Hitler

Whatever the ingredients of this mysterious magnetism were, it allowed Hitler to gather 20 staunch collaborators, entirely subject to his authority, who became as many power conveyors on the members of the party first and on Germany after 1933. Each Nazi leader collaborated within his own sphere of competence to promote the cult of personality of Hitler and the nationalist objectives proposed by the Führer with ruthless determination and total loyalty. Without the support of his troops brilliantly led by Ernst Röhm, the National Socialist Party would have remained a marginal organization. Without the genius of Goebbels, who organized a massive propaganda until the end of the war, it would have been very difficult for Hitler to access a mythological status. Without the police structures invented by Göring, the political opposition would have been much stronger. Without the coldly operational and ruthless mind of Heinrich Himmler, the large-scale extermination program would have been less effective. Without the remarkable sense of organization of Albert Speer, minister of Armaments, the war effort would have collapsed long before 1945. All those men united around their leader, embracing his doctrine, his objectives, and sharing his determination, had a powerful effect on the German nation. The Hitler salute: a trivial gesture with serious consequences From the seizure of power in 1933, the Hitler salute with the arm stretched out accompanied by the greeting ‘Heil Hitler’ became the trademark of the National Socialist Party and a gesture of courtesy to greet someone. A trivial gesture that could be repeated twenty or thirty times during the day, the Hitler salute had a much more pernicious role than what could be seen at first glance. It helped to quickly identify the dissidents and those who lacked political fervor. A reluctance to use the Hitler salute immediately drew the attention of the political police. The citizen who dared show his opposition to Nazism brought the Gestapo at his home and threatened the security of his parents and friends. To have a friend who was an enemy of the regime was reprehensible and sufficient to justify an interrogation session by the Gestapo. It opened a door on the concentration camps and no legal or judicial body could protect the individuals against the excesses of the state. As a result, even if the friends of one who opposed the regime shared his anti-Nazi feelings, they exercised pressures to make him. comply with the requirements of the state or they took a distance from him and stopped talking to him or seeing him. This debate will remain open for a long time. Ii is my wish that this book will allow many readers to become aware of the dangers of power and of the fragility of human soul where the best and the worst interact each day. At the end of the road, we may very well discover our own intolerance, aggressiveness, thirst of the power, passivity in the face of injustice and our ease to absolve our own faults.