Perhaps I should make it clear from the start that I am NOT an admirer of Adolf Hitler or his politics. But at the start Adolf Hitler wasn't presented as a raving madman at all. This attitude, that he was truly dangerous and a threat was confined to a small number of people on the left of German politics. For many on the right he was seen as something close to a saviour. He was also probably the first truly modern politician.

He was a wartime hero, a straight talkin' kind of guy, a rough-diamond, a bit of a maverick who could talk to ordinary people in style they understood. He was no fancy intellectual. He wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He'd seen action and he'd dragged himself up, and in way his life-story seemed to symbolize or personify the history of contemporary Germany. He was a kind of icon.

He had a distinctive way of speaking that apparently appealed to people and made him sound down to earth and honest. He was, after all, an Austrian, and Austrian German sounds kind of 'folksy' compared to high German, well at least I think it does.

Compared to most politicians in Germany Hitler seemed to have a vision, to actually believe in something passionately, a new and better world, a world where everyone pulled together for the common good. It was left or right, rich or poor. It was Germany, a 'volk' united, prosperous and free. He was a breath of fresh air, a new start, the promise of a new beginning, hope one could believe in.

Before television politicians gave long speeches. Hitler gave long speeches. He was good at it. He touched people and moved them. Normally we only hear tiny portions of his speeches, the climaxes, when he's in full flow and reaching the summit of his climb up the rhetorical mountain. The long journey up and onwards is an unknown territory for most non-specialists in German history. Hitler's long speeches are impressive political theatre. Communication is a complex mix of many different types of signals. It isn't just about words and what they mean, but how they sound and how they are used, the gestures one uses, the impression one gives, how one 'plays' the hall like an actor or musician, the ebb and flow of the crowd. Hitler mastered the art of communication in his prime. This made him terribly dangerous as his politics were so extreme, only at the time this was a minority view. The Reds were seen as a bigger threat to society than Hitler.

What's really frightening about what happened in Germany is that it could happen again somewhere else, given similar circumstances. The German experience was extreme, but it would be fatal to imagine it was unique and unrepeatable. Hitler was the leader of a political cult. He was surrounded by a small group of ruthless, highly motivated, determined men, with a secret programme for change, men who wanted to save Germany and restore its greatness. The totalitarian mindset was and is not confined to Germans. There are echoes of totalitarianism and the search for a leader of distinction in our own, troubled societies. The phrase, cometh the time, cometh the man, springs to mind.