Goebbels’s engineered spectacle could convert an indifferent boy into a devoted follower

Evidence

Alfons Heck would remember attending a Nazi rally as a boy in the 1930s. He was not particularly partial to or interested in Hitler; yet at the conclusion of the führer’s speech the boy was transformed: “From that moment on, I belonged to Adolf Hitler body and soul.” The rally Heck attended, one of those held annually at Nuremberg, boosted Hitler’s oratorical effects with various other elements—lights, giant swastika banners, and marching men—to create what Albert Speer called “total theatre.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 408

Categorization

• XREF: Is this the total-capture ideal of attention merchandising taken to its extreme?