Hitler and His Charisma --

Hitler and his Charisma -- a Profile in Power

How and why was Adolph Hitler able to take control over Germany and assume such frightening, uniform authority over the state's entire power structure in such a relatively short period of historical time? In his book Hitler: Profiles in Power historian Ian Kershaw presents the figure of Hitler as kind of a historical paradox. Hitler was a relatively unimportant person in Germany, before he assumed leadership of the National Socialist Party. But by deploying his charismatic political leadership and authority, Hitler was able to consolidate his power at a fragile time of German history and assume control over the Nazi party and then over the entire German state apparatus of power.

Hitler used his personal charisma and his persona as a way of consolidating as well as justifying his authority. In his rhetoric, he portrayed the German state as vulnerable and violated by the world community, and in need of new leadership. The National Socialist Party, like Germany itself, was also in search of new leadership. Before Hitler gained control over the National Socialists, the party was ideologically divided and characterized by personal infighting. Hitler's overt and passionate racism and his fanatical nationalism made him a unifying, rather than a polarizing figure for the party as well as for Germany. Germans feared that they would never regain their old status as a nation, and would be forever military disenfranchised and oppressed. The National Socialists desired to gain control over the government, and knew they could not do so without a popular figure at the helm of the authority of the party. Hitler skillfully played different figures against one another to gain command.

Hitler initially used the legal system to justify his assumption of power after the burning of the Reichstag. Then, he created a new legal system, full of laws that codified anti-Semitism and normalized this noxious racial ideology. Hitler thus recreated the laws of the land to support his militaristic vision of Germany's future. But to call Hitler's control over Germany legalistic in nature would be somewhat of a misnomer. According to Ian Kershaw, Hitler created a highly bureaucratic state where it was difficult to know how decisions were being made, or who was really approving decisions. This allowed Hitler to retain some of the factionalism that had characterized the early life of the party, and to continue to 'play' different political figures and factions off of one another in state conflicts, to support his own power, so that he always 'won' in the end. Ultimately, all legal authority rested in Hitler's hands.

By undercutting the sanctity of a legal system and making the true control of the state rest in the hands of one, singular authority, Hitler was also able to distance himself from potentially unpopular political decisions. This sense of unstable authority kept all lower officials constantly in a state of anxiety as to their opinion in the eyes of the great leader, as to whether they would be blamed when things went amiss, and thus everyone catered to all of Hitler's whims. Kershaw calls the state's structure almost feudal-like in its arrangement, with every lower official striving to please the lord. Although Hitler kept himself abreast of all of the actions of his minions, lower-level figures were often in the dark as to Hitler's future plans. This means that for some of the most notorious legal decision of the Reich there is no single document or signature that can implicate Hitler, although virtually every anti-Semitic decision made by the regime can be traced back to his leadership.