First Listed Game Hitler example essay topic

All propaganda has to be popular and has to adapt its spiritual level to the perception of the intelligent- -Hitler Persuasion is a very powerful instrument. Adolf Hitler knew that. The definition of the word "persuade" means "to induce or undertake a course of action or embrace a point of view by means of argument, reasoning, or entreaty". Hitler also used propaganda to persuade the masses. The definition of "propagate" is "1) to reproduce or cause to reproduce; breed, and 2) to make known, publicize". Propaganda was Hitler's most effective way of conveying messages to the masses.

Whether slandering America, promoting the seizure of France, or displaying how grotesque the Jews are, propaganda always came through in getting the point across. One may ask how could the atrocities of World War II happen. One may ask how Hitler could pull of such a horrible scheme. It took a great many things working together in a unique combination to create the monstrous disaster of Hitler. It was not just Hitler, it was not just Germany, it was not just the mishandling of the aftermath of the first World War, it was all of that and it was the economic disasters in the US, it was the fear of communism, it was the desperation of a people over a runaway inflation, etc. Hitler used many devices and played many games to get his agenda across.

His 'persuasion' was fitting for that age in that time in that situation. It's not as if he was charming, because he wasn't. It's not as if he was warm and compassionate, because he wasn't. It's not as if he could extend himself as a benefit to others, because he couldn't. He had a sick and tormented mind that suffered numerous psychological distortions. But he was able to put into words the feelings of so many people who had suffered numerous ways and played upon their fears, hatreds, prejudices in just the right way so as to make his perverted vision of the future a legitimate hope.

Even though he terribly misused his powers of persuasion, he certainly had a 'genius' (though a demonic form) for influence, political intelligence, and effectiveness. One has to ask how a man like this could come to power. There were many factors as to why the masses followed him with such enthusiasm. The results of the Treaty of Versailles almost crippled the economy in Germany. England and France enforced this treaty upon them as a form of punishment for World War I. War reparations they had to pay back were ridiculous and were beyond their resources. The country was in a great depression due to World War I and from the Great Depression America was in.

The unemployment rate in the country was enormous, an estimated 6 million were out of work at this time for a country as small as Germany. Many people were starving and on the streets. Inflation had skyrocketed because of the Depression. Truly there had to be a messiah-like figure who would lead their country into the Promised Land.

Hitler did a lot of things that made the German people think he was this messiah. He gave the country economic relief from the Depression, he claimed that Germany was no longer bound by the Treaty of Versailles and they were no longer bound by the WWI reparations and responsibility of the 'guilt clause. ' The unemployment problem was effectively resolved by the institution of Hitler's Public Works program in which millions of Germans found employment in constructing highway systems, government offices and public housing, as well as in the rearmament factories and military service, and the list goes on. Aside from those things, the biggest and most effective way Hitler gained so much popularity was because of his persuasive abilities in that he could persuade the masses. Looking back, one can see just how persuasive and manipulative he was, even from the beginning on how he came to power. Under the Treaty of Versailles, the Weimar Republic was established.

It was democratic in nature, but had so many political parties that nothing could ever get accomplished. Among these were the socialists, the Army (it had its own political party), the National Socialist German Workers' Party (the Nazis), and many others. As many as 28 different political groups convened in the Reichstag. The Weimar Republic was tormented with conflicting agendas, poor leadership, and a failing economy due to war reparations to be paid and an overall gloomy future. In many ways the Depression was the most important reason Hitler came to power in 1933. The Depression derived from the Wall Street Crash, when people rushed to sell their shares because they realized the companies were doing badly.

Thousands of businesses and people were ruined. This affected Germany because America withdrew its loans and the German economy collapsed. Millions were left unemployed. The Weimar Republic broke down and people were ready to listen to groups like Hitler's Nazis, who promised a strong government and a better way of life. People who had never been interested in politics before found themselves listening to extremist groups because the government had collapsed. The Depression was a tremendous good luck charm for the Nazis, because it enabled them to get the majority vote in Germany, which resulted in 43.9%.

Aside from the brief historical aspect of this already demonstrated, let us move on to the techniques and tactics Hitler used in his "gift" of the ability to be able to persuade. Hitler had a tremendous lust for power, and in that lust for power he played many games to fulfill that weakness. Hitler played his games extremely well. He used his huge Nazi rallies and his gift of remarkable speech to play these games. There were five types of games he played in his power of persuasion: the blame and hate games, the moralistic and injustice games, the persuasion and propaganda games, the opportunist or "desperate times call for desperate actions" games, the strength and power games, and the "bigger than life guru" games. The first listed game Hitler played was the blame and hate game.

The biggest thing Hitler stressed in this issue was blood purity. He hated and treated with contempt the inferior races. The backside of this intense hatred of the black races, the Jews, and others was his fanatical passion of the Aryan race. And anybody, Germans or non-Germans who interfered with his world-changing and history-molding plans were exterminated. "The crown of the folk ish state's entire work of education and training must be to the racial sense and racial feeling into the instinct and the intellect, the heart and brain of the youth entrusted to it. No boy or no girl must leave school without having been led to ultimate realization of the necessity and essence of blood purity.

Thus the groundwork is created by preserving the racial foundation of our nation and through them in turn securing the basis for its future cultural development". (Hitler 427-428). Hitler looked at the "Jewish problem" as a menace that threatened the very existence of Germany. Hitler grew up in Vienna, one of the biggest anti-Semitic cities in all of Europe at that time. Hatred is a very powerful emotion and Hitler used it to the max. He did so by blaming the Jews and others for the national defeat and all the problems (economic, social, moral, and political) in the nation.

He led them to hate and argue against the democratic idea of equality (which the Jews were for). He went on to say that the mixing of the races was a sin against the Creator. Hitler used all this propaganda to convince the masses and they believed him. Hitler played the moralistic and injustice game. His whole life he tended to blame all of his problems on everybody else but himself. He tended to never take responsibility for his own actions.

Even his own autobiography, "Mein Kampf", means "my struggles". He seemed to have never taken personal responsibility for looking as himself, reexamining his skills, knowledge, and applying himself. So it's not too astounding when Hitler acted the same way in front of the masses when it came to blaming injustice done on Germany. He proclaimed that the Treaty of Versailles was one of the "most shameful acts of rape in the world". This was his theme. He would send forth how that the Treaty and the treatment of Germany was one of total injustice, that this was shameless and monstrous.

Here's what he wrote: "I contrasted the two peace treaties, compared them point for point, showed the actual boundless humanity of the one treaty compared to the inhuman cruelty of the second, and the result was telling. At that time I spoke on this theme at meetings of two thousand people, and often I was struck by the glances of three thousand six hundred hostile eyes. After three hours later, I had before me a surging mass full of the holiest indignation and boundless wrath. And a great lie had been torn out of the hearts and brains of the crowd numbering thousands and at truth implanted in its place".

(Hitler 241-242) Hitler would not tolerate anybody that did not do things his way. He had the attitude to where if you disagree with me, you are wrong, depraved, morally corrupt, and deserved to die. Hitler enforced these views on the German people. The next game on the list is the propaganda or persuasion game. Hitler, being a soldier in World War I and having to fight in the trenches knew that the ultimate battle is always the battle for the mind and hearts of people. He knew that the ultimate game was the power of persuasion.

Back then, the word "persuasion" went by the term "propaganda". Hitler studied how the British trained their soldiers through propaganda. He called it a "true art". It was the 'seduction' of the enemies' propaganda that defeated them, until finally, "the army gradually learned to think as the enemy wanted it to". For him, this was the main problem. The soldiers were thinking.

But in the end, Hitler convinced the Germans that the English people were basically cowards and would not stake their own blood for economic policy. Hitler was very focused on results. His main focus was on arousing the emotions and forgetting the intellect. Having very little faith in the intellectual capacity of the masses, he discounted any attempt to "reason" with them. His was no a persuasion of the mind first, but of the emotions.

He seemed to have an intuitive knowledge that once people were in a certain passionate state, they would find or invent the reasons to justify the feelings. He would rather "harp on" his basic ideas until they became slogans in the mind, and he knew that if he could do that he would have them. He used a persuasion that rested on absolutism. That would cradle more energy, more power, more focus. Today we know that we increase our persuasiveness through persistence, repetition, and focus, for persuasion ultimately aims as engaging attention in such a way that it captures and holds attention. Hitler used simplicity so that those who heard would not think, would not question, would not doubt, and he used submissive fanatics to carry out his plans, not those who would think or question.

He framed things in his rallies, parades, and party organization so that there was as little discussion as possible. Hitler himself listed the techniques needed to win the masses in his "War Propaganda" chapter out his Mein Kampf book. He listed them as follows: 1. Keep the dogma simple: make only a few points. 2. Be forthright and powerfully direct.

Speak in the telling or ordering mode. 3. Hold forth an extreme either-or, black-and-white a call to action. 4.

Make it emotional: direct your words to the emotions and stir them vigorously. 5. Use lots of repetition: persistently repeat your point over and over. 6.

Forget beauty, literary criteria, scientific reasoning, balance, and novelty. 7. Focus solely on convincing people and creating zealots. 8. Find slogans that you can use to drive the movement forward. The persuasion that he learned and developed in handling crowds, even large crowds of thousands, involved pacing the objections he knew he would have against his argument and using them in the service of persuasion.

He did that by pacing and leading. Hitler knew that if he took the ideas that people would operate from and if he answered them during the presentation, he could use pre-frames to take them away from his audience as "objections". This gave him an attitude of wanting to know objections so that he could make them irrelevant from the beginning. The next game Hitler played was the Opportunist or "Desperate times call for desperate actions" game. Part of Hitler's genius involved playing with the times and using the opportunity that came along for his benefit. After WWI, Hitler found himself in a nation suffering from tremendous political instability, economic crisis, and social polarization.

Without this backdrop to his own personal failures, he would not have had an audience, but he did. And that's what made his narrow minded, intolerance opinions attractive in the beer halls. To that audience in that day his fanaticism and populist style were absolutely compelling. Over the months and years from 1918 at the end of the lost war to 1921 when he took over the National Socialist Party he slowly discovered simple slogans that kindled the angers, resentments, hatreds, and fears of people. He outlined a road to national rebirth, stimulated the emotions of attraction to a better future, and gave them hope. As the economic and political crisis mounted in the early years of the 1920's, most people joined the party out of protest, anger, and bitterness.

In those years, inflation became hyper-inflation. Currency lost all of its value in the hyper-inflation of 1923. On the eve of WWI, it was 4.20 marks to the dollar. By 1923, it was 18,000 marks to the dollar. And that continued to inflate to 25,000,000 in September 1923. This put the nation in a state of extreme emergency as lifetime savings were rapidly wiped out and unemployment led to hunger and poverty.

One can see now why people were angry, scared, stressed, and in a mood to blame. The Hitler was arrested in 1923 for the infamous "Beer hall Putsch" in Munich. During his trial, he turned the courtroom into a stage for his own propaganda. He called witnesses and presented his case, not to win freedom, but to promote his case and to be recognized as the leader of the Nazi Party. Then during his 13 months in prison, he was nearly deified. In late December of 1924, when he was released, he was the very soul of the movement.

Then on October 24, 1929 came the Wall Street Crash. This was the crisis Hitler was looking for, and he used it. Within this game, Hitler used "the end justifies the means game". Anything is permissible as long as his ends get accomplished according to his plans. The rule of this game is that the end justifies the means so don't worry about the morality of the action. The end justifies it.

It is no surprise to find that Hitler used the strength and power games. He used games of intimidation, bullying, threatening, posturing of strength, and anything and everything that increased his sense of power. This is clearly seen in the way he conducted the rallies, parades, the big meetings, his use of the Storm Troopers, and even the way he talked. He had a "power" addiction and it was clearly seen in his dogmatics.

He wrote, "Creative achievements can only arise when ability and knowledge are wedded". Then this was a matter of calling the people to turn the ideas into practice. This is called the Mind-to-Muscle principle. To make knowledge living rather than dead, one needs willpower and determination, that puts it into muscle. Hitler loved the Roman Catholic idea of "infallibility". He recognized that by using infallibility he could create more power for himself.

He tried to model himself after this. He wanted the cultish role of being a pope to the Nazi movement. The last game listed that Hitler played was the "be bigger than life" guru game. To play this game, he first of all presented an extremely big vision. It was a vision to restore the lost dignity of Germany. This was a vision to gain new lands for Germany, to change the entire culture, and to liquidate those who were not German.

He set forth his plan as a plan for the very survival and freedom of the Aryan race. He believed that it would take such a vision to create the necessary enthusiasm. He knew he would not be able to persuade the thinking populace, so he concentrated on the masses. He painted them a brood vision of the future.

He linked national survival, safety and security, wealth and economic well-being, etc, as dependant upon developing a new national pride. For this he could then call upon a fanaticism and ruthlessness for the fatherland with no "half measures". This involved sacrifice. He argued that the German worker must clearly realize that economic sacrifices are no importance whatsoever in comparison to national independence. It was in this way that he played on the emotions of the masses. He aroused them in order to call them to action.

Hitler stressed the concept of idealism, not just ideas, but idealism, something that goes way further. He offered something to the masses that was bigger than life. The idealism that grew in the hearts of the people was that of a bold new future for the Reich, the beauty of the Germans, their courage, willpower, discipline, determination, and the preservation of their race. At this, he played the guru. Part of his strategy to put himself in the role of the guru was his unavailability. As the years passed, he became less and less available to any except his inner circle.

He would appear at rallies 30 minutes to two hours late, leaving the crowds waiting in anticipation. He would use the emotional symbols from bands, to soldiers, to vast numbers of people. All of this was to demonstrate the illusion and the myth of the Fuhrer as being other-than-human, more than human, super-human. But all of these tactics Hitler used, demonstrate, in this entire research, that there was definitely power, of and in, Hitler's persuasion.

Bibliography

Hitler, Adolf. (Translated by Ralph Manheim). Mein Kampf. Houghton Mifflin Co: New York, 1990.
S hirer, William. The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich. MF Books: New York, 1990.
Cook, John. Hitler's Calculated Deception. Online. 11 Nov 2002.
web Fishbaugher, Kim. Why Did The Germanic Peoples Follow Hitler? Online. 11 Nov 2002.
web Hall, Michael L., Ph. D. Games Hitler Played. Online. 11 Nov 2002.
web Protasova, Eveline. The Power of Persuasion or Why Did Germanic People Follow Hitler and His Devices. Online. 11 Nov 2002.