Hitler Pretended to Be a Prophet, but He Was Really an Evil Führer

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 German 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.

Hitler, the Harbinger of the Modern Christian Right, Gave His Inaugural Speech

    

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! 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. Nazis needed enemies! 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

Hamburg after WWII Bombing

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? 

"Peace for Our Time?" Neville Chamberlain's Speech about Appeasement

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

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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 runs 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:

Bdx, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication., via Wikimedia Commons

Image of Hamburg, Crown Copyright, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

President Ursula von der Leyen Attacked Antisemitism

On December 11, 2023, during the lighting of the Euro-Chanukah, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen quoted the traditional saying:

“The darkness of the whole world cannot swallow the glowing of a candle.”

This European ceremonial lighting marked the start of the Jewish celebration of the lights. Addressing the horrors of antisemitism, von der Leyen redefined the controversial concept of diversity. Drawing unity from diversity, she stood in the long tradition of speakers who find truth in the rhetorical trope of paradox.

Von der Leyen began her brief speech by extending the Jewish tradition to all peoples:

“Chanukah is of course an ancient Jewish tradition. But I believe it speaks to all human beings.” [italics added]

Von der Leyen’s simple statement contradicts our usual concept of diversity. For we most often say that we must find a way to create unity despite diversity. She insisted, instead, that diversity creates unity.

A paradox reveals hidden truths behind a seeming contradiction. Diversity and unity would seem to undermine one another. Yet, von der Leyen insisted that religious diversity created unity in European political affairs, that it pulled Europeans together. Thus, antisemitism becomes, in contrast, a cruel force that tears Europeans away from one another.

Having stated that basic value, von der Leyen remarked about the horrifying rise of antisemitism in Europe:

“An old evil is resurfacing in Europe. Swastikas have been painted on the homes of Jews. Synagogues have been vandalised. Jewish children have been locked in their schools because the streets are not safe for them.”

Earlier Post: Donald Trump's Awkward Speech about Antisemitism

Von der Leyen reminded her audience that the festival represented Jewish freedom of religion against persecution. This argument led her to speak for a public policy, she advocated protecting all places of worship, beginning with synagogues. She also advocated policies that suppressed hate speech on the Internet. Like many ceremonial speakers before her, she used values to support a political program.

Finally, von der Leyen returned to her opening paradox, to find “unity in diversity:”

“Europe stands for ‘united in diversity’. For centuries, European Jews have shaped our common heritage. Think of Marc Chagall and Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Rahel Hirsch and Hannah Arendt. And you still do shape our common heritage. This is why we will create a new award to celebrate Jewish cultural heritage. Because Jewish culture is a blessing to Europe, and we should all know more about it.”

Opposition to diversity, in general, and antisemitism, in particular, does not just strike at Europe. For, in the United States of America, the very concept of unity has openly created anger and discord. Von der Leyen did not merely say that we should accept diversity. She said that diversity created unity. She said that the fact that we have different religions and beliefs creates strength, not division. It was antisemitism, she insisted, not diversity, that drove people apart.

This thought led von der Leyen to look toward a hopeful future in which we would return to an “age-old value:”

“We must bring new energy to our age-old value of unity in diversity. This is also the spirit of Chanukah. It is not only a celebration of the past but a time to renew our hopes for the future with the confidence that ‘weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning’.”

Her quotation was from Psalm 30 in the Hebrew Scriptures. At no time did von der Leyen deny the growing horrors of antisemitism. Instead, she looked for hope by returning to ancient values.

As a United States citizen, I found myself struck by the calm, morally assured vision that von der Leyen brought to the growing religious and political conflicts that seek to disrupt the modern world. She redefined how we think about diversity. She gave a rhetorical lesson that the entire world can heed. Are we listening?

Earlier Post: Ursula von der Leyen Warned Us of the Totalitarian Winds

Earlier Post: The Solution to Climate Change Is in the Cities: President Ursula von der Leyen's Speech at the European Energy Award

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Theoretical note: A trope (such as “paradox”) is a linguistic device that changes the way we use or think about a word or phrase. This article gives a quick rundown of tropes. 

by William D. Harpine

Copyright © 2023 William D. Harpine