Читать книгу Adolf Hitler - Clemens von Lengsfeld - Страница 16

The Drummer

Hitler was regarded as a hogger of the limelight and the best street orator in his party. They did not make sure of his convictions but were interested in the way and manner he created and changed convictions.

And at that time there was a spectacle in Munich that in part bore all the features of a Wagnerian opera. In the Bavarian state capital two extreme political models were tried within a short space of time as if in fast forward mode. A particularly radical version of the councils idea in line with the Soviet model was to gain the upper hand in this for a short time in April 1919. Hitler was mesmerised by the general strikes and mass rallies even though he despised the chaos of the same. On the other hand, the soldier back from the Front may no longer have had the same enthusiasm for the stiff and sterile ritual of military parades he had in the beginning. With march music one had set off for a war, the brutality of which had not been seen previously in the history of war. In the trenches of the Western Front the mass slaughter had dragged on for years. Prior to that, the military had been the unchallenged ruling and identity-shaping caste for the outside world. Brisk marching in rank and file and the movements of the trained bodies, which had the effect of wheels in a colossal machine, enthused the populace, who had apparently become bored of the quiet harmony of a decade of peace.

Hitler was at first fascinated to see how communist street orators and agitators communicated with the masses. To see how the spark leapt between the two, speaker and listeners, “merged“ into an “action community” ⁴⁸ enthused him and lodged deep in his mind as an aspirational model. His mind, full of urgent impatience, sought fresh excitement.