Similarities Between Hitler And Churchill

How can one hundred people be led by a single person?’ This question has been central to history and civilization. The remarkable ability of one person to make a hundred others follow him has been witnessed by history time and again. Such was the persona exhibited not only by Hitler who became famous as the Fuehrer but also by Winston Churchill during the Second World War. There was a lot of propaganda around these leaders during the war. Both Churchill and Hitler were regarded as good orators and their speeches are considered to be one of the most important propaganda disseminating mediums. There were a number of posters and caricatures on Hitler and Churchill not only at the home front but they were also used as important propaganda figures

Churchill himself wrote a lot. Andrew Roberts’s book Napoleon and Wellington: The Long Duel was the first foray into double barreled history epitomized by Alan Bullock’s Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives as the opposites we commonly take them to be. Parallel lives deal with the lives of Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill form their birth till death. Some comparative work on these leaders include Andrew Roberts’s Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership and Peter John’s Churchill vs Hitler: War of Words. In choosing Hitler and Churchill, two totally opposite leaders, Roberts examines the phenomenon of political and military leadership. He also looks at the way Hitler and Churchill estimated each other as leaders and how it affected the outcome of the conflict. Roberts mainly had made use of the speeches by Hitler and Churchill but how propaganda shaped the trajectory of these two leaders is not dealt with. The visual propaganda is generally missing adding to the non-academic connotation to the posters and caricatures. Similarly, Peter John opines that Adolf Hitler and Churchill clashed for years in public and their opinions of each other and feuding helped determine the course of the Second World War. According to him there is no dedicated history which traces their rivalry. ‘Churchill vs. Hitler’ chronicles the Second World War and much more, through the

This visual propaganda can be categorized into posters and caricatures that were produced at home front of Hitler and Churchill. These were motivational posters which glorified the leader mostly affirmative posters harping on positive emotions such as ‘hope’ and ‘faith’ in the leader. The second category of visual propaganda surrounding Hitler and Churchill were the kind that produced emotions like ‘fear’. These visuals can again be subcategorized into ‘Name Calling’ visuals where ‘Hitler’ was used in British visuals and Churchill in Nazi visuals to spread awareness and warn people of the consequences evoking emotions such as ‘fear’ and ‘guilt’. The third category of visuals promoted salvage in which leaders appealed to the public to save (e.g. food, fuel, metal etc.) and these posters were focused on the aspect of ‘duty’ of the citizens for their country. There were certain distinctions also which can be ascertained between Hitler and Churchill. Hitler mostly addressed a live audience whereas speeches of Churchill were recorded in a