Quotes from Ian Kershaw

What Hitler did was advertise unoriginal ideas in an original way. He gave voice to phobias, prejudice, and resentment as no one else could. Others could say the same thing but make no impact at all. It was less what he said, than how he said it that counted. As it was to be throughout his 'career', presentation was what mattered.

You have delivered up our holy German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time,' wrote Ludendorff – who had experience of what he was writing about – to his former wartime colleague Hindenburg. 'I solemnly prophesy that this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery. Future generations will damn you in your grave for what you have done.

Hitler was frank about the need to focus all energy on one goal, on attacking a single enemy to avoid fragmentation and disunity. 'The art of all great popular leaders,' he proclaimed, 'consisted at all times in concentrating the attention of the masses on a single enemy.

The assertiveness of German nationalism at the turn of the century was in no small measure aggression born of fear – not just the traditional antagonism towards the French and the growing rivalry with Great Britain, but also the presumed threat seen in the Slavic east, and, internally, the perceived looming menace of Social Democracy, and culturally pessimistic worries about national degeneration and decline.

They were expendable.

Strasser hoped to replace the Programme of 1920. In November, he took the first steps in composing the Community's own draft programme. It advocated a racially integrated German nation at the heart of a central European customs union, the basis of a united states of Europe.

Our enemies are small worms,' he told his generals. 'I saw them in Munich.

It seemed to us that we were witnessing a total break in the evolution of mankind, the complete collapse of man as a rational being. Heda Margolius Kovály, Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941–1968 (1986)

But it was predominantly a reflection of Hitler's concept of politics as essentially agitation, propaganda, and 'struggle'. Organizational forms remained of little concern to him as long as his own freedom of action was not constrained by them. The crucial issue was the leadership of the 'political struggle'.

what came naturally to Hitler was to stoke up the hatred of others by pouring out to them the hatred that was so deeply embedded in himself.

the reshaping of his self-image also reflected how his supporters were beginning to see their leader. His followers portrayed him, in fact, as Germany's 'heroic' leader before he came to see himself in that light.

That the notion of 'national community' gained its definition by those it excluded from it...