Spin Turned Hitler From a Despot to a Dictator

It was in the spring of 1932, in the midst of presidential elections, that the National Socialists discovered the publicity value of Adolf Hitler’s private life. The electoral campaign pitted Hitler, then leader of the second-largest political party in Germany, against Paul von Hindenburg, the elderly incumbent revered by Germans as the war hero of Tannenberg, and the Communist leader Ernst Thälmann. On March 13, German voters returned a strong lead of over seven million votes for Hindenburg, throwing the National Socialists, who had expected Hitler to be swept into the presidency, into despair. 1 Hindenburg’s failure to win an absolute majority, however, led to a runoff election the following month, and in the period between the two presidential elections the Nazis seized on a new representational strategy. 2 Although Hitler would lose the next round, the campaign, along with the worsening economic crisis, increased his support among the German people by over two million votes, to a third of the electorate. 3 Having proved its broad appeal, the image of the private Führer would become a staple of National Socialist propaganda until the start of World War II.