Hitler's Charisma: Leading Millions into the AbyssAt the age of twenty-four, in 1913, Adolf Hitler was eking out a living as a painter of pictures for tourists in Munich. Nothing marked him in any way as exceptional, but he did possess certain distinguishing characteristics: a capacity to hate, an inability to accept criticism, and a massive overconfidence in his own abilities. He was a socially and emotionally inadequate individual without direction, from whence came a sense of personal mission that would transform these weaknesses and liabilities into strengths—certainties that would provide him not only with a sense of identity, but of purpose in a communal enterprise. This is the focus of Laurence Rees’s social, psychological, and historical investigation into a personality that would end up articulating the hopes and dreams of millions of Germans. (With 16 pages of black-and-white illustrations) |
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
PART ONE THE ROAD TO POWER | 7 |
Discovering a Mission | 9 |
Making a Connection | 21 |
Searching for a Hero | 33 |
Developing a Vision | 44 |
Offering Hope in a Crisis | 56 |
Being Certain | 68 |
The Lure of the Radical | 117 |
The Thrill of Release | 131 |
Turning Vision into Reality | 145 |
The Great Gamble | 179 |
Charisma and Overconfidence | 203 |
False Hope and the Murder | 232 |
Last Chance | 259 |
The Death of Charisma | 272 |
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