by Thomas Alkemeyer
As soon as they have become a state, political movements staging themselves as "movements" are confronted with the problem of having to contain the momentum they have unleashed. Otherwise, the former "leaders" of the movement and their apparatus run the risk of being swept away by this dynamic themselves. Hitler and the NSDAP, for example, had to 'manage' this problem. The Röhm Putsch of 1934, the turning away from the völkisch Thingspiel towards the traditional form of theatre or the implementation of a monumental, state-supporting classicism in the public-representative scenery of the "Third Reich" were expressions and forms of implementation of this management. With the end of the period of movement and reconstruction, the focus was no longer on mobilising the masses, but on integrating and immobilising them. This change of mood can be observed in every detail of Hitler's performances: As the embodiment of the "movement", he acted in the pose of the son rebelling against the fathers of Weimar - the establishment; he shouted and bawled in an adolescent manner with a voice that carried over, stretched his upper body forwards in a belligerent manner and gesticulated threateningly. A little later, as head of state, he plays the father: his voice becomes calmer, his behaviour more sedate, his posture more static. Anyone who watched Trump's speech after his election could observe something similar: Having just been a naughty, rabble-rousing taboo-breaker, he is now acting like a fatherly head of state - calm, inviting, with well-measured lip movements instead of an open mouth. An American Arturo Ui.
Thomas Alkemeyer, Dr phil. habil., is Professor of Sociology and Sports Sociology at the Institute of Sport Science at the University of Oldenburg.
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