> Consider Hitler. Everybody puts sole blame on him for the Holocaust

That's such a strange statement, I realize you're not saying it's your own view, but I'd hope most people don't have such a simplified view of history. Blaming one man for the actions of millions is not a good way to avoid repeating history.

> The best explanation I've heard given was that he was a great orator and was able to drive people into an emotional frenzy with his words

I think it's out of scope to get into how Nazi Germany became the way it was, but it wasn't simply the skilled oration of one man. Hitler was a product of his time - and rose to power because he echoed the sentiments that were already growing among all of Germany.

> I bet if all of Hitler's speeches were replaced with politically correct speeches, he wouldn't have been able to talk so many people into dying in war over his grudges.

Having recently been embarrassed in a World War, being in economic distress, the people craved the leadership of someone nationalistic, idealistic, and aggressive. Someone who has a plan to get them out of their situation. It wasn't just his grudges, many people shared the grudges. He didn't talk them into a war, the people wanted one. His ability to influence the public with rousing speeches certainly had a big impact in spreading his dogma, but I don't think they required politically incorrect speech. Whether that makes the past more or less horrifying is up to you.

Have you ever watched a speech by Hitler? I think most people haven't. If you do you'll immediately and viscerally understand how wrong that whole analysis is, and then wonder how such an inaccurate idea was able to take hold. Hitler was a terrible orator by any modern standard you might care to pick.

Consider for a second - can you off the top of your head recall any famous quotes by Hitler? Any catchphrases, any uniquely powerful passages from his speeches? This isn't a high bar, there have been leaders throughout history whose speeches are still famous today. Churchill managed it, for example. Probably the answer is no. That's not because his speeches have been suppressed by people terrified of the amazing mind-bending power of his words. It's because his speeches contain nothing worth quoting.

To double check this I asked GPT-4 to give me the top 5 most famous quotes from speeches of his, and the first quote it returned was actually by Goebbels (which isn't a surprise because his lieutenants were better at this), two of the rest were duplicates and none of them were actually from speeches. Also it seems several are in doubt as to whether he even said them at all.

To get a feel for the reality try watching Triumph of the Will. It contains clips from various events, presumably selected for being the best bits. Or flick through the transcript here: https://web.archive.org/web/20030622191345/http://www.dasbla...

First problem: there is no content. Nothing he says is actually about anything. There are almost no coherent political ideas or proposals presented. There's also no structure: no beginning, middle and end. You could skip whole sections, or randomly re-order all the sentences, and nobody would notice. His oratory is nothing but a disconnected series of vague one or two line political slogans and exhortations that don't seem to connect to each other in any way. Example: "Regardless of whatever we create and what we do, we shall pass away, but in you, Germany will live on". To the modern listener this is difficult to listen to because it's so easy to get bored and drift off.

Second problem: His delivery is absurdly over-dramatic all the time, even when he's saying mundane things. If someone tried that today they'd immediately become an object of mockery and derision because it's such a silly speaking style.

Third problem: he often seems to meander or become stuck in a loop, e.g. "We want this people to be obedient and you must practice this obedience; we want this people to be peace-loving but also brave and you must be peace-loving! You must therefore be peace-loving and obedient and courageous at the same time."

The "Hitler was an amazing orator" meme must originate from people who can't face the maybe more ugly truth: in a very young and unstable democracy full of angry hopeless people being crushed by war reparations, you didn't have to be good at conventional politics to take over. Being extremely energetic, telling people they're pretty great actually, being socialist and having a violent street army was all it took.

So to clarify, do you agree or disagree with the statement that if Hitler only made politically correct statements (including his book), that he wouldn't have been able to motivate the war?

The most fundamental part of my position is that I find it hard to believe that the average german citizen, in a calm and rational state of mind, would have decided World War 2 was in their individual self-interest.

I think there are two different positions you might be claiming:

1. That Hitler did whip people into an emotional frenzy, using nationalism (as well as other forms of tribalism), but didn't rely on what we'd call "politically incorrect" speech today to do so.

2. Hitler did use such techniques, but didn't need to.

Taking a step back, even if it turns out I have Hitler's speeches all wrong, it really only takes one dictator who uses such language to try to justify the overarching point (which again is that moderating speech actually does serve as a mechanism to reduce tribalism/hate/war in people).

I disagree with the statement. I don't think enforcement of political correctness would have had any impact because his words hardly mattered to begin with. Events were everything. If it wasn't Hitler it'd probably have been someone else, and that someone probably would have some famous quotes to their name. His words boil down to:

1. Patriotism. Germany is great, Germans are great.

2. Socialism (calling each other comrades, talking about how awesome the working class/"labour" is, calling for an end to class differences).

3. Generic vibes. The Nazi party is great, the future is bright, we are powerful, etc.

... expressed in a muddled and often incoherent way. (and in his book, hatred of the jews, but that doesn't get featured in their propaganda films).

The only obvious thing in the Triumph of the Will excerpts that would be red flags by today's standards are the open and explicit glorification of dictatorship. And for some people the socialism, but in the 1930s people didn't know what we know now about how that works out.

Now come up with a speech code that can forbid those things yet not also ban either of the two main American political parties.

> The most fundamental part of my position is that I find it hard to believe that the average german citizen, in a calm and rational state of mind, would have decided World War 2 was in their individual self-interest.

Hitler didn't literally say in his speeches "Let's start another world war", did he? And by the time he got into power and did start it, it was too late, speeches didn't matter anymore.

But let's put that to one side. Remember that in Germany in the 1920s and 30s democracy was brand new and very weak. From the perspective of people who had been used to monarchy it was absolute bedlam. Political parties were engaging in open street warfare, the government was run by fragile coalitions made up of lots of tiny parties that constantly bickered and collapsed, there was hyperinflation and then France and Belgium actually invaded Germany to seize the factories when it proved unable to pay the war reparations. Then things recovered briefly before the Depression hit. The constitution meanwhile allowed the president to suspend the whole democratic process and rule as a dictator in an "emergency" which wasn't defined. Hitler used this, but he wasn't the first, Hindenburg used it before him so normalizing the procedure. It was absolutely nothing like today's relatively rich and stable western democracies. Times were desperate.

So for the average working class German this whole experiment with democracy would have looked SNAFU. The economy was hosed, Germany was being oppressed by the victors of WW1, they feel like shit because they lost, the government wasn't working and there's no national pride anywhere (something very important to most workers who aren't very mobile at this time), and the democratic process was barely working. In steps a guy who very clearly (a) has a lot of energy, (b) promises to fix everything if given the power to just get rid of this stupid voting system and (c) is a patriot and socialist. He may not be articulate but so what, fancy men with fancy words had plenty of chances but haven't fixed anything. If you don't believe much in democracy to begin with because your experience of it has been bad, why wouldn't you elect a strongman who says the right things? That's how you'd pick your politicians anyway. They didn't know he'd start a world war and then lose it.