of leading the German people and reclaiming what was held to be Germany's greatness.
How the myth could have emerged from the man is suggested by the manner in which Hitler appears to have absorbed the lessons of history. Hitler's omnivorous acceptance of certain mythic stereotypes and a willingness to place himself at the center of a romanticized heroic dream, had the effect of investing his idiosyncratic experience with meaning for others. For example, he states 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."
This is not to suggest that Nazism was not a practical and cynical project, for Hitler appears to have been adept at seizing opportunity for realization (= making real) of what might be called his world view, ideas derived from anti-Semitic books or books on German myth that were "mostly shallow and shabby, often grotesque and preposterous, and poisoned by outlandish prejudices . . . part of the foundation for the Third Reich which this bookish vagrant was soon to build." Finding employment with the German Army Political Department, and while investigating a minor political party known as the German Workers' Party, Hitler became a member and soon its premier member, who shaped it into the National Socialist Party.
All the ideas which had been bubbling in his mind since the lonesome days of hunger in Vienna now found an outlet, and an inner energy which had not been observable in his make-up burst forth. He prodded his timid committee into organizing bigger meetings. . . . At the start of 1920, Hitler took over the party's propaganda, an activity to which he had given much thought since he had observed its importance in the Socialist and Christian Social parties in Vienna.
Meanwhile, Hitler's oratory power developed, and his opportunistic strategy of implementation of beli...