Andrew Nagorski - Hitlerland

Despite such incidents, the Nazis still sought to impress as much as to intimidate, particularly with the displays of adulation of their leader. For most correspondents, the best chance to observe Hitler and his followers up close came during the annual Parteitag , the weeklong Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg. The party leaders, from Hitler on down, were only too happy to have the foreign press observe these lavishly orchestrated demonstrations of their popularity and power.

“Like a Roman Emperor Hitler rode into this medieval town at sundown today past solid phalanxes of wildly cheering Nazis who packed the narrow streets… The streets, hardly wider than alleys, are a sea of brown and black uniforms,” Shirer wrote in his diary on September 4, 1934. The new correspondent got his first glimpse of Hitler as he drove past the Württemberger Hof, where the reporters were staying. Der Führer stood up in his open car, wearing a worn trench coat, fumbling with his cap and “acknowledging the delirious welcome with somewhat feeble Nazi salutes from his right arm.”

Shirer was struck by Hitler’s lack of expression—“though there is something glassy in his eyes, the strongest thing in his face.” But he had expected something more powerful and theatrical, prompting him to observe that “for the life of me I could not quite comprehend what hidden springs he undoubtedly unloosed in the hysterical mob which was greeting him so wildly.” And hysterical they were. That evening, Shirer found himself “caught in a mob of ten thousand hysterics” in front of the Deutscher Hof, Hitler’s hotel, shouting: “We want our Führer. ” He wasn’t prepared for the faces he saw in the crowd, especially those of the women when they caught sight of Hitler as he stepped out briefly on the balcony.

“They reminded me of the crazed expressions I saw once in the back country of Louisiana on the faces of some Holy Rollers who were about to hit the trail,” he wrote. “They looked up at him as if he were a Messiah, their faces transformed into something positively inhuman. If he had remained in sight for more than a few moments, I think many of the women would have swooned from excitement.”

The next day, Shirer began to understand how Hitler was generating such fanatical admiration. At the opening meeting of the Party Congress in Luitpold Hall, he noted that the Nazis were putting on “more than a gorgeous show; it also had something of the mysticism and religious fervour of an Easter or Christmas Mass in a great Gothic cathedral.” There were brightly colored flags, a band that fell silent when Hitler made his dramatic entrance and then struck up a catchy marching tune, and the roll call of the “martyrs”—the Nazis who had died in the failed Beer Hall Putsch. “In such an atmosphere no wonder, then, that every word dropped by Hitler seemed like an inspired Word from on high,” Shirer recorded. “Man’s—or at least the German’s—critical faculty is swept away at such moments.”

By the end of the Nuremberg festivities, Shirer confessed he was “dead tired and rapidly developing a bad case of crowd-phobia.” But he was pleased that he had come. “You have to go through one of these to understand Hitler’s hold on the people, to feel the dynamic of the movement he’s unleashed and the sheer, disciplined strength the Germans possess,” he noted.

To be sure, the foreign correspondents took a more jaundiced view of the proceedings than the Germans in attendance. Shirer, Knickerbocker and a couple of British reporters were in a room overlooking the moat of Nuremberg’s castle when they saw Hitler driving by again. “Though Hitler is certainly closely guarded by the S.S., it is nonsense to hold that he cannot be killed,” Shirer wrote. He and the other correspondents in the room agreed that it would be simple to throw a bomb from the room onto Hitler’s car, and then escape by running into the crowd.

Along with four other reporters, the AP’s Lochner was invited to join Hitler’s motorcade as it made a triumphal tour of the city before going up to the Burg, Nuremberg’s medieval castle. The reporters were put in the car directly behind Hitler’s so that they could see the reaction of the crowds. “His followers were simply beside themselves with hysteric joy when they see him, and they actually think of him as a God-sent superman whom they do not hesitate to liken to Christ,” Lochner explained in a letter to his daughter Betty back in Chicago, echoing Shirer’s observations.

When the motorcade reached the castle courtyard, Hitler got out of his car and approached the reporters to greet them. But before he could reach out his hand to Lochner, the AP correspondent declared: “Mr. Chancellor, I welcome you here in the city of my forebears.”

Hitler was startled. “How come?” he asked. “You’re an American, aren’t you?”

“Yes, indeed,” Lochner replied. “I am an American, but my family for centuries lived continuously in this city until my grandfather and father emigrated to the United States. I think therefore I have the right to greet you here.”

Lochner hadn’t considered how this declaration would be received. As the reporter recalled, “Hitler blushed in anger, turned on his heel, and stalked into the castle.” It was then that Lochner realized that he had inadvertently reminded Der Führer that he wasn’t a born German. “I had struck an exceedingly sensitive nerve,” he concluded. And he blamed this incident for the fact that Hitler never invited him for a personal meeting again, although he would remain in Germany until their two countries went to war with each other seven years later.

The Nuremberg rallies became a standard event for reporters from many countries, often with special seats in the motorcade that were meant to ensure that they reached the right conclusions. Two years later, in 1936, a young United Press correspondent, Richard Helms—the future director of the Central Intelligence Agency—was one of the chosen ones. After sitting in the back seat of a car alongside Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg and a Polish reporter, Helms offered this evocative description of his experience as they followed right behind Hitler’s car:

There was, I must admit, something mesmerizing about this ride. Only a seasoned movie star might have resisted the weird, vicarious sense that somehow some of the blind adulation of the crowds, who could have had no idea who was riding in the limousine directly behind Hitler, was meant for oneself. It was not difficult to imagine the feelings of the provincial Nazi Party functionaries in the cars that followed.

However much one loathed Nazis, and I certainly did, this was heady stuff. There could be no question about the German people’s intoxication with their leader. It is easy today to forget that in his prime—the word sticks on one’s tongue—Hitler was a masterful politician.

While many of the regular American correspondents in Berlin failed to get personal meetings with Hitler, Putzi Hanfstaengl was still in the business of trying to connect influential Americans with Der Führer. One person he targeted was Hearst, the powerful publisher, who traveled frequently to Europe and made a special point of declaring how much he liked Germany. He was particularly enchanted with Munich—“the city, the surroundings, the climate, the bright and happy Bavarian people, the shops, the theaters, the museums—and the beer,” he told a reporter. “In fact, it is such a delightful place that one has to be careful not to want to live here instead of going home and attending to business.”

Catching up with Hearst, who was on another European trip during the summer of 1934, Hanfstaengl tried to convince him to come to Nuremberg to attend the Nazi Party rally. After the two men met in Munich, Putzi published an article in Germany that was cited in the New York Times on August 23. Putzi quoted the publisher as saying that the results of the plebiscite backing Hitler were “a unanimous expression of the popular will.” Hearst added: “Germany is battling for her liberation from the mischievous provisions of the Treaty of Versailles… This battle, in fact, can only be viewed as a struggle which all liberty-loving peoples are bound to follow with understanding and sympathy.” In his account, Putzi also reported that Hearst would attend the Nuremberg rally the following month.