The Iron Hindenburg: A Popular Icon of Weimar Germany*
Magdalen College, Oxford
anna-maria.menge{at}magd.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract |
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This article argues that the Hindenburg myth was an exceptionally potent—and historiographically underappreciated—political narrative between 1914 and 1934. Crucially, it was as much a cultural as it was a political phenomenon and did not just occupy those engaged in German politics, but penetrated much broader sections of society in its myriad forms: there was a massive readership of Hindenburg books and special Hindenburg issues of the illustrated press, and also a receptive audience for Hindenburg films and the President's frequent speeches on the radio. Equally, consumers’ purchase decisions were animated by the use of his iconic image in commercial advertising. Hindenburg's omnipresence in the modern mass media of film, radio and the illustrated press, and in a new advertising market, broadened his appeal considerably and led his myth to escape the strict political dividing lines characteristic of Weimar Germany. This points to common symbolic ground beyond traditional political fault-lines in the interwar period. The article also highlights Hindenburg's considerable involvement in promoting, managing and censoring his own myth from the top down. The portrayal of Hindenburg as an image-oblivious public figure thus has to be revised.
Keywords: Hindenburg, myth, mass media, censorship, Weimar culture, advertising
* I would like to thank Nick Stargardt, Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, Christian Goeschel, Gemma Lousley and the two anonymous readers of German History for their helpful comments and suggestions. This article forms part of a larger study of the Hindenburg myth: A. Menge, The Power of Myth: Hindenburg 1914–1934 (D. Phil Thesis, University of Oxford, 2007). The study was made possible by the generous funding of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Oxford Faculty of Modern History, and Merton College, Oxford.