PETER LOEWENI3ERG
themselves deeply into our hearts. Again and again the enthusiasm in–
terrupted the silence and transmitted itself to the thousands who lis–
tened outside the tent to the broadcast. Then it was over. The Horst–
Wessel song reared to the sky. We saw flowers over flowers, but the
man in the unpretentious brown uniform with a face marked by an
inflexible will, with small eloquent hands wasn't there any more. We
don't know how we got home. This evening we could not sleep; the
experience was still too strong. Many a prayer ascended to heaven on
this evening asking for the protection of the Fi.ihrer.
521
The sisters were so elated on their first encounter with their new
savior/father/leader that they could not sleep. They prayed for him.
The imperial colors, black-white-red, the image of Bismarck and
the implied continuity with his Reich and its splendid triumph over
France, the figure of the Junker Generalfeldmarshal Paul von Hindenburg
as the President who called Hitler to power, are positive symbolic codes
of continuity with cherished ideals, security, and success. The images of
the "November Criminals" and "Dolchstoss" (stab-in-the-back) referring
to those accused of betraying Germany in World War One, the "Jude"
and "Sozi-Bonzen" (Socialist Bosses) who were Germany's "misfortune"
symbolized the negative images to be obliterated and mercilessly over–
come. Hitler's 1932 telegram to five Nazi SA murderers in Potempa,
Silesia, in which he congratulated the killers for hacking and kicking a
communist organizer to death, was to demonstrate publicly his brutality,
ruthlessness, and contempt for normative rules of political conduct. His
wire
to
them read: " I feel myself bound to you in limitless loyalty. From
this moment your liberation is a question of honor." Further examples
of his trampling upon the normative values of German and Western
conduct and culture were the burning of the books and the banning of
"degenerate" art. He projected an image of barbaric, irresistible power
and an extraordinary capacity for aggressive violence independent of
moral norms. The message was that opposition was pointless and hope–
less. Resistance was futile.
Adolf Hitler promised decisive action, certainty, power, and mastery
of the world . These are the best antidotes to feelings of helplessness, be–
wilderment, weakness, passivity, humiliation, and vulnerability. Hitler and
Nazism were Germany's answer to collective historical narcissistic injury.
He gave an integrated, simple explanation of the past, the crisis of 1929-
1933, and a vision of a glorious future. Hitler became an idealized
parental figure. He appeared to contain anxiety and threats of hopeless–
ness. He posed as the representative of order, morality, and power. He
restored an active sense of purpose so the German people could experi–
ence society as stable, vital, disciplined, supportive, and dependable. Hitler
