Hitler and the Nazi Cult of Celebrity (8 page)

He was truly devastated by Geli’s death, and he kept a bust or portrait of her in each of his bedrooms. Heinrich Hoffmann said
that Geli’s death ‘was when the seeds of inhumanity began to grow inside Hitler’.
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If this is true, if Geli had not died, Hitler’s world might have proven to be a very different place to the one history has recorded with such horror. And yet Hitler was already on a path that had begun the night he received his vision while watching
Rienzi
. Geli’s death was probably little more in the course of history than a tragedy that diverted Hitler for a while.

It was said that Hitler’s depression over Geli’s death lasted months, even years; according to Friedelind Wagner, he went into a severe depression each Christmas for several years after Geli’s death, and wandered alone around Germany for days.
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However deep his grief ran, in October he was able to pull himself out of his depression long enough to deal with a crisis when Magda learned from her mother that she had not been legally married to Oskar Rietschel. This was devastating news; Magda became inconsolable and unable to continue with the wedding to Goebbels. Bringing calm to this crisis was Hitler, who was ‘tenderly kind to her’, as Goebbels wrote. Hitler laughed and told the couple that an unmarried woman with a child is preferable to a married woman without a child.
162
Even in the throes of intense grief, Hitler could be surprisingly kind; but his kindness was reserved for only a few devoted disciples.

The wedding went ahead on 19 December 1931 at a small Protestant chapel with just a few family guests in attendance. Goebbels and Magda were to be something unique and almost divine within his kingdom, and with Hitler as the head, they completed his Holy Trinity.

Goebbels delighted in having such an elegant and articulate woman at his side. They exuded Nazi-style glamour – they were the ‘ideal German husband and wife’, although, of course, they had far greater wealth than the average German married couple. They mixed with luminaries of showbusiness, and hosted gatherings of musicians, actors and painters. But they did not invite businessmen and aristocrats to their parties; Goebbels despised them.
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He now preferred the company of Germany’s most famous stars, and even
as he was courting their favour, he was no doubt looking ahead to when he would control their lives, their work, and sometimes their deaths.

He enjoyed his celebrity status, and because of his power and influence he had finally become a published author. His novel
Michael: A German Destiny in Pages from a Diary
– which had begun as
Michael Voorman: The Destiny of a Man in Pages from His Diary
and had been revised – was published in 1929. In 1932 his memoir about his leadership in Berlin,
Kampf um Berlin
(
The Struggle for Berlin
), was published and reprinted several times. He was not to be merely a politician, but an artist, a man of culture – someone others wanted to be around. He had come a long way since his childhood days spent mostly in solitude, shunned by his peers.

Goebbels and Magda were now Germany’s most celebrated couple, commanding vast columns of space in newspapers and magazines. And with children, they became more than two-thirds of Hitler’s Holy Trinity – they became the Holy Family of the Third Reich, representing Hitler’s vision of the new Germany which was waiting only for its moment to rise.

A
new slogan was born – ‘Hitler over Germany’ – when he made his first propaganda tour by air covering twenty cities in seven days in an aeroplane in the spring of 1932 as five election campaigns were fought in a single year. He came swooping down out of the clouds, appearing more like the Messiah he was trying to promote himself as rather than just a politician. Thousands gathered to hear him tell them that he knew of their problems because he was one of them, and he spoke of his early life of abject poverty, saying that he had turned to politics out of a sense of desperation. This was the lie behind the image he was building to create the personality and celebrity that lay behind his success. He promised them that things would get better under him, without being specific as to
how
he would accomplish the miracle. Thousands came to see and hear him because they wanted to hear something to give them hope, and to see a great show. Most were caught up in the carnival atmosphere of one of Hitler’s stage appearances, and the party’s numbers swelled.

He declared that he would unite all in a new community of the people, and social barriers would be torn down. It was an extremely appealing message to hear in those troubled times, and that made Hitler himself hugely appealing. He played his part as the caring Messiah of Germany to near perfection, a masterful creation of his and Goebbels’s cult of personality. It was so carefully stage-managed that before anyone could discover if Hitler was anything other than what they saw and heard, he was off into the air again. He was probably never so busy in his entire life, travelling anywhere to persuade the working men and the unemployed that they could all safely put their trust in him.

Hitler never felt more alive than when he commanded a massive audience. He was going to win or lose on his carefully honed talent. It was a huge gamble because he would be either his own instrument of victory, or the instrument of his downfall. At the time, Germany was primed for a Hitler, and he was primed for a Germany which needed a Hitler.

Despite all the adulation and the exhilaration he experienced, which was his only reason for doing it, there were times when his spirits sank, and like an actor giving his greatest Lear or a rock star performing his biggest stadium concert, he was prone to experiencing the dreadful low that can occur when the euphoria has passed. Some use drugs to deal with it. Hitler used Wagner. Hermann Rauschning, who was with Hitler during his rise to power, especially during 1932–1934, recalled that Hitler hummed motifs from Wagner’s operas, but when he seemed preoccupied and moody he ‘fell suddenly into a dry silence’. National Socialism was approaching a crisis. Hitler exclaimed, ‘We shall not capitulate – no, never. We may be destroyed, but if we are, we shall drag a world with us – a world in flames.’ Rauschning recalled Hitler then ‘hummed a characteristic motif from the
Götterdämmerung
’
164
– it was as though Hitler had already planned his Wagnerian ending, and like Nero in legend, he would fiddle as his Rome burned.

Distressed by Hitler’s ongoing absence, Eva Braun attempted suicide on 1 November 1932 at the age of twenty. She shot herself in the chest with her father’s pistol, while in her parents’ flat. ‘She aimed for the heart,’ the doctor told Hitler. She survived, and Hitler, wishing to avoid a scandal, brought her to the Berghof and, for a short time, paid her more attention. But he really had little time for her or anything else as he now felt he was close to bringing about the downfall of the republican government, which was powerless to stop the increasing surge of discontent and chaos spreading through Germany.

Finally the conservatives, seeing their republic close to destruction, came to the conclusion they could keep Hitler contained if he were a part of the government, and a deal was struck between
the German National People’s Party (
Deutschnationale Volkspartei
, or DNVP) and the National Socialists to form a coalition which would become the new government of Germany. On the morning of 30 January 1933, Hitler went to the presidential palace where President Hindenburg appointed him chancellor.
Machtergreifung
– the seizure of power.

The DNVP thought it could keep a rein on Hitler by allowing his party only three seats in the new Cabinet. Hitler was Chancellor, Wilhelm Frick the Reich Minister of the Interior, and Hermann Göring was minister without portfolio, although in a little-noticed development, he was named Interior Minister of Prussia, which gave him command of the largest state police force in Germany and allowed him to organise the Gestapo. Eight seats went to conservatives who were supposed to keep Hitler in check.

Hitler and Braun never appeared as a couple in public and as Hitler became Chancellor, she sat on the stage in the area reserved for VIPs as a secretary.

Listening to events on the radio at home in Bayreuth, Winifred Wagner told her children, ‘Wolf has just been elected Reich Chancellor.’ Hitler finally had the official position she wanted her prospective husband to have. But she had mixed feelings about the historic moment, and she told Wolfgang that she couldn’t imagine that he would be in that position for long, given the share of seats of the parties. She was wrong, and Hitler, having achieved his goal, no longer needed her as his wife.

On 23 March he strengthened his position by issuing an emergency decree, ‘For the Protection of the German People’, in vague terms permitting the government to ban political meetings as well as the newspapers of rival parties. He justified his actions by telling journalists that certain newspapers had criticised Richard Wagner and his purpose was ‘to preserve the present-day press from similar errors’.
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This was the Enabling Act of 1933, which granted the authority to enact laws without the participation of the
Reichstag
(the German parliament) for a period of four years, after which Hitler renewed the Act twice again, in 1937 and 1941. This allowed
him to gain total control without the need for support of a majority in the
Reichstag
. Hitler had complete power over Germany, and nothing could be done about it.

He decided that he would never marry, and told Albert Speer, ‘Very intelligent people should take stupid wives. I could never get married.’ Hanfstaengl reported that Hitler frequently made the statement that he would never marry because Germany was his only bride.
166
But he remained close to Winifred Wagner, and he arranged for her opera company to receive state subsidies and tax exemption because it was almost bankrupt. In return, she virtually handed over the annual festival to him for his self-promotion; Wagner’s operas now became his own showcase.

Hitler and Winifred Wagner were still Wolf and Winni to each other, but they were not as close as they had been. Power had put distance between them – or rather, it had given Hitler all he wanted, which did not include a wife. In public they always remained formal with each other: ‘He kissed my hand and greeted me at the
Festspielhaus
, calling me madam,’ she recalled. ‘We all had a good laugh about the play-acting.’
167

With Hitler’s backing, the Wagner family business was soon back on its feet, and some of Germany’s most celebrated conductors, such as Wilhelm Furtwängler and Richard Strauss, performed at the festival, winning Hitler’s favour and coming closer to the centre of the cult of celebrity.

Hitler proclaimed 1 May a national holiday with pay, which generations of workers had long fought for. Hitler was creating a Community of the People. The following day stormtroopers occupied trade union offices. There was no resistance; all those who opposed Hitler were subdued. The problem with the Community of the People was that there was no ‘opt out’ clause; everyone was brought into it, and all had to keep in line with unification. It was even compulsory to eat hotpot on Sundays.
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Whenever Hitler appeared in public, there were always scores of movie cameramen strategically placed to capture his image. All the film was edited in a way that presented him as a monumental
figure, a hero from a Germanic epic. Close-ups of him standing with an outstretched arm as thousands of soldiers marched past were carefully composed and juxtaposed against long shots of formations of men in unified movement. It was the symbol of this new unified Germany, with everyone marching to the same drumbeat, magnifying the insignificance of the individual against the significance of only one individual who stood alone in granite solitude –
der Führer.

All the time he was carefully honing his performance, studying his impact on his audience and continually improving his technique. He pored over pictures of himself taken by Heinrich Hoffmann so he could judge how best to improve his poses and gestures. He also took lessons from a celebrated magician, hypnotist and clairvoyant, Erik Jan Hanussen, who had built up a considerable business enterprise from a curious hunger Germany had for the paranormal.

Hanussen had predicted in March 1932, in his own weekly newspaper,
Berliner Wochenschau
, that within one year Hitler would become Reich Chancellor. In January 1933 that prediction came true. Shortly before Hitler’s appointment was announced, Hanussen had gone to the Hotel Kaiserhof to meet secretly with him, and after examining his hands and counting the bumps on his head, declared, ‘I see victory for you. It cannot be stopped.’
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Hanussen began coaching Hitler, according to psychologist Dr David Lewis (author of
The Man Who Invented Hitler
): ‘He started to teach Hitler some of the tricks of oratory and theatrical presentation which he’d learned through his years in the theatre himself. The whole thing was stage-managed.’ According to vocal expert Dr Epping Jaeger, ‘The speeches were a great stage production. It’s the emotions that dominate in the speeches. The emotions rise and fall. The technical control of his voice is extraordinary.’
170

The extraordinary effect he had on his audience was not lost on foreign visitors, as noted by Michael Fry, who wrote in 1934, ‘At times it seems as if [his words] are torn from the very heart of the man, causing him indescribable anguish.’
171
Newsweek
reported, ‘Women faint, when, with face purpled and contorted with effort,
he blows forth his magic oratory.’
172
American writer Janet Flanner observed, ‘His oratory used to wilt his collar, unglue his forelock, glaze his eyes; he was like a man hypnotised, repeating himself into a frenzy.’
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A correspondent for
Literary Digest
commented in 1933 upon Hitler’s ability to hypnotise his audience. ‘When, at the climax, he sways from one side to the other his listeners sway with him; when he leans forward and when he concludes they are either awed and silent or on their feet in a frenzy.’
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Otto Strasser commented that by the time Hitler finished one of his speeches, he had completely numbed the critical faculties of his listeners to the point where they were willing to believe anything he said. He was affected when the audience responded to him, and this reciprocal relationship was intoxicating for both him and them.
175

Film of him speaking at the Berlin Sports Palace, just a few days after being appointed Chancellor, reveals much about his technique. After being introduced, Hitler did not immediately begin speaking even as the euphoric applause faded, but stood submissive and reflective, almost nervous, giving the illusion he was unsure of himself. It was all an act to create tension among the expectant crowd. His opening words were ‘German comrades’, then he fell silent again for around nine seconds before continuing in a quiet and expressionless tone. For much of the time his arms were folded. Gradually, the voice rose, the arms were released and his gestures became more vivid. From time to time he folded his arms again until they were needed to punctuate the words and whole sentences.

It was a masterful performance. He spoke of how the time would come ‘when the millions who curse us today will stand behind us and together we will greet the new German Reich that we have created and fought a bitter and painstaking fight for – a Reich of greatness, of honour, of strength, and of the splendour of righteousness’ and, without allowing a moment’s pause, finished, ‘Amen!’ It was the climax of a speech that moved, roused and conquered his audience. Perhaps incapable of forming satisfactory personal
relationships, he had discovered, in the moments when he and the audience were almost mystically and even erotically consummated, a substitute for sexual fulfilment. His speeches always left him physically drained and dripping with sweat in what has been described as ‘blissful exhaustion bred of satisfaction’.
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His skill with his voice was no accident. He had received voice coaching from Germany’s most celebrated actor of stage and screen, Emil Jannings, who told fellow actor Curd Jürgens, ‘Adolf wants to be a great actor. I can’t make him that. I can teach him how to speak.’
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Jannings was the Laurence Olivier of Germany – a great actor with star presence. He had starred in the 1922 German silent film version of
Othello
, and as Nero in the 1925
Quo Vadis
?
Hitler loved Jannings’s portrayal of Nero, who, like Hitler, was an emperor with an obsession with fire; Hitler’s Reich was an image of the Roman Empire, with its flags and giant eagles. Jannings also worked in Hollywood, winning Oscars in 1929 for two films,
The Way of All Flesh
and
The Last Command
, and co-starred with Marlene Dietrich in the German- and English-language versions of
The Blue Angel
in 1930. During the Third Reich he made a number of films that promoted Nazism and for his contribution to German cinema, or just for teaching Hitler to speak, Goebbels named him
Staatsschauspieler
– ‘Artist of the State’ – in 1941. Through his efforts at voice-coaching, Hitler learned better how to convert people to whatever he wanted them to believe.