I think the chaotic political atmosphere, rather than other social or economic problems, affected the thought process of Hitler the most during his stay in Vienna.
Vienna then was “an empire...struggling to cope with new social and political forces pulling it apart, decaying” (31). A party by Schonerer was one of the new political forces that was deteriorating the old political order. He brought aggression to parliament, and he emphasized radical German nationalism and anti-Semitism. Hitler supported this party’s ideologies, and his anti-liberal, anti-socialist, anti-semantic feelings became stronger.
Exposure to racist literature that was “prominent on Vienna newspaper stands”(51) (Ostara,for example) also affected Hitler’s thinking process, and I would consider these readings as political propaganda rather than literary productions. These political propagandas surely affected Hitler. For example, his hatred and fear towards the Social Democracy was “‘confirmed’ by voracious but one-sided reading”(60). So, reading those anti-Semitic propaganda must have increased Hitler's anti-Semantic emotions.
Another new political force besides the one by Schonerer that impressed Hitler was the Christian Social Party. Hitler was most impressed by its unique usage of political propaganda to influence ‘the psychological instincts’” (35) of the people. This party used anti-semitism to collect its supporters who were “only too ready to vent their resentment on Jewish financiers” (34). This makes perfect sense because Jews were an easy target to concentrate public’s anger and fear towards its politics.
The principals of these parties helped develop his method and motto as a Nazi leader. In order to attract the biggest crowd possible, Hitler needed to use political propaganda well. Through Christian Social Party, he learned the necessity to strategically appeal to the mass, “classes whose existence was threatened”(34). He also learned that people like to blame others for their hardships. Schonerer’s party made it easy for him to choose a specific race to blame the public's unhappiness upon. Hitler’s anti-Semitism began early, and was enhanced by his everyday readings. So, he chose to makes the Jews the ultimate victims of his massive political movement.
So I think that anti-semantic ideology and political propaganda are some of the external things that affected and developed Hitler's Nazi mentality.
I would agree with this. The political atmosphere that Hitler was exposed to and in the midst of adds more depth to the question of the formation of Hitler's antisemitism, rather than simply looking to nature or nurture.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Hitler interacted with Jews on a personal level through his business endeavors, and the records of his acquaintances claim that he got along with a number of Jewish people. While he may certainly have been masking some of his feelings for his own benefit, it would seem that someone who would later show such blatant and vicious racism would need outside sources of influence to grow into the person Hitler later was.