'The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. Its notions are never partly this and partly that. Those responsible for English propaganda, especially understood this in a marvellous degree and put what they understood into practice. They allowed no half-measures, which might have given rise to doubt. [...] The mentality of the broad masses is accessible only to what is strong and uncompromising. Like woman whose inner sensibilities are not under the sway of abstract reasoning, but are always subject to the influence of a vague emotional longing for the strength that completes her being, and who would rather bow to the strong man than dominate the weakling—in like manner the masses of the people prefer the ruler to the suppliant, and are well-led witha stronger sense of mental security by a teaching that brooks no rival, than by one which offers them a liberal freedom. They have very little idea of how to use that freedom, and thus they are prone to feel that they have been abandoned. They feel very little shame at being terrorised intellectually and they are scarcely conscious of the fact that their freedom as human beings is impudently abused, nor have they the slightest suspicion of the intrinsic fallacy of the whole doctrine. They see only the ruthless force and brutality of its determined utterances, to which they always submit.'
Adolf Hilter, Mein Kampf Stalag Edition, 1925/26
