Maybe you've heard about Adolf Hitler's impressive public speaking abilities, but most people probably haven't taken the time to really investigate. Which makes sense, considering the kind of ideas that he'd be spouting in those speeches.

Plus, they're in German.

But if you take a look into what he was writing and saying, it gives you some perspective about why he was so politically successful (aside from being willing to crush democracy, change laws, and slaughter his political opponents).

This speech (December 10, 1940), we have to admit, is super long. But it contains Hitler's arguments for his invasions of other countries, as well as examples of the kind of twisted rhetoric he used to explain how Nazism was making Germany the great power it always should have been. These ideas are important for us to understand why Nazi Germany happened at all.

One of his major arguments, which looks like logic but isn't quite based on fact, is related to the amount of land Germany has versus other western European nations: "85 million Germans own only 232,000 square miles on which they must live their lives and 46 million Britishers possess 16 million square miles" (source). According to Hitler, Germany had been divided by a series of wars and unfair treaties imposed by other countries, which prevented it from becoming the glorious and powerful nation it was destined to be.

Hitler also summarized his over-arching plan for Germany, which was to eliminate "foreign oppression" from the Treaty of Versailles and reunite the whole German community from all parts of the world.

You might be able to see how this guy could be appealing to people who'd been facing very serious war reparations. He went on at length about Britain and the flaws in their government that allowed for the unfair distribution of wealth, and throughout his speech he painted a picture (metaphorically) of Nazi Germany as the place where everyone had the opportunity for work, resources, and education. According to him, in capitalist countries, it's every man for himself.

He twisted things to make the Nazis look virtuous, like when he argued that the immediate rationing of food when the war started made sure that food was always distributed equally. He told his audience that the National Socialists were creating a better world, and he himself had predicted that these awful capitalist nations would try to take them down despite the fact that Germany's improvement (rearmament, expansion) wouldn't hurt them at all.

There was even a jab at Jews in there, for good measure.

He described Britain's current leaders as "the same people who were warmongering before the Great War, the same Churchill who was the vilest agitator among them during the Great War; Chamberlain, who recently died and who at that time agitated in exactly the same way" (source).

There was quite a bit in there about Hitler's background—being a man of the people, of course—and how this was a war of the everyman versus the wealthy elite of the capitalist nations. At the end, he envisioned peacetime: "Out of this work will grow the great German Reich of which great poets have dreamed. It will be the Germany to which every one of her sons will cling with fanatical devotion, because she will provide a home even for the poorest. She will teach everyone the meaning of life" (source)

The Nazis were masters of propaganda, and Hitler's charismatic speaking style was extremely effective. We can't know for sure how much of his own rhetoric he genuinely believed—probably a lot of it—but you can maybe see how it could be convincing in a world where fact-checking wasn't as easy as it is now.

On the other hand, even fact-checking might not do the trick for die-hard believers.