Hitler centralized all charismatic loyalty on his own person through ritual language control

Evidence

In order to avoid the establishment of such an authoritarian state, Hitler, as early as 1934, issued the following party decree: “The form of address ‘Mein Fuehrer’ is reserved for the Fuehrer alone. I herewith forbid all subleaders of the NSDAP to allow themselves to be addressed as ‘Mein Reichsleiter,’ etc., either in words or in writing. Rather, the form of address has to be Pg. [Party Comrade]…or Gauleiter, etc.” — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2744

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the way the Nazi state prevented rival charismatic authority — relevant to how totalitarian movements monopolize loyalty, a mechanism that recurs in Arendt’s later argument about the leader cult. — connects to: Nazi radio infrastructure let one man dominate the minds of an entire nation — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 383; Hitler’s oratory worked by amplifying a crowd’s hidden desires rather than imposing his own — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 406