The significance of Hitler as a public figure who was alternately regarded as a savior and something of a pop star became particularly apparent when Germany celebrated France’s capitulation. The official festivities in Berlin were supposed to commence at 3 p.m. on July 6, 1940. Hundreds of thousands of people had been waiting for hours to give the Führer a rousing reception. The crowds constantly urged Hitler that afternoon to appear on his balcony. It was the height of his military success and his fame, and he was the embodiment of the German Volk’s inflated self-image: “ ‘If an increase in feeling for Adolf Hitler was still possible, it has become reality with the day of the return to Berlin,’ commented one report from the provinces. ‘In the face of such greatness,’ ran another, ‘all pettiness and grumbling are silenced.’ Even opponents of the regime found it hard to resist the victory mood. Workers in the armaments factories pressed to be allowed to join the army. People thought final victory was around the corner. Only Britain stood in the way. For perhaps the only time during the Third Reich there was genuine war-fever among the population.”⁴⁹⁶

Two years on, the euphoria was over. The campaign against Britain had proven much more difficult than anticipated, and the invasion of the Soviet Union had not only ratcheted up the brutality of the fighting, but pushed the prospect of a rapid end to the war into an indeterminate future. German defeat at Stalingrad only reinforced the nascent doubts Germans had begun to feel. What if the war should be lost?

CONCERNS ABOUT DEFEAT

CRÜWELL: Some things will remain for ever. They will last for hundreds of years. Not the roads—they are unimportant. But what will last is the way in which the state has been organised, particularly the inclusion of the working man in the state and no one has ever done that before.⁴⁹⁷

The continuation of Waldeck and Crüwell’s dialogue makes it clear that the latter sees the Führer’s historical importance as distinct from the outcome of the National Socialist project. But for others, faith in the Führer served as an antidote to doubts about whether the war would end happily for Germany. Colonel Meyne, for instance, asserted in June 1943: “The FÜHRER is a man of genius, he is certain to find some way out down there.” ⁴⁹⁸ Statements like these were, of course, inspired by the belief that the war could still be won, and the speculations many soldiers engaged in were above all concerned with when that victory could be expected. This sort of confidence increasingly crumbled after Stalingrad, yet that didn’t affect people’s faith in Hitler. “The FÜHRER said: ‘We shall take STALINGRAD,’” asserted a Sergeant Kotenbar on December 23, 1942, at a point when the 6th Army had been surrounded for more than a month, “and you can depend on it, we shall take STALINGRAD.”⁴⁹⁹

Others, for instance, Sergeant Wohlgezogen, were finding it difficult by this point to maintain their faith in final victory. His statements continually hint at doubts:

Two aspects of Germans’ faith in Hitler are clearly recognizable in statements like these. Responsibility for one’s own welfare is delegated to a person who knows how to achieve the desired end and possesses the means and the lack of scruples to do so. And, perhaps more interestingly, the figure of the omnipotent Führer serves to dispel the doubts the speaker otherwise would have.