A number of years ago I was asked to introduce the film Downfall, about the last week or so of Adolf Hitler's life. Bunker in 1945 in Berlin and I found it a little bit difficult to compose an introduction to the student history society at Royal Holloway screening. So I'm much going to repeat this now. It's something that we don't often say but I hate Adolf Hitler. I hate Adolf Hitler for corrupting the morals and the sensibilities of one of the most sophisticated and educated nations in the world. And leading to blood shed and destruction of life for needless acts. Now that is an opinion you probably won't hear very often given by a historian, but let's put this in perspective, we are talking about someone who directly or indirectly led to the death of millions of people. There is still a certain fascination, a morbid fascination about the man, his rise to power. His influence over the German people and how he was able to take a, a country that was dissatisfied with its 1920s post-war experience and convert it into a, a new military might and one that put forward a new German empire in Europe from the mid to late 1930s. Now, the book by Collin Jacobson, the edited by Collin Jacobson, Underexposed, puts forward a number of images that were not commonly available at the time. In terms of Hitler's political career, he was someone who was charismatic, was compelling. Someone who managed to carry an entire nation through the 1930s and into 1940s when we look at Germany. And the point that, Underexposed makes. Is that with respect to some of the images that he himself put together. His own photographer, his own personal, photographer Heinrich Hoffman was employed to photograph Hitler. As Hitler would actually pose and rehearse in front of a mirror. Or have photographs taken of himself. To see in which ways his body language could have the maximum effect in carrying forward his message. Now we think about media training in the 21st century as being a common thing. Now, we're looking back to the third decade of the 20th century. And he is someone who was determined to make an impact and realized the power of image whether it be through photography or through the way he held himself. When giving speeches to try and carry an audience over. Now these photographs are described in underexposed as being absurd. absurd looking. And would, and questions Hitler's credibility or protection credibility had these photographs been available at the time. Now the second of the um,pages which cover this. Has a very striking image, which, when I showed it to my students, they started laughing. At least one person described it as looking like a hammy theatrical presentation from a Shakespeare. My initial reaction at looking at that was to cut my mind back to John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. And there's the classic pose that he struck on the cover of the posters, etc. Now, in our own minds, we are linking back to images of entertainment and, perhaps, absurdity. Would this have had such an effect at the time? Very probably, but we're looking back through a period of time now when we know what was perpetrated in his name. And are considering how we would interpret these images knowing how powerfully he projected those that he released to the public at the time. Now, I mentioned that the book Underexposed suggested that these images were absurd, and let me just read out briefly the passage at the end here. Such absurd images had they been widely seen at such an early stage of Hitler's political career may well have pricked the balloon of his shaky credibility. Now I think that's a reasonable comment. Yet I'd just like you to think about, one of the images. The one of the, the top corner here, where Hitler is raising his fists and then like you to consider the cover of Time magazine from December the 21st, 1931. Although it is a drawing, it is a virtual identical drawing, including going to the lapel button that Hitler had. Now, six years difference, and before he had actually obtained political dominance in Germany, a similar image was made public. This is an American magazine that one with a great degree of prestige to be the cover of Times for some people is an ambition. So we just need to take a step back and just think in the context of what was happening in the 1920s and the 1930s how unacceptable or absurd these images actually were. So, in considering what we have with time, and resources can be available to you online, Adolf Hitler appeared on the cover of TIME a number of times during the 1930s. 1931, as I pointed out, 1933. Again militaristic in the, the uniform. The swastika seen quite prominent. But a picture, a painting rather than a photograph. And in this instance it looks like something akin to a deck chair with a dog by the side, making various. Reasonable assumptions about this being a quote family man, even though he's now the leader of Germany, 1936, we have another image again, a photograph. Something that appears to be a little more posed, a little bit more austere. Hitler's reputation was being established. But nevertheless, someone important enough to be on the cover of Time. And in fact, the reputation of Hitler and Time Magazine is, is something that we find by the January, by January the 2nd 1939. Hitler had actually been named by Time magazine as their man of the year. So, just taking a step back from a historical consideration of photographs that were suppressed at the time. It would appear that he, that Hitler got enough coverage in the western press. In different means that his credibility was fairly well established before he started to take on what became the Allies earnestly from 1939.
