Ishmael (Ishmael, #1)

by Daniel Quinn

“You must have seen films of the prewar rallies, with hundreds of thousands of them singing and cheering as one. It wasn’t terror that brought them to those feasts of unity and power.” “True. Then I’d have to say it was Hitler’s charisma.” “He certainly had that. But charisma only wins people’s attention. Once you have their attention, you have to have something to tell them. And what did Hitler have to tell the German people?” I pondered this for a few moments without any real conviction. “Apart from the Jewish business, I don’t think I could answer that question.” “What he had to tell them was a story.” “A story.” “A story in which the Aryan race and the people of Germany in particular had been deprived of their rightful place in the world, bound, spat upon, raped, and ground into the dirt under the heels of mongrel races, Communists, and Jews. A story in which, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, the Aryan race would burst its bonds, wreak vengeance on its oppressors, purify mankind of its defilements, and assume its rightful place as the master of all races.” “True.” “It may seem incredible to you now that any people could have been captivated by such nonsense, but after nearly two decades of degradation and suffering following World War I, it had an almost overwhelming appeal to the people of Germany, and it was reinforced not only through the ordinary means of propaganda but by an intensive program of education of the young and reeducation of the old.” “True.” “As ...