The question of 'historical greatness' was usually implicit in the writing of conventional biography —… — Ian Kershaw

Hitler's power was of an extraordinary kind. He did not base his claim to power (except in a most formal sense) on his position as a party leader, or on any functional position. He derived it from what he saw as his historic mission to save Germany. His power, in other words, was 'charismatic', not institutional. It depended on the readiness of others to see 'heroic' qualities in him. And they did see those qualities — perhaps even before he himself came to believe in them.

A history of Hitler has to be a history of his power — how he came to get it, what its character was, how he exercised it, why he was allowed to expand it to break all institutional barriers, why resistance to that power was so feeble. But these are questions to be directed at German society, not just at Hitler.

For the Socialist and Communist left — with only minor differences between them in this regard — Hitler was portrayed as the hireling of big capitalism, the front-man for the imperialists, the political strike-force of the enemies, of the working class. Such views were to persist after 1933 in the left-wing underground resistance organizations, the underestimation of Hitler they contained hindering clear perceptions of the ideological dynamism of Nazism. For Catholics — the other sub-culture which Nazism found greatest difficulty in penetrating, before and after 1933 — Hitler was above all seen as the head of a ‘godless’, anti-Christian movement. In Protestant church-going circles, impression of Hitler varied. Some looked to the dangers of a neo-heathen movement which had roused the base instincts of the masses. Others saw the potential, at a time when church attendance was dwindling and moral and religious values were allegedly being undermined, of Hitler's 'national renewal' bringing in its wake ethical and religious revival. On the nationalist-conservative Right, the relatively sympathetic treatment of Hitler at the time of the Young Plan Campaign had given way to hostility. Hitler was portrayed for the most part as intransigent and irresponsible, a wild and vulgar demagogue, not a statesman, an obstacle to political recovery, the head of an extreme movement with menacing socialistic tendencies. Against these negative images had to be set the adulation of the third of the population that, despite the setbacks of summer and autumn, still saw in Hitler the only hope for Germany's future.