In fact, as Germans would learn in the postwar years, HoffmannвЂ™s distorted and highly edited vision of HitlerвЂ™s life bore little resemblance to reality images of HitlerвЂ™s companion Eva Braun, for example, would be banished from such portrayals, even though by the mid вЂ™30s she had become a fixture of his inner circle. The image, together with the bookвЂ™s title, signaled to the reader that the camera would reveal a different Hitler and thus fulfill, as claimed on the dust jacket, the вЂњyearningвЂќ of his вЂњcountless millions of followersвЂќ to know more about his personal life and вЂњwide-ranging interests and aptitudes.вЂќ The text also asserted the вЂњdocumentary truthвЂќ of HoffmannвЂ™s work, a statement intended not only to instill confidence but also to refute the less-flattering accounts published by critics. While conceived earlier and perhaps independently, it nonetheless functioned as an effective tool in the campaign to appeal to a broader public through the recently discovered вЂњprivate Hitler.вЂќ 5 On the cover, Hitler was shown in a Bavarian jacket and floppy-brimmed hat, reclining in the grass in the mountains with one of his dogs by his side. The Hitler Nobody Knows appeared in mid-March, shortly after the first election.

The title of a 1932 photo album by Heinrich Hoffmann - HitlerвЂ™s official photographer - announced the shift. Yet even as they continued to fight reports that could harm HitlerвЂ™s reputation, the Nazis began to construct for public consumption their own version of the private individual.В The image of вЂњHitler as private manвЂќ would now be reconfigured from a liability into an asset. Indeed, until the turnabout in 1932, National Socialist publicists had diverted attention away from or suppressed stories about their leaderвЂ™s private life. Unsavory rumors about his domestic life and sexuality had flared in September 1931 after his niece Geli Raubal shot herself in her uncleвЂ™s Munich apartment.

He was a middle-aged bachelor with few family ties and no known romantic relationships. Given the circumstances of HitlerвЂ™s private life, this was truly an audacious move. More daringly, Nazi publicists brought HitlerвЂ™s private life into the limelight to emphasize his moral and human character and thereby win over the bourgeois voters and women who earlier had overwhelmingly supported Hindenburg. Against the aura of aristocratic dignity that clung to the remote, eighty-four-year-old Hindenburg, the Nazis offered the modernity and glamour of a candidate who took to the skies to meet face-to-face with the German people. HitlerвЂ™s youth and dynamism, epitomized by his much-advertised campaign flights across Germany, became a selling point. In the runoff election, the need to cast a wider net pushed Nazi Party propaganda toward a celebration of their candidateвЂ™s personal attributes. The coming out of the FГјhrerвЂ™s personal life marked a distinct departure from earlier National Socialist publicity, which had focused on HitlerвЂ™s role as agitator of the masses and leader of a militant political movement. 3 Having proved its broad appeal, the image of the private FГјhrer would become a staple of National Socialist propaganda until the start of World War II. 2 Although Hitler would lose the next round, the campaign, along with the worsening economic crisis, increased his support among the German people by over two million votes, to a third of the electorate. 1 HindenburgвЂ™s failure to win an absolute majority, however, led to a runoff election the following month, and in the period between the two presidential elections the Nazis seized on a new representational strategy.

On March 13, German voters returned a strong lead of over seven million votes for Hindenburg, throwing the National Socialists, who had expected Hitler to be swept into the presidency, into despair. The electoral campaign pitted Hitler, then leader of the second-largest political party in Germany, against Paul von Hindenburg, the elderly incumbent revered by Germans as the war hero of Tannenberg, and the Communist leader Ernst ThГ¤lmann. It was in the spring of 1932, in the midst of presidential elections, that the National Socialists discovered the publicity value of Adolf HitlerвЂ™s private life. Right: Cover of Heinrich HoffmannвЂ™s The Hitler Nobody Knows ( Hitler wie ihn keiner kennt). Left: Cover of Heinrich HoffmannвЂ™s Hitler Away from It All ( Hitler abseits vom Alltag).

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