Hitler worked as a commercial advertising designer before writing Mein Kampf

Evidence

It can also be understood as a reflection of his time working for the advertising industry. In the early 1910s, while living in Vienna, Hitler made money as a freelancer, drawing advertising posters for products like hair tonic, soap, and “Teddy Antiperspirant foot powder.” In Mein Kampf he suggests that propaganda need be like advertising, and seek first to attract attention: “A poster’s art lies in the designer’s ability to catch the masses’ attention by outline and color,” he writes. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 390

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the book’s core thesis: attention capture as a master technique, with propaganda and advertising as sibling industries.
• SEED: The genealogy of manipulative attention techniques — from advertising posters to political propaganda — is a strong essay angle on how capture methods migrate between commerce and politics.