y's violations of the Versailles Treaty, by long prison sentences. But "those on the Right who tried to overthrow [the Weimar Republic], as Adolf Hitler was soon to learn [at Munich], got off either free or with the lightest of sentences." The relevant point is that in a culture that rewarded antipathy to communist ideology, Hitler's anticommunism on one hand and his positivist articulation of fascism on the other found ideological resonance of its own.
Hitler employed propaganda and ideology to interpret and indeed shape political events in Germany. His omnivorous acceptance of Germanic mythic stereotypes and cultivation of the image of Romantic hero were decisive, as was his assumption of the propaganda arm of the nascent Nazi Party in 1920. Thus he invested the commonplaces of his personal story with mystic significance, as he stated in Mein Kampf: "Today it seems to me providential that fate should have chosen Braunau am Inn as my birthplace. . . . This little city on the border seems to me the symbol of a great mission." Later, according to
...