Popular belief debunked: Hitler's speeches were mostly ineffective

published Sep 15, 2018

This forgotten piece of history demonstrates we humans are very prone to invent false causes for historical incidents. It shows the importance of studying history properly.

From Slate Star Codex, a preprint study: Hitler’s public speeches did not measurably increase support for the Nazi Party (announcement tweet).

This study challenges the commonly-accepted story that everything comes down to his skill as an orator and demagogue (and further reinforces the idea of campaigns in general not being very effective at changing minds).

Of course, this also raises the questions:

But then how did the Nazi Party get so much support so quickly?
Will the study replicate?

Nazism history fake history debunked