Who was the better speaker Between Hitler and Goebbels

[Benoit Douville]

Who do you think between Hitler and Goebbels was the better speaker with the crowd and why.

[Eden Zhang]

Goebbels was able to provide orations of a consistant quality, from the beginning till the last days of the Reich.

Hitler's once inspiring speeches eventually degraded to the point of such broadcasts like his final speech given over the radio.

[Sewer King]

Broadly speaking, I think the two can't easily be compared. Hitler's heyday as a speaker were during the NSDAP Period of Struggle, and in the war's victorious early days. He knew his audiences and was said to play them like an instrument. Rousing audiences was a great release for him, and there was nothing in those days to tell him he was wrong.

But after 1943 the war had turned, quick victories were disproved, defeats and mounting casualties unable to be discounted. Hitler did not and could not speak to Germany as he once did, since he hated bad news at large and kept his soldiers at a far distance. Albert Speer mentioned one occasion in the East when Hitler's personal train had incidentally come alongside another train full of returning German casualties or battle-fatigued who could look in at him. The Fuehrer disgustedly ordered the curtains drawn. For a nation hard at war, I don't think he could connect with audiences as he used to -- especially with attitudes like that.

Goebbels on the other hand, rose to his prominence as a speaker at about that time. He was the one who gave the rousing 1943 speech at the Berlin Sportpalast calling for Total War. When he did, his unimposing person may have seemed closer to the ordinary home-front Germans who would have to actually bear the sacrifices called for. It's worth remembering that Goebbels toured the bomb-damaged cities and made appearances while Hitler would not.

[Benoit Douville]

That's what I think also that Hitler was better in the 1920 and 1930 when the NSDAP took power. Goebbels was better beginning with his Total War Speech in february 1943 after the defeat at Stalingrad.

Regards

[wenty]

Hitler HAD to be the better speaker in the early days, how else would he have delivered his monologues which attracted so many people, more and more each time? But that was up until when WW2 started. Then he slowly but surely started to slip in quality until his final speeches were really just quick, non-sensical and impossible. His Propaganda no longer worked on most of the German people, who by then knew Germany had lost.

But infact Goebbels had helped write many of Hitler's speeches. Hitler's German wasn't great, and so Goebbels edited quite a few so the grammar was more correct.

So IMO, Hitler was better from about 1920-1935, and Goebbels from then on.

Cheers.

[varjag]

Agreed - Hitlers gift failed him as the war turned against him. In his political speeches during 'the struggle for power' and also up until about 1940 - they have a ring of honest belief about them, whatever may be said today - that was not lost on his audiences. With the war turning bad it seems like Hitler sensed the mood amongst the people, he was unable to be honest with them any more - and his oratory gift which depended on that, was lost. Goebbels, the consumate liar and spin-doctor in any situation was equal to the task. He too, and long before most others, could see the Götterdämmerung approaching - but that insight did in no way inhibit his brilliance in putting the best 'spin' on things to postpone the inevitable. A task for which his oratory probably is unequalled.

[reichpilot]

I think they both had about the same oratory skills per say. Both of them were very gifted public speakers. The main difference though that moves AH ahead, is his use of theatrical movements that he added into his speeches. He practiced these exaggerated movements that he learned from watching silent movies and by watching actors in the theatre. He knew that movement added to the strength of the words, and being exaggerated, they could be seen by a larger crowd. He has an area in Mein Kampf devoted to talking about oratory delivery and how important he knew it was.

While he was the best at first, his condition at the end removed him from that status. Goebbels or anyone for that matter was better at that point. It wasn't because their oratory skills were better. It was because they were in better mental and physical condition then AH was.

Don