The Mesmeric Power of Hitler’s Voice
Adolf Hitler was renowned as a captivating orator, able to command the attention of his audience with a voice that was both “rasping” and “monotonous” – like an “electric road drill.” But the true source of his rhetorical power went beyond mere vocal delivery. As one observer noted, there was a “steel fibre” in Hitler’s arguments, a relentless logic that was “terrific” in its force.
Even those who found his ideas abhorrent could not help but be drawn in by the sheer intellectual power of his speeches. His premises may have been “false, crazy and uncivilized,” but once you accepted them, his conclusions followed with an “insane logic” that was “unanswerable.” It was as if the madness of his worldview had granted him a “terrifying power of arguing logically.”
The Cunning Beneath the Drill
Yet Hitler’s rhetorical prowess was more than just a matter of logical force. Underlying the “electric drill” of his speeches was a mind of remarkable cunning, using language as an “instrument of power” with “the nicest precision.”
His speeches were carefully crafted to “rouse passions, obscure inconvenient truths, and induce the belief in untruths” – all in service of his singular objectives: power for himself and revenge against those he perceived as his enemies. As one analyst put it, Hitler possessed a “colossal cunning, which perhaps amounts to genius” in his ability to manipulate his audience.
The Paradox of Hitler’s Rhetoric
The paradox is that while Hitler’s speeches were filled with protestations of Germany’s desire for peace, his actions told a very different story. He did not openly “glorify war” in the way one might expect, but rather cloaked his aggressive intentions behind a veneer of morality and victimhood.
This ability to paint a “half-mythical or three-quarters-mythical world of gods and devils,” with Germany and its leader as the heroic protagonists, was a key factor in Hitler’s ability to maintain popular support even as he led the country into a devastating war. The terrifying power of his rhetoric lay not in its overt militarism, but in its subtle, insidious ability to reshape reality in the minds of his followers.
