It is September 1934.
The journalist William Shirer is in Nuremberg to cover the six-day Nazi rally.
As he writes in his diary, Shirer explains how an ordinary, somewhat clownish man has captivated a grievance-filled people and convinced them that his cruel path will lead to a restoration of their rightful national greatness.
From Shirer’s diary: 1
September 4, 1934
Like a Roman emperor Hitler rode into this medieval town at sundown today past solid phalanxes of wildly cheering Nazis who packed the narrow streets.
Tens of thousands of Swastika flags blot out the Gothic beauties of the place.
The streets, hardly wider than alleys, are a sea of brown and black uniforms.
I got my first glimpse of Hitler as he drove by our hotel.
He fumbled his cap with his left hand as he stood in his car acknowledging the delirious welcome with somewhat feeble Nazi salutes from his right arm.
His face had no particular expression at all – I expected it to be stronger – and for the life of me I could not quite comprehend what hidden springs he undoubtedly unloosed in the hysterical mob which was greeting him so wildly.
About ten o’clock tonight I got caught in a mob of ten thousand hysterics who jammed the moat in front of Hitler’s hotel, shouting ‘We want our Fuhrer.’
I was a little shocked at the faces, especially those of the women, when Hitler finally appeared on the balcony for a moment.
They looked up at him as if he were a Messiah.
September 5, 1934
I’m beginning to comprehend, I think, some of the reasons for Hitler’s astounding success.
Borrowing a chapter from the Roman church, he is restoring pageantry and colour and mysticism to the drab lives of twentieth-century Germans.
This morning’s opening meeting was more than a gorgeous show; it also had something of the mysticism and religious fervour of an Easter or Christmas Mass in a great Gothic cathedral.
The hall was a sea of brightly coloured flags.
Even Hitler’s arrival was made dramatic.
The band stopped playing.
There was a hush over the thirty thousand people packed in the hall.
Then the band struck up the Badenweiler March, a very catchy tune, and used only, I’m told, when Hitler makes his big entries.
Hitler appeared in the back of the auditorium, and followed by his aides, he strode slowly down the long centre aisle while thirty thousand hands were raised in salute.
Then an immense symphony orchestra played Beethoven’s Egmont Overture.
Great Klieg lights played on the stage, where Hitler sat surrounded by a hundred party officials and officers of the army and navy.
Behind them the ‘blood flag,’ the one carried down the streets of Munich in the ill-fated [Beer Hall] putsch [in 1923].
When the music was over, Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s closest confidant, rose and slowly read the names of the Nazi ‘martyrs’ – brown-shirts who had been killed in the struggle for power -- a roll-call of the dead, and the thirty thousand seemed very moved.
In such an atmosphere no wonder, then, that every word dropped by Hitler seemed like an inspired Word from on high.
Man’s or at least the German’s critical faculty is swept away at such moments, and every lie pronounced is accepted as high truth itself.
***
Music, lights, flags, veneration of martyrs.
These are the elements of a Trump rally.
To raise the question whether Trump is like Hitler is to trigger accusations one suffers from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
But note the striking parallels.
Both men understand the persuasive effect of spectacle on aggrieved people leading tedious lives.
******************************
I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
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Shirer, W. L. 1. (1941). Berlin diary: the journal of a foreign correspondent, 1934-1941. New York, A. A. Knopf. Selections have been edited for brevity.
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