Media criticism – Everyone wanted to believe Hitler

Media researcher Lutz Hachmeister claims that interviews with dictators or autocrats are largely pointless, also with a view to the present. Such interviews generally serve the propaganda of the dictator or autocrat, and journalists become keyword givers.

Hachmeister has now presented an overview of around a hundred interviews with Adolf Hitler from 1923 to 1944, with the subtitle: “The dictator and the journalists”. This shows the direction of attack.

Before the coup attempt of 1923, the first long-term interview with Hitler was published in the USA, conducted by the prominent German-American George Sylvester Viereck, a best-selling author, publicist and esotericist. A month before the failed beer cellar putsch in Munich (and of course also before Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” from 1925), Hitler concealed his intentions less at the beginning of October 1923 than later. Murderous tones cannot be ignored in his anti-Semitism. “We are dealing here with the question of Jew and Aryan,” says Hitler. »The mixed race is dying out; it is a worthless product. (…) We need powerful correctives, strong medicine, perhaps amputation.” This contempt for humanity, this will to destroy results in the Holocaust 20 years later.

Hitler no longer becomes so clear later. Questions about anti-Semitism remain the exception in Hachmeister’s book anyway. There is a reason for this: many foreign journalists were content with the sensation of an exclusive encounter with a popular German politician and later dictator, they let him speak without asking, and spread their conversation as a highlight. This is how propaganda works.

»The masses have never thirsted for truth.«

Gustave Le Bon

The first (albeit short) Hitler interview in a French newspaper appeared on March 19, 1932 in L’Œuvre (“The Work”), a left-wing publication. However, it was not a classic interview with questions and answers, writes Hachmeister, but rather a monologue. In it, Hitler portrays himself as a friend of peace: “Peace in Europe, I say it again, will not be disturbed unless a country wants it. It won’t be us.”

Interesting in this book are the insights into the international journalism scene, the short biographies, vanities of the industry, seduction and career addiction. The analysis of a series of previously largely underexposed memoirs illustrates bizarre encounters with a mass murderer and war criminal. Hachmeister summarizes the attitude of French journalists: “The few interviewers were courteous towards Hitler. Perhaps it was a certain complaisance or a fascination that he exerted on journalists from abroad. Or increasing right-wing tendencies played a role. Or a self-deception, because nobody wanted war; “Everyone wanted to believe Hitler when he talked about peace.”

The surroundings, the premises and Hitler’s physiognomy are often described in the reports and preliminary remarks to the interviews. For example, by Dorothy Thompson, who is commonly referred to as a US veteran of Germany reporting. The most famous of all Hitler interviews comes from her. Hachmeister suspects that the encounter with him took place at the end of 1931 or beginning of 1932. Thompson published her text in March 1932, initially as a report under the title “I saw Hitler!”, which she expanded into an illustrated book that same year, now newly edited.

Thompson, an experienced and well-known journalist in her late 30s, was also deceived by Hitler, although somewhat differently than others. When she was admitted to Hitler’s salon, she writes, she was still firmly convinced that she was “encountering the future dictator of Germany.” But “less than fifty seconds later, I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.” Because she noticed “the astonishing insignificance of this man (…): he is shapeless, almost faceless, a man whose expression is like a caricature, a man whose physique appears cartilaginous, without bones. He is petty and talkative, bad-mannered and insecure. He is the embodiment of the little man.” Hachmeister judges that she was also unable to get much out of Hitler in terms of content.

Overall, this extensively researched inventory by the media researcher does not necessarily bring new insights for Hitler research, but rather highly insightful and unflattering ones about the journalism industry. There was a lot of opportunism and gossip, errors, naivety and stupidity obscured the view, servility and collaboration were widespread.

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In his book, Hachmeister repeatedly warns against interviews with dictators or autocrats, also with a view to the present. In his foreword he quotes the French physician and sociologist Gustave Le Bon from his “Psychologie des foules” from 1895. In it one reads about mass psychology and the power of deception: “The masses have never thirsted for truth. They turn away from facts that displease them and prefer to idolize error when it can seduce them. Anyone who knows how to deceive her will easily become her master, anyone who tries to enlighten her will always be her victim.

Lutz Hachmeister died at the end of August this year at the age of just 64. The book coming onto the market these days has become his journalistic testament. It should be required reading for the media industry. Contemporary journalists should be warned and should always question their daily work self-critically. Agitators, autocrats and dictators are on the rise worldwide; they need the public to spread their propaganda – and are therefore usually very willing to be interviewed.

Lutz Hachmeister: Hitler’s interviews. The dictator and the journalists. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 384 pages, hardcover, €28; in bookstores from November 7th.
Dorothy Thompson: I met Hitler! A photo report. DVB, 276 pages, hardcover, €26.

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