A New Image of the Fuhrer

The crumbling of the Fuhrer myth was inevitable. Hitler couldn’t keep up a façade that was so contrary to his true intentions and interests. Empty promises could not keep people of Germany satisfied for long. He failed to maintain his image as a bulwark of truth and prescience, above his party and above the daily lives of the people. Kershaw says, “The images of Fuhrer and Party, which for almost a decade after the ‘seizure of power’ had been largely separate and even diametrically opposed, were now starting to blur in public consciousness,” (199). The realities of war exacerbated this blurring.

The bombing raids were especially demoralizing for a people who had hoped for a quick and easy victory. War now had direct and internal effects on Germany. The longer they continued, the less it seemed as if Hitler had control over the situation and would be able to deliver on the promises that he had been making. The veil hiding the chasm between his rhetoric and the reality Germany was facing was being torn down as the people were facing the ill effects of war. Kershaw writes, “the image of the Fuhrer as the military genius bore scant relation to their daily experience of reality,” (209). The mood turned increasingly bitter and depressed as people were forced to face a new image of the Fuhrer.

The question that the weakening of the Fuhrer myth leads one to ask is why was there not more opposition, or stronger opposition, to an unpopular party and an increasingly unpopular leader? Many of the quotes that Kershaw uses in his book were collected from Nazi records, and may have only been heard by quite a small number of people. The widespread distribution of such sentiments was hardly possible with the reign of intimidation and terror, which left opposition isolated and hushed. However, an opposition group, the ‘White Rose’, did come into being and offered a discontented and rebellious voice in pamphlets and graffiti, so perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it was the mobilization of the disaffected in order to build an effective counter-movement that was so difficult to achieve. Feelings of discontent and weariness were, by themselves, not enough. The Nazis may have been unpopular in the eyes of many, but they still held power, and the consequences of trying to wrest this power from them were severe.