Hand raised to eye level, feet brought together and a resonating, powerful, strong call to
your nation’s leader. Heil Hitler. A simple motion and sound, yet one associated with
arguably the greatest crimes ever committed by one group of people over another. Its hypnotism
and raw energy remain a mystery to this day - and its introduction to the mainstream of
an entire nation - teaches us that even the most ingrained cultural and traditional norms
can be completely altered under the boot of a powerful minority - and an apathetic majority.
This is a story of the birth of the Nazi Salute. So. Greetings. What are they? Empty rituals which people perform unconsciously in order
to get to what comes afterward - a simple means to an end - before the real conversation
begins? Or something more? Depending on your tonality, the terms you use, and how you use
them in the beginning of a conversation, you could signal many varying emotions, attitudes,
and social norms. Good day madam is very different to yo what’s up. Hello My name is Michael
Smith sounds a lot more like it would come from a wealthy individual than a simple Hi,
I’m Mike ever would. One might think that greetings are too trivial to affect social
institutions in a significant way, yet their importance should not be underestimated. It’s
next to impossible to conceive of a social order that could do without formal greetings
which people use to initiate conversations. Depending on values shared by a given generation
- the way we say hi changes. Back in the day where I’m from, and to this day in some
other countries, there was a hierarchy in who is greeted first. Is it the lady of the
house, or the patriarch? Do you use Mr and Mrs? Do you shake hands, do you hug, or do
you bow? In some eastern households, you’d kiss your father’s feet (check). All these
traditional methods of greeting, if we can call them that, grew organically from the local culture through decades, sometimes even centuries - its roots so deep that no amount
of globalization could eradicate it. In western culture, the hand became the preferred means
for gestures intended to initiate an exchange. You shake hands - underscoring that you’re
open to the conversation while at the same time showing the other party you’re not holding a weapon. Material, ideological and social conditions spontaneously birthed the
way we make contact. At least that was the case until the infamous Hitler Salute. This video will attempt to
look into the unique methods through which Nazi ideologues seeped into every inch of
Germany’s humanity, and how they successfully molded even the most basic segments of the
human experience - social interaction. What does the salute even mean? What did Germans
think of it and how fast did they adopt it? How Nazi doctrine works and a lot more. Everything
said in this video is heavily researched and backed up by academic sources - especially
by Allert Tilman’s fantastic book - The Hitler Salute: On the meaning of a gesture.
Strongly recommended read. So - Strap in and Consider donating on patreon. These videos take a lot of time to make, and wouldn’t be possible without the support of my incredible
donors. If not - pressing subscribe would do wonders for the channel’s growth. No, like seriously, press the button. Press the button. Thank you.
Heil Hitler, or the so called properly German Form Of Greeting propagated by the Nazis and
adopted by millions of ordinary germans was the pinnacle of the politicization of all communication within the Third Reiich. From the moment the NSDAP came into power this
somewhat cryptic salutation, pronounced with the right arm extended and raised to eye level
with the palm opened, dominated the culture of all human exchanges in germany. William
Frick, The Nazi interior minister proudly said in 1933 - upon the death of the Weimar
republick “Now that the state of bickering political parties has been defeated the Hitler