"He shouted out really, really simple political ideas. I thought he wasn't quite normal."
In the good economic times, during the mid-to-late twenties in Germany, Hitler was thought charismatic by only a bunch of fanatics. So much so that in the 1928 election the Nazis polled only 2.6% of the vote.
Yet less than five years later Hitler was chancellor of Germany and leader of the most popular political party in the country.
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What changed was the economic situation. In the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 there was mass unemployment in Germany and banks crashed.
"The people were really hungry," says Jutta Ruediger, who started to support the Nazis around this time. "It was very, very hard. And in that context, Hitler with his statements seemed to be the bringer of salvation."
She looked at Hitler and suddenly felt a connection with him.
"I myself had the feeling that here was a man who did not think about himself and his own advantage, but solely about the good of the German people."
Hitler told millions of Germans that they were Aryans and therefore "special" and racially "better" people than everyone else, something that helped cement the charismatic connection between leader and led.
Hitler walking through a guard of honour
He did not hide his hatred, his contempt for democracy or his belief in the use of violence to further political ends from the electorate. But, crucially, he spoke out only against carefully defined enemies like Communists and Jews.
Since the majority of ordinary Germans were not in these risk groups then, as long as they embraced the new world of Nazism, they were relatively free from persecution - at least until the war started to go badly for the Germans.
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Anti-government graffiti in Greece
Unemployment was 30% in Germany when Hitler took power, it is 25.1% and rising in Greece”
Paul Mason Economics editor, Newsnight
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This history matters to us today. Not because history offers "lessons" - how can it since the past can never repeat itself exactly? But because history can contain warnings.
In an economic crisis millions of people suddenly decided to turn to an unconventional leader they thought had "charisma" because he connected with their fears, hopes and latent desire to blame others for their predicament. And the end result was disastrous for tens of millions of people.
It's bleakly ironic that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was greeted in Athens recently with swastika banners carried by angry Greeks protesting at what they see as German interference in their country.
Ironic because it is in Greece itself - amid terrible economic crisis - that we see the sudden rise of a political movement like the Golden Dawn that glories in its intolerance and desire to persecute minorities.
And is led by a man has claimed there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz. Can there be a bigger warning than that?
Laurence Rees is a former creative director of history programmes for the BBC and the author of six books on World War II.
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