TD: Jahrgang 13, Heft 2016, 1, Seite 71–84

Abstract

Es folgt die Zusammenfassung in englischer Sprache following the article short description

Being the incarnation of bourgeois ordinariness, Hitler was not an ingenious seducer but most of all the abysmal German philistine. What made his book “Mein Kampf” so successful was the fact that there was no need to read it. The attitude towards life and ideology of wide parts of the German people were congruent with that what was presented and propagated in “Mein Kampf”. The book offered all that what thrills the philistine: abysmal vulgarities, resentments expressed by inappropriate metaphors, endless rants, rhetorically prettied up platitudes. This way Hitler’s mediocrity became the fate of a nation which allowed him to step by step dissuade it from humanity and culture. The rise of National Socialism did not require any kind of skilful seduction, no ingenious demonism or mendacity. All Hitler had to do was being himself: mediocre, primitive, without any virtues or merits.