When I finally walked into Adolf Hitler’s salon in the Kaiserhof Hotel, I was convinced that I was meeting the future dictator of Germany,” [Dorothy Parker wrote]. “In something less than fifty seconds I was quite sure that I was not. … He is formless, almost faceless: a man whose countenance is a caricature; a man whose framework seems cartilaginous, without bones. He is inconsequential and voluble, ill-poised, insecure—the very prototype of the Little Man.
Dorothy Parker
When I finally walked
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Boy was she wrong.
The small minded are the most dangerous.
I just figured out who Peggy Noonan reminds me of.
Quite a large number of people underestimated Hitler when he first came to power.
In a book I remember some time ago, maybe written by William Shirer, the author describes attending a mass rally at which Hitler was the featured speaker. As described, Hitler’s speech had a strange effect on the audience, almost mesmerizing.
I seem to recall that Shirer (or an author I don’t remember) said that Hitler lowered the register of his voice and changed its character in a way Shirer couldn’t really describe when Hitler came to a point he wanted to particularly emphasize. The audience always went crazy when he did this.
Shirer had never observed a similar speaking technique used by anyone else and either wrote or implied that it was strictly a German thing.