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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page essay that reviews and discusses Ian Kershaw's 1987 text The Hitler Myth. Kershaw addresses the cultural and contextual circumstances that sustained the popularity of Hitler and the Nazi Party. The principle thesis of Kershaw's study is that it was not Hitler's personality, per se, or his radical Nazi ideology that were the principle factors in the popularity equation, but rather that the source of Hitler's power lay in the social and political values that were already existent at the time. By constructing the "Hitler myth," Nazi propagandists created the "Fuhrer cult" in order to achieve their political objectives and capitalized on the biases, prejudices and beliefs that were prevalent at that time. In so doing, they created a cultural phenomenon that managed to achieve national unity, where previously there had been only political, economic and social division. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khkerhit.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
ever witnessed. Therefore, it seems incongruous to learn that he was, in fact, one of the most popular leaders of all time. There have been few political leaders
who inspired as high a degree of devotion among their constituency as did Hitler in the 1930s and 40s. This, of course, brings up the question of how a people
known for their rationalism and intelligence could have come so firmly under the sway of Hitler. Ian Kershaw in his text The Hitler Myth explains the cultural and contextual
circumstances that sustained the popularity of one of historys most notorious dictators and his extraordinary hold on the German people. The principle thesis of Kershaws study is that it was
not Hitlers personality, per se, or his radical Nazi ideology that were the principle factors in the popularity equation, but rather that the source of Hitlers power lay in the
social and political values that were already existent at the time. By constructing the "Hitler myth," Nazi propagandists created the "Fuhrer cult" in order to achieve their political objectives and
capitalized on the biases, prejudices and beliefs that were prevalent at that time. In so doing, they created a cultural phenomenon that managed to achieve national unity, where previously there
had been only political, economic and social division. Kershaw begins by explaining that the "idea and image of a Fuhrer of the Germans had...already been molded long before it
was fitted to Hitler."1 German nationalism, Kershaw shows, was already linked to the concept of a strong leader, who embodied the idealized image of the true German, which was founded
primarily on romanticism. In other words, there was a cultural readiness to place all the peoples hopes in the "leadership, in the authority of a strong man."2 Qualities, such
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