Hitler and the Nazi Cult of Film and Fame by Munn Michael

Author:Munn, Michael [Munn, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2013-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE DEPTHS OF HELL

Hitler felt his most important act as Chancellor was to show his Third Reich as a modern industrial state to its foreign visitors; indeed in many areas it led the world, such as its development of airships. Yet Hitler en-couraged outdated and mythical elements to Germanic life that were rooted in lore and culture, such as the glorification of blood, soil and farm life, and the revival of the ancient Germanic drama played as open-air theatre. He also practised the Cult of the Blood Banner; Hitler passed along endless rows of flags carrying the sacred Blutfahne flag, which was said to have been carried by the fallen Nazis during the Munich Putsch, and from which mystic power flowed into all the banners and flags it touched.

His more essential duties as Chancellor were not his priority. He was lazy but gave the illusion of being busy. He was seldom in Berlin to conduct business but travelled to give speeches; he ensured he was always in demand. He moved from one theatrical stage to another, and the audience was always guaranteed. Workers were fed with the myth of their Führer’s years of toil and hardship. He was introduced onto each stage as ‘The greatest worker of the party, Adolf Hitler’, and he repeatedly told the people, as if it was one of his greatest hits, ‘Germany is before us. Germany marches within us and Germany is behind us.’ He never told them anything other than rhetoric; his whole act was built upon favourite sound bites, which were favourites like hit songs that the people expected to hear over and over. But he never gave a speech that had the eternal ring of a Gettysburg Address.

After each tour Hitler grew vague and apathetic, lost in the fantasy of his youth of living in style and having to do little to maintain it all. ‘A single stroke of genius’, he would say, ‘is more valuable than a lifetime of uninspired drudgery.’

He rarely stayed in one place for any length of time but he frequently stayed at Bayreuth, which had become a Nazi stronghold. A Jewish resident, Pinchas Joeli, recalled, ‘I stood in front of the house in Richard-Wagner-Strasse and a unit of SA men marched past. They sang a song. “When Jewish blood spurts from the knife, things are going well.”’334

The citizens of Bayreuth were proud of their opera house, which Hitler elevated to a place of worship and where he held Nazi conferences which always began with music from Rienzi.335 This was the model for the spectacle which he adapted to his political career but on a grander scale. The parade at the Day of German Art in Munich in 1938, celebrating 2,000 years of German culture, exemplified Hitler’s penchant for the grand operatic spectacle combined with what was supposedly a glimpse into Germany’s past: knights on horseback, massive flags, floats showcasing the Hoheitsadler – the state symbol of the eagle and swastika – all representing the chosen German people.

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