How Hitler Overcame the Media in His Rise to Power

From The Atlantic.

In the highly polarized media landscape of the Weimar Republic, Adolf Hitler could expect little accommodation from the press. Across Germany and around the world, Hitler’s attempts to assume power initially made him a laughingstock.

“We have come to view Hitler’s path to the chancellorship, and ultimately to dictatorship, as inexorable, and Hitler himself as a demonic force of human nature who defied every law of political gravity,” Timothy W. Ryback writes. And yet, when the journalist Dorothy Thompson encountered Hitler in 1931, she described him as a man of “startling insignificance.”
How could Thompson and so many other experienced journalists and political observers have underestimated Hitler—and the historical moment—to such a degree?

Read the full story at the link.

https://theatln.tc/dHigNHX9
:camera_with_flash:: Bettmann / Getty; Hulton Archive / Getty; Hulton Archive / Getty; brandstaetter images / Contributor / Getty; API / Contributor / Getty; Keystone-France / Contributor / Getty; Universal History Archive / Contributor / Getty; Bettmann / Getty; Hulton Archive / Getty; Times Wide World Photo / The New York Times; The New York Times; Vorwärts; Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty; Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty; Sammlung Prinzhorn / Hans Prinzhorn Collection; Archive Films / Getty; Hulton Archive / Getty; Bettmann / Getty; Film Audio Services / Getty; ullstein bild Dtl. / Getty; Universal History Archive / Getty; Fox Photos / Hulton Archive / Getty; Albert Harlingue / Getty; Universal History Archive / Getty; FPG Archive Photos / Getty; Bettmann / Getty; Keystone-France / Getty; Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty; Hulton Deutsch / Getty; ullstein bild Dtl. / Getty; Bettmann / Getty; Heinrich Hoffman / Getty; Hulton Archive / Getty; ullstein bild Dtl. / Getty; ullstein bild Dtl. / Getty; ullstein bild Dtl. / Getty; J. A. Hampton / Getty; Bettmann / Getty; ullstein bild Dtl. / Getty; CBS Photo Archive / Getty; Footagestore / Getty; Hulton Archive / Getty; Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty; brandstaetter images / Getty

Subscribe to The Atlantic on YouTube: http://bit.ly/subAtlanticYT