly yet a significant force. Without the extraordinary conditions in Bavaria – the self-proclaimed ‘cell of order’ – and without the backcloth nationwide of political instability, economic crisis, and social polarization, everything suggests it would have remained insignificant. As it was, while
völkisch
parties struggled to make much of a mark in most German states, including Prussia – by far the largest state – the NSDAP could become by 1923 a key player in the upsurge of nationalist opposition in Bavaria to Weimar democracy. And from a local beerhall agitator, the party’s leader emerged between 1921 and 1923 as the ‘drummer’ of the nationalist Right. That would be his role down to the ill-fated attempt in November 1923 to take over the state by force – the notorious ‘Beerhall Putsch’. Only in the light of those dramatic events and their aftermath would a crucial transformation in his self-image be sealed.
    Hitler was content in the early 1920s to be the ‘drummer’ – whipping up the masses for the ‘national movement’. He saw himself at this time not, as portrayed in
Mein Kampf,
as Germany’s future leader in waiting, the political messiah whose turn would arise once the nation recognized his unique greatness. Rather, he was paving the way for the great leader whose day might not dawn for many years to come. ‘I am nothing more than a drummer and rallier
(Trommler und Sammler),
’ he told Arthur Moeller van den Bruck in 1922. 1 Some months earlier, he had reputedly stated in an interview in May 1921 with the chief editor of the Pan-German newspaper
Deutsche
Zeitung
that he was not the leader and statesman who would ‘save the Fatherland that was sinking into chaos’, but only ‘the agitator who understood how to rally
(sammeln)
the masses’. Nor, he allegedly went on, was he ‘the architect who clearly pictured in his own eyes the plan and design of the new building and with calm sureness and creativity was able to lay one stone on the other. He needed the greater one behind him, on whose command he could lean.’ 2
    To be the ‘drummer’ meant everything to Hitler at this time. It was the ‘vocation’ that replaced his dreams of becoming a great artist or architect. It was his main task, practically his sole concern. Not only did it allow full expression to his one real talent. It was also in his eyes the greatest and most important role he could play. For politics to Hitler – and so it would in all essence remain –
was
propaganda: ceaseless mass mobilization for a cause to be followed blindly, not the ‘art of the possible’.

7
EMERGENCE OF THE LEADER

‘The secret of this personality resides in the fact that in it the deepest of what lies dormant in the soul of the German people has taken shape in full living features… That has appeared in Adolf Hitler: the living incarnation of the nation’s yearning.’
    Georg Schott,
Das Volksbuch vom Hitler,
1924
‘The combination of theoretician, organizer, and leader in one person is the rarest thing that can be found on this earth; this combination makes the great man.’
    Hitler, in
Mein Kampf

The year that ought to have seen the spectre of Hitler banished for good brought instead – though this could scarcely be clearly seen at the time – the genesis of his later absolute preeminence in the
völkisch
movement and his ascendancy to