 |
| Reichstag in Ruins after WWII |
I’ve been a prophet in my life very often and was mostly laughed at.”
So said Adolf Hitler to the Reichstag on January 30, 1939. Was Hitler a prophet, as he claimed, or was he a tyrant organizing the Holocaust? Was Hitler’s speech a prophecy, or a warning? For he followed the path of all dictators, using speech to guide his foolish supporters—a path that want-to-be tyrants still follow today. He laid out his conspiracy theory, blaming Jews, not himself, for the coming war, and urged his supporters to unify. None of this was secret. To organize Germany for conflict, Hitler told his country exactly what to expect. Did the world heed his warning? No, sadly, not really. Do we, today, remember his warning? Of course not.
Given the strong support that Christians gave to Nazism, it is no accident that Hitler called himself a prophet. We think that a prophet predicts the future. However, someone who shapes the future would not be a prophet, but a leader – maybe a führer. To carry out his schemes, Hitler shaped the future. He identified an enemy and told his supporters how to meet the threat. That enemy did not need to be real. A conspiracy theory would do just fine.
The Conspiracy Theory
Anyway, to pursue his theme of prophecy, Hitler needed to identify an enemy. He continued:
“At the time of my struggle for power, it was primarily the Jewish people who only accepted my prophecies with laughter.”Prophecies? More like warnings. Hitler was not predicting the future; he was shaping it. Indeed, in this terrifying oration, with world war only months in the future, Hitler bluntly announced – prophesized – his plan to murder Jews en masse. He said:
“Today I want to be a prophet again: If international financial Jewry in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the peoples once again into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth and thus the victory of Judaism, but annihilation the Jewish race in Europe.” [italics added]As he spoke, Hitler blamed Judaism for the coming world war:
“I believe that if the Jewish international press and propaganda laws were to be stopped, the understanding between the peoples would be established very quickly. Only these elements are constantly hoping for a war. But I believe in a long peace.”And, as Hitler continued to rant against Jews:
“International Jewry may hope to achieve satisfaction in their vindictiveness and greed for profit, but that they represent the monstrous slander that can be done to a great and peace-loving people.”So, Hitler predicted the coming war (that was his prophecy) and blamed it on Jews.
The Plan
 |
| Holocaust Memorial, Albania |
Now, why would he speak so boldly? First, leaders need popular support. Hitler could not murder six million Jews by himself. He needed to inspire countless thousands of men to fire the rifles and run the gas chambers. Second, he needed tell his followers his goals and ambitions. Otherwise, how could they act on their leader’s behalf? They needed guidance! They needed enemies! Hitler always knew that public speaking was a leader’s most potent tool, and he had mastered the art. After all, a dictator can only lead if enough people are willing to follow. Dictators do not only rule by spreading fear, but also by persuading.
Truly, Hitler, who we today consider to personify evil, did not became a dictator by himself. Nor could he wreak evil by himself. No, he became Chancellor of Germany by winning an election and building a coalition. Once in power, he transformed German government into a personality cult. As he did so, he publicly announced the evil that he planned.
So, when he spread his conspiracy theory (“international financial Jewry”) and blamed the victims for his own wickedness (“plunging the peoples once again into a world war”), Hitler used his speech to set the philosophical and political stage for genocide. Only in a twisted sense would we call this prophecy. Hitler’s underlying argument, his implied enthymeme, was that he prophesized war and strove to make his prophecy come true.
Adolf Hitler's Speech in the Berlin Sportpalast: God and Power
The Lesson Forgotten
Yet, expecting him to help the economy (for a while, he did!), Hitler’s short-sighted supporters worried little. Instead of being chastened, they were inspired. History teaches the result. Mass murder. A brutal war. Seven short years in the future, Germany would be reduced to a pile of smoking rubble.
Now, Hitler did not really state a prophecy. What he in fact did was to lead his deluded followers. Indeed, in this speech Hitler called for the “disciplined and obedient popular community.” Germany and the world should have heard a warning.
Hitler was briefing his enthusiastic faction. Germany was no poverty-stricken nest of ignorance. No, Germany in 1939 was a center of religion, philosophy, art, and music. The great philosopher Martin Heidegger and the musician Herbert von Karajan threw their arts behind Hitler’s cause. Almost all religious leaders acquiesced; indeed, many threw themselves behind him. Religious martyrs like Dietrich Bonhoeffer were few. If Nazism could arise in Germany, it could arise anywhere. It could arise in the United States of America. Do not ever think that it cannot. Perhaps it is arising today. Are there similarities today?
 |
| Hamburg after WWII Bombing |
Now, Hitler did not really state a prophecy. What he in fact did was to lead his deluded followers. Indeed, in this speech Hitler called for the “disciplined and obedient popular community.” Germany and the world should have heard a warning.
Hitler was briefing his enthusiastic faction. Germany was no poverty-stricken nest of ignorance. No, Germany in 1939 was a center of religion, philosophy, art, and music. The great philosopher Martin Heidegger and the musician Herbert von Karajan threw their arts behind Hitler’s cause. Almost all religious leaders acquiesced; indeed, many threw themselves behind him. Religious martyrs like Dietrich Bonhoeffer were few. If Nazism could arise in Germany, it could arise anywhere. It could arise in the United States of America. Do not ever think that it cannot. Perhaps it is arising today. Are there similarities today?
Leaders need supporters, and leaders guide them by speaking to them. When they issue prophecies, we must hear warnings. When they state their seamy values, we must hear plans. When they say things that seem too awful to believe, we need to believe them all the more. Will people listen? Will people learn to listen?
by William D. Harpine
_________
Research Notes:
The prophets of Hebrew Scripture were not soothsayers so much as they were moral guides. They warned kings and citizens of impending danger, urging them to reform. This higher road of prophecy is the topic of James Darsey’s prize-winning book, The Prophetic Tradition and Radical Rhetoric in America.
When people ignore clear warnings like Hitler’s, this may be due to a psychological or persuasion concept called the incredulity effect. When the speaker says something more extreme than the audience expects, people may mentally process it by thinking, maybe, “a great Christian leader like Hitler would never mean that.” They might even think, “he was being sarcastic,” “he is exaggerating,” “he is being metaphorical,” or whatever. Listeners can deny it at the moment they hear it: “a great Christian leader like Hitler would never say that.” Our sense of reality fleets from us easily.
Copyright © 2026 by William D. Harpine
Image of Reichstag:
No. 5 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit
Charles Henry Hewitt, Imperial War Museum, public domain
Image of Holocaust Memorial, Albania:
Image of Hamburg, Crown Copyright, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
No comments:
Post a Comment