Hitler

generally disappointing, had little to offer. Hitler, in stark contrast, set him alight.
    The man with whom Hans Frank’s fate would be bound for the next quarter of a century was dressed in a shabby blue suit, his tie loosely fastened. He spoke clearly, in impassioned but not shrill tones, his blue eyes flashing, occasionally pushing back his hair with his right hand. Frank’s most immediate feeling was how sincere Hitler was, how thewords came from the heart and were not just a rhetorical device. ‘He was at that time simply the grandiose popular speaker without precedent – and, for me, incomparable,’ wrote Frank.
    I was strongly impressed straight away. It was totally different from what was otherwise to be heard in meetings. His method was completely clear and simple. He took the overwhelmingly dominant topic of the day, the Versailles Diktat, and posed the question of all questions: What now German people? What’s the true situation? What alone is now possible? He spoke for over two-and-a-half hours, often interrupted by frenetic torrents of applause – and one could have listened to him for much, much longer. Everything came from the heart, and he struck a chord with all of us … When he finished, the applause would not die down … From this evening onwards, though not a party member, I was convinced that if one man could do it, Hitler alone would be capable of mastering Germany’s fate.
    Whatever the pathos of these comments, they testify to Hitler’s instinctive ability, singling him out from other speakers relaying a similar message, to speak in the language of his listeners, and to stir them through the passion and – however strange it might now sound to us – the apparent sincerity of his idealism.
    Rising attendances marked Hitler’s growing success and mounting reputation as the party’s star speaker. By the end of 1920 he had addressed over thirty mass meetings – mostly of between 800 and 2,500 persons – and spoken at many smaller internal party gatherings. In early February 1921 he would speak at the biggest meeting so far – over 6,000 people in the Zircus Krone, which could accommodate the largest indoor crowds in Munich. Until mid-1921 he spoke mainly in Munich, where the propaganda and organization of the meetings would ensure a satisfactory turn-out, and where the right atmosphere was guaranteed. But, not counting the speeches made during a fortnight’s visit to Austria in early October, he held ten speeches outside the city in 1920, including one in Rosenheim where the first local group of the party outside Munich had just been founded. It was largely owing to Hitler’s public profile that the party membership increased sharply from 190 in January 1920 to 2,000 by the end of the year and 3,300 by August 1921. He was rapidly making himself indispensable to the movement.
    VIII
    Hitler spoke from rough notes – mainly a series of jotted headings with key words underlined. As a rule, a speech would last around two hours or more. In the Festsaal of the Hofbräuhaus he used a beer table on one of the long sides of the hall as his platform in order to be in the middle of the crowd – a novel technique for a speaker which helped create what Hitler regarded as a special mood in that hall. The themes of his speeches varied little: the contrast of Germany’s strength in a glorious past with its current weakness and national humiliation – a sick state in the hands of traitors and cowards who had betrayed the Fatherland to its powerful enemies; the reasons for the collapse in a lost war unleashed by these enemies, and behind them, the Jews; betrayal and revolution brought about by criminals and Jews; English and French intentions of destroying Germany, as shown in the Treaty of Versailles – the ‘Peace of shame’, the instrument of Germany’s slavery; the exploitation of ordinary Germans by Jewish racketeers and profiteers; a cheating and corrupt government and party system presiding over economic misery, social division, political conflict, and ethical collapse; the only way to recovery contained in the points of the party’s programme – ruthless showdown with internal enemies and build-up of national consciousness and unity, leading to renewed strength and eventual restored greatness. The combination of traditional Bavarian dislike of the Prussians and the experience of the Räterepublik in Munich meant that Hitler’s repeated onslaught on the ‘Marxist’ government