[kylebgorman]

He'd led a violent (albeit somewhat pathetic, and suppressed) attempt at a coup---that's why he was in jail. Rough comparison points in recent US history would be the domestic terrorists like McVeigh and Kaczynski, I suppose.

[jacquesm]

Those are domestic terrorists rather than that they would be attempting a coup. Exploding bombs, writing manifestos and killing random passers by are usually not good ingredients if you want to take over a government.

If anything Hitler was - like some present day politicians - an absolute master at identifying frustration in various strata of society and harnessing that frustration to propel himself to power.

[jszymborski]

While I agree the domestic terrorists are a poor example, Hitler's coup was envisioned to be a bloody one, particularly the Beer Hall Putsch. Hitler's actual ascent to the highest position of the Weimar Republic was mostly a matter of it's instability. They had come out of WWI disgraced, Schleicher had been too busy grabbing power from Papen, Hindenberg was dying... there were a volley of power shifts until the ball was finally passed to Hitler, whereby he promptly deflated it and had Hindenberg sign the Reichstag Fire Decree before the man gave up the ghost.

The race and class politics was strictly a proxy for the only thing Hitler ever really spoke about: power by all means.

[meowface]

Is there any evidence of Hitler's true, innermost intentions? Did he admit or was he even aware of his lust for power for power's own sake?

I know it's often a mix of both with demagogues, but I wonder how much he saw the fight against supposed enemies (Jews, Communists, Slavs) as a virtuous and net-positive goal vs. a means to an end.

[jszymborski]

I don't think you can follow any one thread or theme in Hitler's decision making like you can for his lust for power.

For example, he found himself in the National Socialist party for nearly no other reason than they welcomed him for his charisma and he saw a weak leadership he could exploit.

The exposed nationalist & socialist ideologies, economic principles & race discrimination were things he quickly pushed aside time and time again when he felt they didn't align with power gain.

Some things like socialist and economic principles were ignored more often than nationalism and race discrimination which centralised his power.

I don't think anyone could ever accuse Hitler of being an ideologue or zealot for any cause other than his personal interest.

Then again, listening to half of an audiobook on the matter isn't really the same thing as living or properly studying it, so kindly tell me what's what if you're in a better position to speculate.

[jacquesm]

> he found himself in the National Socialist party for nearly no other reason than they welcomed him for his charisma and he saw a weak leadership he could exploit.

It's incredible with what precision some of these sentences can be transplanted nearly a hundred years and be just as applicable. You wouldn't know if this was about the past or the present when taking that sentence out of context.

[oh_sigh]

Yes, but Obama has been out of office for 3 months, it is time to stop worrying about him.

[jacquesm]

There was a whole reddit thread about this very question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/19kkox/at_th...

[jacquesm]

The stronger a country's political institutions the easier it then becomes to gain power by those means rather than through violent means. Violence works best in countries that have very little structure.