ABSTRACT
Nazi Germany is inexplicable without Adolf Hitler. What was the source of this man’s power to sway millions of people to follow him with passionate commitment, even to death? How could one man mobilize a nation raised on Luther, Bach, and Beethoven to conquer Europe and methodically eliminate its avowed enemies in gas chambers? An examination of Hitler’s personality, his messianic complex, his flair for oratory, his ideology, and his attempt to translate that ideology into reality through propaganda and mass spectacles should help answer these questions.
