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It must be emphasized that an intensive study of national socialistic "prehistory" reveals a curious lack of original thought in Hitler's concepts; Hitler's strength consists solely in the clever use of already existing trends, ideas, and situations. It lies in the very nature of mass leaders that they cannot be "original"; the mass leader is necessarily a virtuoso of commonplaces which he may or may not repeat in the guise of a "new discovery." The modern dictator is not out to contradict but to confirm already existing views (and prejudices).
--
Francis Stuart Campbell, pen name of Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1943), Menace of the Herd, or, Procrustes at Large, Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, p. 201

 

Adolf Hitler

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The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will. As they say in the United States: "to be different is to be indecent." The mass crushes beneath it everything that is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and select. Anybody who is not like everybody, who does not think like everybody, runs the risk of being eliminated. And it is clear, of course, that this "everybody" is not "everybody." "Everybody" was normally the complex unity of the mass and the divergent, specialised minorities. Nowadays, "everybody" is the mass alone.

 

Jose Ortega y Gasset

 

This is not comparing these people to the people in Germany, but this is exactly what happened to the lead-up with Hitler. Hitler opened up the door and said, "Hey, companies, I can help you." They all ran through the door. And then in the end, they all saw, "Uh-oh. I'm in bed with the devil." They started to take their foot out, and Hitler said, "Absolutely not. Sorry, gang. This is good for the country. We've gotta do these things." And it was too late.

 

Glenn Beck

 

Hitler does not have a new secret weapon at his disposal. He does not owe his victory to an excellent intelligence service which informs him of the plans of his opponents. Even the much-talked-of "fifth column" was not decisive. He won because the supposed opponents were already quite sympathetic to the ideas for which he stood. […] [¶] An ideological struggle cannot be fought successfully with constant concessions to the principles of the enemy. Those who refute capitalism because it supposedly is inimical to the interest of the masses, those who proclaim "as a matter of course" that after the victory over Hitler the market economy will have to be replaced by a better system and, therefore, everything should be done now to make the government control of business as complete as possible, are actually fighting for totalitarianism. [¶] The "progressives" who today masquerade as "liberals" may rant against "fascism"; yet it is their policy that paves the way for Hitlerism.[¶] Nothing could have been more helpful to the success of the National-Socialist (Nazi) movement than the methods used by the "progressives," denouncing Nazism as a party serving the interests of "capital."

 

Adolf Hitler

 

Strictly speaking, the mass, as a psychological fact, can be defined without waiting for individuals to appear in mass formation. In the presence of one individual we can decide whether he is "mass" or not. The mass is all that which sets no value on itself — good or ill — based on specific grounds, but which feels itself "just like everybody," and nevertheless is not concerned about it; is, in fact, quite happy to feel itself as one with everybody else.

 

Jose Ortega y Gasset

 

She said,"What are you supposed to do?"
I said, "I'm supposed to stop Hitler's army landing."
She said, "What! – you?"
I said, "No – there's Charlie Evans, Dick Roberts...I said, "There's seven or eight of us, altogether." I said, "We're in a group." I said, "We're on guard in a little hut behind the Dog and Pullet."
She said, "What's the good of being in a little hut behind the Dog and Pullet?" She said, "I suppose that was your idea!"
I said, "Aye, and that Charlie Evans wants to claim it as his!"

 

Robb Wilton