Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

short leather trousers while hefty waitresses bustled between the tables delivering foaming litres of beer. When it was not hired out, as it frequently was, for large political meetings, the beer-swilling crowds would sway merrily to drinking songs played by a Bavarian brass band. At political meetings, heavy drinking, prompting verbal interjections and sometimes brawls, was commonplace. Moving to such a venue – a far bigger hall than the infant party had so far used – was risky, courting the embarrassment of a small turn-out.
    A good deal of effort was put into designing striking red posters and leaflets advertising the meeting. The party’s programme, to be announced at the meeting, was also printed and distributed. The publicity worked. The huge hall was packed when Hitler arrived at quarter past seven that evening. Still according to his own account, after a first speaker, whose name he does not mention, had spoken, Hitler – chairing the meeting in the absence of Drexler, who had apparently suffered some sort of nervous collapse – took the floor. Clashes between his supporters and those trying to heckle the speaker took place, but Hitler continued speaking, to mounting applause, and expounded the programme, swaying his audience to rapturous and unanimous acclamation of its twenty-five points. 32 Finally, declares Hitler in his
Mein Kampf
version, ‘there stood before me a hall full of people united by a new conviction, a new faith, a new will’. The German hero was setting out on his quest: ‘A fire was kindled from whose flame one day thesword must come which would regain freedom for the Germanic Siegfried and life for the German nation… Thus slowly the hall emptied. The movement took its course.’ 33
    The story has been aptly described as ‘a heroic legend in half-naturalistic style, young Siegfried warbling his wood-notes wild in Munich beer halls’. 34 The legend was framed to portray the beginnings of the Führer figure, Germany’s coming great leader and saviour, as it had emerged by the writing of the first volume of
Mein Kampf
in 1924. Towering over the weak and vacillating early leaders of the party, certain of himself and of the coming to fruition of his mighty vision, proven successful in his methods, his greatness – so his account was designed to illustrate – was apparent even in these first months after joining the movement. There could be no doubt about his claim to supremacy in the
völkisch
movement against all pretenders.
    After dealing with subsequent successes in building up the party’s following, Hitler returned to the early party history in a later passage in
Mein Kampf
when, surprisingly briefly and remarkably vaguely, he described his takeover of the party leadership in mid-1921. His terse summary simply indicates that after intrigues against him and ‘the attempt of a group of
völkisch
lunatics’, supported by the party chairman (Drexler), to obtain the leadership of the party had collapsed, a general membership meeting unanimously gave him leadership over the whole movement. His reorganization of the movement on 1 August 1921 swept away the old, ineffectual quasi-parliamentary way of running party matters by committee and internal democracy, and substituted for it the leadership principle as the organizational basis of the party. His own absolute supremacy was thereby assured. 35
    Here, it seems, embodied in the description in
Mein Kampf,
is the realization of Hitler’s ambition for dictatorial power in the movement – subsequently in the German state – which could be witnessed in his early conflicts with Harrer and Drexler, and his rejection of the initial inner-party democratic style. The weakness of lesser mortals, their inability to see the light, the certainty with which he went his own way, and the need to follow a supreme leader who alone could ensure ultimate triumph – these, from the outset, are the dominant themes. The beginning of his claim to leadership can thus be located in the earliest phase of his activity within the party. In turn, this suggests that the self-awareness of political genius was present from the beginning.
    Little wonder that, on the basis of this story, the enigma of Hitler is profound. The ‘nobody of Vienna’, the corporal who is not even promoted to sergeant, now appears with a full-blown political philosophy, a strategyfor success, and a burning will to lead his party, and sees himself as Germany’s coming great