What won over millions of workpeople to the Marxist cause was not the EX CATHEDRA style of the Marxist writers but the formidable propagandist work done by tens of thousands of indefatigable agitators, commencing with the leading fiery agitator down to the smallest official in the syndicate, the trusted delegate and the platform orator.

Furthermore, there were the hundreds of thousands of meetings where these orators, standing on tables in smoky taverns, hammered their ideas into the heads of the masses, thus acquiring an admirable psychological knowledge of the human material they had to deal with. And in this way they were enabled to select the best weapons for their assault on the citadel of public opinion. In addition to all this there were the gigantic mass-demonstrations with processions in which a hundred thousand men took part. All this was calculated to impress on the petty-hearted individual the proud conviction that, though a small worm, he was at the same time a cell of the great dragon before whose devastating breath the hated bourgeois world would one day be consumed in fire and flame, and the dictatorship of the proletariat would celebrate its conclusive victory.

This kind of propaganda influenced men in such a way as to give them a taste for reading the Social Democratic Press and prepare their minds for its teaching. That Press, in its turn, was a vehicle of the spoken word rather than of the written word. Whereas in the bourgeois camp professors and learned writers, theorists and authors of all kinds, made attempts at talking, in the Marxist camp real speakers often made attempts at writing. And it was precisely the Jew who was most prominent here. In general and because of his shrewd dialectical skill and his knack of twisting the truth to suit his own purposes, he was an effective writer but in reality his MÉTIER was that of a revolutionary orator rather than a writer.

For this reason the journalistic bourgeois world, setting aside the fact that here also the Jew held the whip hand and that therefore this press did not really interest itself in the instructtion of the broad masses, was not able to exercise even the least influence over the opinions held by the great masses of our people.

It is difficult to remove emotional prejudices, psychological bias, feelings, etc., and to put others in their place. Success depends here on imponderable conditions and influences. Only the orator who is gifted with the most sensitive insight can estimate all this. Even the time of day at which the speech is delivered has a decisive influence on its results. The same speech, made by the same orator and on the same theme, will have very different results according as it is delivered at ten o’clock in the forenoon, at three in the afternoon, or in the evening.

When I first engaged in public speaking I arranged for meetings to take place in the forenoon and I remember particularly a demonstration that we held in the Munich Kindl Keller ‘Against the Oppression of German Districts.’ That was the biggest hall then in Munich and the audacity of our undertaking was great. In order to make the hour of the meeting attractive for all the members of our movement and the other people who might come, I fixed it for ten o’clock on a Sunday morning. The result was depressing. But it was very instructive. The hall was filled. The impression was profound, but the general feeling was cold as ice. Nobody got warmed up, and I myself, as the speaker of the occasion, felt profoundly unhappy at the thought that I could not establish the slightest contact with my audience. I do not think I spoke worse than before, but the effect seemed absolutely negative. I left the hall very discontented, but also feeling that I had gained a new experience. Later on I tried the same kind of experiment, but always with the same results.

That was nothing to be wondered at. If one goes to a theatre to see a matinée performance and then attends an evening performance of the same play one is astounded at the difference in the impressions created. A sensitive person recognizes for himself the fact that these two states of mind caused by the matinee and the evening performance respectively are quite different in themselves. The same is true of cinema productions. This latter point is important; for one may say of the theatre that perhaps in the afternoon the actor does not make the same effort as in the evening. But surely it cannot be said that the cinema is different in the afternoon from what it is at nine o’clock in the evening. No, here the time exercises a distinct influence, just as a room exercises a distinct influence on a person. There are rooms which leave one cold, for reasons which are difficult to explain. There are rooms which refuse steadfastly to allow any favourable atmosphere to be created in them. Moreover, certain memories and traditions which are present as pictures in the human mind may have a determining influence on the impression produced.

Thus, a representation of Parsifal at Bayreuth will have an effect quite different from that which the same opera produces in any other part of the world. The mysterious charm of the House on the ‘Festival Heights’ in the old city of The Margrave cannot be equalled or substituted anywhere else. In all these cases one deals with the problem of influencing the freedom of the human will. And that is true especially of meetings where there are men whose wills are opposed to the speaker and who must be brought around to a new way of thinking. In the morning and during the day it seems that the power of the human will rebels with its strongest energy against any attempt to impose upon it the will or opinion of another. On the other hand, in the evening it easily succumbs to the domination of a stronger will. Because really in such assemblies there is a contest between two opposite forces. The superior oratorical art of a man who has the compelling character of an apostle will succeed better in bringing around to a new way of thinking those who have naturally been subjected to a weakening of their forces of resistance rather than in converting those who are in full possession of their volitional and intellectual energies. The mysterious artificial dimness of the Catholic churches also serves this purpose, the burning candles, the incense, the thurible, etc.

In this struggle between the orator and the opponent whom he must convert to his cause this marvellous sensibility towards the psychological influences of propaganda can hardly ever be availed of by an author. Generally speaking, the effect of the writer’s work helps rather to conserve, reinforce and deepen the foundations of a mentality already existing. All really great historical revolutions were not produced by the written word. At most, they were accompanied by it.

It is out of the question to think that the French Revolution could have been carried into effect by philosophizing theories if they had not found an army of agitators led by demagogues of the grand style. These demagogues inflamed popular passion that had been already aroused, until that volcanic eruption finally broke out and convulsed the whole of Europe. And the same happened in the case of the gigantic Bolshevik revolution which recently took place in Russia. It was not due to the writers on Lenin’s side but to the oratorical activities of those who preached the doctrine of hatred and that of the innumerable small and great orators who took part in the agitation. The masses of illiterate Russians were not fired to Communist revolutionary enthusiasm by reading the theories of Karl Marx but by the promises of paradise made to the people by thousands of agitators in the service of an idea. It was always so, and it will always be so.

It is just typical of our pig-headed intellectuals, who live apart from the practical world, to think that a writer must of necessity be superior to an orator in intelligence. This point of view was once exquisitely illustrated by a critique, published in a certain National paper which I have already mentioned, where it was stated that one is often disillusioned by reading the speech of an acknowledged great orator in print. That reminded me of another article which came into my hands during the War. It dealt with the speeches of Lloyd George, who was then Minister of Munitions, and examined them in a painstaking way under the microscope of criticism. The writer made the brilliant statement that these speeches showed inferior intelligence and learning and that, moreover, they were banal and commonplace productions. I myself procured some of these speeches, published in pamphlet form, and had to laugh at the fact that a normal German quill-driver did not in the least understand these psychological masterpieces in the art of influencing the masses. This man criticized these speeches exclusively according to the impression they made on his own blasé mind, whereas the great British Demagogue had produced an immense effect on his audience through them, and in the widest sense on the whole of the British populace. Looked at from this point of view, that Englishman’s speeches were most wonderful achievements, precisely because they showed an astounding knowledge of the soul of the broad masses of the people. For that reason their effect was really penetrating. Compare with them the futile stammerings of a Bethmann-Hollweg.

On the surface his speeches were undoubtedly more intellectual, but they just proved this man’s inability to speak to the people, which he really could not do. Nevertheless, to the average stupid brain of the German writer, who is, of course, endowed with a lot of scientific learning, it came quite natural to judge the speeches of the English Minister–which were made for the purpose of influencing the masses–by the impression which they made on his own mind, fossilized in its abstract learning. And it was more natural for him to compare them in the light of that impression with the brilliant but futile talk of the German statesman, which of course appealed to the writer’s mind much more favourably. That the genius of Lloyd George was not only equal but a thousandfold superior to that of a Bethmann-Hollweg is proved by the fact that he found for his speeches that form and expression which opened the hearts of his people to him and made these people carry out his will absolutely. The primitive quality itself of those speeches, the originality of his expressions, his choice of clear and simple illustration, are examples which prove the superior political capacity of this Englishman. For one must never judge the speech of a statesman to his people by the impression which it leaves on the mind of a university professor but by the effect it produces on the people. And this is the sole criterion of the orator’s genius.

The astonishing development of our movement, which was created from nothing a few years ago and is to-day singled out for persecution by all the internal and external enemies of our nation, must be attributed to the constant recognition and practical application of those principles.

Written matter also played an important part in our movement; but at the stage of which I am writing it served to give an equal and uniform education to the directors of the movement, in the upper as well as in the lower grades, rather than to convert the masses of our adversaries. It was only in very rare cases that a convinced and devoted Social Democrat or Communist was induced to acquire an understanding of our WELTANSCHAUUNG or to study a criticism of his own by procuring and reading one of our pamphlets or even one of our books. Even a newspaper is rarely read if it does not bear the stamp of a party affiliation. Moreover, the reading of newspapers helps little; because the general picture given by a single number of a newspaper is so confused and produces such a fragmentary impression that it really does not influence the occasional reader. And where a man has to count his pennies it cannot be assumed that, exclusively for the purpose of being objectively informed, he will become a regular reader or subscriber to a paper which opposes his views. Only one who has already joined a movement will regularly read the party organ of that movement, and especially for the purpose of keeping himself informed of what is happening in the movement. It is quite different with the ‘spoken’ leaflet. Especially if it be distributed gratis it will be taken up by one person or another, all the more willingly if its display title refers to a question about which everybody is talking at the moment. Perhaps the reader, after having read through such a leaflet more or less thoughtfully, will have new viewpoints and mental attitudes and may give his attention to a new movement. But with these, even in the best of cases, only a small impulse will be given, but no definite conviction will be created; because the leaflet can do nothing more than draw attention to something and can become effective only by bringing the reader subsequently into a situation where he is more fundamentally informed and instructed. Such instruction must always be given at the mass assembly.

Mass assemblies are also necessary for the reason that, in attending them, the individual who felt himself formerly only on the point of joining the new movement, now begins to feel isolated and in fear of being left alone as he acquires for the first time the picture of a great community which has a strengthening and encouraging effect on most people. Brigaded in a company or battalion, surrounded by his companions, he will march with a lighter heart to the attack than if he had to march alone. In the crowd he feels himself in some way thus sheltered, though in reality there are a thousand arguments against such a feeling.

Mass demonstrations on the grand scale not only reinforce the will of the individual but they draw him still closer to the movement and help to create an ESPRIT DE CORPS. The man who appears first as the representative of a new doctrine in his place of business or in his factory is bound to feel himself embarrassed and has need of that reinforcement which comes from the consciousness that he is a member of a great community. And only a mass demonstration can impress upon him the greatness of this community. If, on leaving the shop or mammoth factory, in which he feels very small indeed, he should enter a vast assembly for the first time and see around him thousands and thousands of men who hold the same opinions; if, while still seeking his way, he is gripped by the force of mass-suggestion which comes from the excitement and enthusiasm of three or four thousand other men in whose midst he finds himself; if the manifest success and the concensus of thousands confirm the truth and justice of the new teaching and for the first time raise doubt in his mind as to the truth of the opinions held by himself up to now–then he submits himself to the fascination of what we call mass-suggestion. The will, the yearning and indeed the strength of thousands of people are in each individual. A man who enters such a meeting in doubt and hesitation leaves it inwardly fortified; he has become a member of a community. The National Socialist Movement should never forget this, and it should never allow itself to be influenced by these bourgeois duffers who think they know everything but who have foolishly gambled away a great State, together with their own existence and the supremacy of their own class. They are overflowing with ability; they can do everything, and they know everything. But there is one thing they have not known how to do, and that is how to save the German people from falling into the arms of Marxism. In that they have shown themselves most pitiably and miserably impotent. So that the present opinion they have of themselves is only equal to their conceit. Their pride and stupidity are fruits of the same tree.

If these people try to disparage the importance of the spoken word to-day, they do it only because they realize–God be praised and thanked–how futile all their own speechifying has been.