Cult of Personality (and extreme racism)

It is evident that Adolph Hitler was himself racist and relied on underlying racial prejudices in the midst of a severe economic and national identity crisis to seize power in Post World War One Germany. Writing in Mein Kampf, Hitler cites what he believed to be a “merciless struggle against the universal poisoner of all nations, international Jewry ( Boyer 192).” He subsequently states that the German national body still possesses “great unmixed stocks of Nordic-Germanic people whom we may consider the most precious treasure for our future (Boyer 208),” showing his racial motives very clearly. I find this not interesting, but gravely important in studying how populist figures and politicians in dire political climates use the issues of race or nationality as topics of policy and fear. The topic of who is welcome and who is not is something that every society faces, but particularly on the basis of religious, ethnic, racial, and national identity is something that I think warrants discussion. I ask then how underlying prejudices affect our societies and how they get interwoven into our cultures. Simply we can say Hitler was racist and antisemitic but critically we might benefit from discussing how he was these things and how that type of thinking affects culture and policy.

One Reply to “Cult of Personality (and extreme racism)”

  1. In response to this, I completely agree with how you see this excerpt of “Mein Kampf” and think you do an excellent job of relaying your thoughts. As for your question, I would note that before Hitler took power, many people made Jews, Communists, and others their scapegoats for their struggles and defeat during the first World War, and that is where Hitler’s hatred of certain groups came from. These were also major concerns of his regime, and events such as the Parliament Fire in 1933 and the start of the Euthanasia Program should have been foreshadowing for things to come. It’s also to be noted that Hitler was excellent at uniting people behind his ideas, and used propaganda, pageantry, and other things to allow the German population to share his ideas and turn the blind eye on some of Hitler’s more extreme plans.

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