Lies being taught;
Mein Kampf is unintelligible ravings of a
maniac.
Now the Truth; Read and know. Vol II Chapter VIb- Orator
and Writer:
An orator receives continuous guidance from
the people before whom he speaks. This helps him to correct the direction of
his speech; for he can always gauge, by the faces of his hearers, how far they
follow and understand him, and whether his words are producing the desired
effect. But the writer does not know his reader at all. Therefore, from the outset
he does not address himself to a definite human group of persons which he has
before his eyes but must write in a general way. Hence, up to a certain extent
he must fail in psychological finesse and flexibility.
A very striking proof of this is found in the
fact that, though we had a bourgeois Press which in many cases was well written
and produced and had a circulation of millions among the people, it could not
prevent the broad masses from becoming the implacable enemies of the bourgeois class.
The deluge of papers and books published by the intellectual circles year after
year passed over the millions of the lower social strata like water over glazed
leather. This proves that one of two things must be true: either that the
matter offered in the bourgeois Press was worthless or that it is impossible to
reach the hearts of the broad masses by means of the written word alone. Of
course, the latter would be specially true where the written material shows
such little psychological insight as has hitherto been the case.
It is useless to object here, as certain big
Berlin papers of German-National tendencies have attempted to do, that this
statement is refuted by the fact that the Marxists have exercised their
greatest influence through their writings, and especially through their
principal book, published by Karl Marx. Seldom has a more superficial argument been
based on a false assumption. What gave Marxism its amazing influence over the
broad masses was not that formal printed work which sets forth the Jewish system
of ideas, but the tremendous oral propaganda carried on for years among the
masses. Out of one hundred thousand German workers scarcely one hundred know of
Marx's book. It has been studied much more in intellectual circles and
especially by the Jews than by the genuine followers of the movement who come
from the lower classes. That work was not written for the masses, but
exclusively for the intellectual leaders of the Jewish machine for conquering
the world. The engine was heated with quite different stuff: namely, the journalistic
Press. What differentiates the bourgeois Press from the Marxist Press is that
the latter is written by agitators, whereas the bourgeois Press would like to
carry on agitation by means of professional writers. The Social-Democrat
sub-editor, who almost always came directly from the meeting to the editorial
offices of his paper, felt his job on his finger-tips. But the bourgeois writer
who left his desk to appear before the masses already felt ill when he smelled
the very odour of the crowd and found that what he had written was useless to
him.
What won over millions of workpeople to the
Marxist cause was not the EX CATHEDRA style of the Marxist writers but the
formidable propagandist work done by tens of thousands of indefatigable
agitators, commencing with the leading fiery agitator down to the smallest
official in the syndicate, the trusted delegate and the platform orator.
Furthermore, there were the hundreds of thousands of meetings where these
orators, standing on tables in smoky taverns, hammered their ideas into the
heads of the masses, thus acquiring an admirable psychological knowledge of the
human material they had to deal with. And in this way they were enabled to
select the best weapons for their assault on the citadel of public opinion. In
addition to all this there were the gigantic mass-demonstrations with
processions in which a hundred thousand men took part. All this was calculated
to impress on the petty-hearted individual the proud conviction that, though a small
worm, he was at the same time a cell of the great dragon before whose
devastating breath the hated bourgeois world would one day be consumed in fire
and flame, and the dictatorship of the proletariat would celebrate its
conclusive victory.
It is difficult to remove emotional
prejudices, psychological bias, feelings, etc., and to put others in their
place. Success depends here on imponderable conditions and influences. Only the
orator who is gifted with the most sensitive insight can estimate all this.
Even the time of day at which the speech is delivered has a decisive influence
on its results. The same speech, made by the same orator and on the same theme,
will have very different results according as it is delivered at ten o'clock in
the forenoon, at three in the afternoon, or in the evening. When I first
engaged in public speaking I arranged for meetings to take place in the
forenoon and I remember particularly a demonstration that we held in the Munich
Kindl Keller 'Against the Oppression of German Districts.' That was the biggest
hall then in Munich and the audacity of our undertaking was great. In order to
make the hour of the meeting attractive for all the members of our movement and
the other people who might come, I fixed it for ten o'clock on a Sunday
morning. The result was depressing. But it was very instructive. The hall was
filled. The impression was profound, but the general feeling was cold as ice. Nobody
got warmed up, and I myself, as the speaker of the occasion, felt profoundly
unhappy at the thought that I could not establish the slightest contact with my
audience. I do not think I spoke worse than before, but the effect seemed
absolutely negative. I left the hall very discontented, but also feeling that I
had gained a new experience. Later on I tried the same kind of experiment, but
always with the same results.
That was nothing to be wondered at. If one
goes to a theatre to see a matinée performance and then attends an evening
performance of the same play one is astounded at the difference in the
impressions created. A sensitive person recognizes for himself the fact that
these two states of mind caused by the matinee and the evening performance
respectively are quite different in themselves. The same is true of cinema productions.
This latter point is important; for one may say of the theatre that perhaps in
the afternoon the actor does not make the same effort as in the evening. But
surely it cannot be said that the cinema is different in the afternoon from
what it is at nine o'clock in the evening. No, here the time exercises a
distinct influence, just as a room exercises a distinct influence on a person.
There are rooms which leave one cold, for reasons which are difficult to
explain. There are rooms which refuse steadfastly to allow any favourable
atmosphere to be created in them. Moreover, certain memories and traditions
which are present as pictures in the human mind may have a determining
influence on the impression produced. Thus, a representation of Parsifal at Bayreuth
will have an effect quite different from that which the same opera produces in
any other part of the world. The mysterious charm of the House on the 'Festival
Heights' in the old city of The Margrave cannot be equalled or substituted
anywhere else.
In all these cases one deals with the problem
of influencing the freedom of the human will. And that is true especially of
meetings where there are men whose wills are opposed to the speaker and who
must be brought around to a new way of thinking. In the morning and during the
day it seems that the power of the human will rebels with its strongest energy against
any attempt to impose upon it the will or opinion of another. On the other
hand, in the evening it easily succumbs to the domination of a stronger will.
Because really in such assemblies there is a contest between two opposite
forces. The superior oratorical art of a man who has the compelling character
of an apostle will succeed better in bringing around to a new way of thinking
those who have naturally been subjected to a weakening of their forces of
resistance rather than in converting those who are in full possession of their
volitional and intellectual energies.
The mysterious artificial dimness of the
Catholic churches also serves this purpose, the burning candles, the incense,
the thurible, etc.
In this struggle between the orator and the
opponent whom he must convert to his cause this marvellous sensibility towards
the psychological influences of propaganda can hardly ever be availed of by an
author. Generally speaking, the effect of the writer's work helps rather to
conserve, reinforce and deepen the foundations of a mentality already existing.
All really great historical revolutions were not produced by the written word.
At most, they were accompanied by it.
It is out of the question to think that the
French Revolution could have been carried into effect by philosophizing
theories if they had not found an army of agitators led by demagogues of the
grand style. These demagogues inflamed popular passion that had been already
aroused, until that volcanic eruption finally broke out and convulsed the whole
of Europe. And the same happened in the case of the gigantic Bolshevik revolution
which recently took place in Russia. It was not due to the writers on Lenin's
side but to the oratorical activities of those who preached the doctrine of
hatred and that of the innumerable small and great orators who took part in the
agitation.
The masses of illiterate Russians were not fired
to Communist revolutionary enthusiasm by reading the theories of Karl Marx but
by the promises of paradise made to the people by thousands of agitators in the
service of an idea.
It was always so, and it will always be so.
It is just typical of our pig-headed
intellectuals, who live apart from the practical world, to think that a writer
must of necessity be superior to an orator in intelligence. This point of view
was once exquisitely illustrated by a critique, published in a certain National
paper which I have already mentioned, where it was stated that one is often
disillusioned by reading the speech of an acknowledged great orator in print.
That reminded me of another article which came into my hands during the War. It
dealt with the speeches of Lloyd George, who was then Minister of Munitions,
and examined them in a painstaking way under the microscope of criticism. The
writer made the brilliant statement that these speeches showed inferior
intelligence and learning and that, moreover, they were banal and commonplace
productions. I myself procured some of these speeches, published in pamphlet
form, and had to laugh at the fact that a normal German quill-driver did not in
the least understand these psychological masterpieces in the art of influencing
the masses. This man criticized these speeches exclusively according to the
impression they made on his own blasé mind, whereas the great British Demagogue
had produced an immense effect on his audience through them, and in the widest
sense on the whole of the British populace. Looked at from this point of view,
that Englishman's speeches were most wonderful achievements, precisely because
they showed an astounding knowledge of the soul of the broad masses of the
people. For that reason their effect was really penetrating. Compare with them
the futile stammerings of a Bethmann-Hollweg. On the surface his speeches were
undoubtedly more intellectual, but they just proved this man's inability to
speak to the people, which he really could not do. Nevertheless, to the average
stupid brain of the German writer, who is, of course, endowed with a lot of
scientific learning, it came quite natural to judge the speeches of the English
Minister--which were made for the purpose of influencing the masses--by the
impression which they made on his own mind, fossilized in its abstract
learning. And it was more natural for him to compare them in the light of that
impression with the brilliant but futile talk of the German statesman, which of
course appealed to the writer's mind much more favourably. That the genius of
Lloyd George was not only equal but a thousandfold superior to that of a
Bethmann-Hollweg is proved by the fact that he found for his speeches that form
and expression which opened the hearts of his people to him and made these
people carry out his will absolutely. The primitive quality itself of those
speeches, the originality of his expressions, his choice of clear and simple
illustration, are examples which prove the superior political capacity of this Englishman.
For one must never judge the speech of a statesman to his people by the impression
which it leaves on the mind of a university professor but by the effect it
produces on the people. And this is the sole criterion of the orator's genius.
The astonishing development of our movement,
which was created from
nothing a few years ago and is to-day singled
out for persecution by all
the internal and external enemies of our
nation, must be attributed to
the constant recognition and practical
application of those principles.
Written matter also played an important part
in our movement; but at the stage of which I am writing it served to give
an equal and uniform education to the directors of the movement,
in the upper as well as in the lower grades, rather than to convert the
masses of our adversaries. It was only in very rare cases that a convinced and
devoted Social Democrat or Communist was induced to acquire an understanding of
our WELTANSCHAUUNG or to study a criticism of his own by procuring and reading
one of our pamphlets or even one of our books. Even a newspaper is rarely read
if it does not bear the stamp of a party affiliation. Moreover, the reading of
newspapers helps little; because the general picture given by a single number
of a newspaper is so confused and produces such a fragmentary impression that
it really does not influence the occasional reader. And where a man has to
count his pennies it cannot be assumed that, exclusively for the purpose of
being objectively informed, he will become a regular reader or subscriber to a
paper which opposes his views. Only one who has already joined a movement will regularly
read the party organ of that movement, and especially for the purpose of
keeping himself informed of what is happening in the movement.
It is quite different with the 'spoken'
leaflet. Especially if it be distributed gratis it will be taken up by one
person or another, all the more willingly if its display title refers to a
question about which everybody is talking at the moment. Perhaps the reader,
after having read through such a leaflet more or less thoughtfully, will have
new viewpoints and mental attitudes and may give his attention to a new movement.
But with these, even in the best of cases, only a small impulse will be given,
but no definite conviction will be created; because the leaflet can do nothing
more than draw attention to something and can become effective only by bringing
the reader subsequently into a situation where he is more fundamentally
informed and instructed. Such instruction must always be given at the mass
assembly.
Mass assemblies are also necessary for the
reason that, in attending them, the individual who felt himself formerly only
on the point of joining the new movement, now begins to feel isolated and in
fear of being left alone as he acquires for the first time the picture of a great
community which has a strengthening and encouraging effect on most people.
Brigaded in a company or battalion, surrounded by his companions, he will march
with a lighter heart to the attack than if he had to march alone. In the crowd
he feels himself in some way thus sheltered, though in reality there are a
thousand arguments against such a feeling.
Mass demonstrations on the grand scale not
only reinforce the will of the individual but they draw him still closer to the
movement and help to create an ESPRIT DE CORPS. The man who appears first as
the representative of a new doctrine in his place of business or in his factory
is bound to feel himself embarrassed and has need of that reinforcement which
comes from the consciousness that he is a member of a great community. And only
a mass demonstration can impress upon him the greatness of this community. If,
on leaving the shop or mammoth factory, in which he feels very small indeed, he
should enter a vast assembly for the first time and see around him thousands
and thousands of men who hold the same opinions; if, while still seeking his
way, he is gripped by the force of mass-suggestion which comes from the excitement
and enthusiasm of three or four thousand other men in whose midst he finds
himself; if the manifest success and the consensus of thousands confirm the truth and justice of
the new teaching and for the first time raise doubt in his mind as to the truth
of the opinions held by himself up to now--then he submits himself to the
fascination of what we call mass-suggestion. The will, the yearning and indeed
the strength of thousands of people are in each individual. A man who enters such
a meeting in doubt and hesitation leaves it inwardly fortified; he has become a
member of a community.
The National Socialist Movement should never
forget this, and it should never allow itself to be influenced by these
bourgeois duffers who think they know everything but who have foolishly gambled
away a great State, together with their own existence and the supremacy of
their own class. They are overflowing with ability; they can do everything, and
they know everything. But there is one thing they have not known how to do, and
that is how to save the German people from falling into the arms of Marxism. In
that they have shown themselves most pitiably and miserably impotent. So that
the present opinion they have of themselves is only equal to their conceit.
Their pride and stupidity are fruits of the same tree.
If these people try to disparage the
importance of the spoken word to-day, they do it only because they realize--God
be praised and thanked--how futile all their own speechifying has been.
Adolf
Hitler
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