The Führer as a Speaker
by Dr. Joseph Goebbels
There are two fundamentally different kinds of speakers: those who use
reasoning, and those who speak from the heart. They reach two different sorts
of people, those who understand through reason, and those who understand
through the heart. Speakers who aim for the reason are generally found in parliaments,
those who speak from the heart speak to the people.
The speaker who uses reason, if he is to be effective, must command a
wide range of statistical and factual material. He must be a master of
dialectic as the pianist is master of the keyboard. With ice cold logic, he
develops his line of thinking and draws irrefutable conclusions. He is most
effective with people who work primarily or exclusively with reason. Big and
compelling successes are denied him. He does not understand how to fire up the
masses for a great cause. He is limited to educational discourse. Since he is
cold, he leaves his listeners cold. At best he persuades people, but never
mobilizes them and sets them marching regardless of their own ideas or the
element of personal risk involved.
