The rise of the Nazis to power conjures up spectacular images. The monster rallies in the beer halls of Munich, the annual gathering of thousands of party loyalists in Nuremberg, the parades and demonstrations of the storm troopers, and the violent assaults of these men on their political opponents all suggest a style of politics that was successful by virtue of its dramatic impact. These images are also invasive. The Nazis' success at mobilizing support seems best understood in terms of irruption and innovation; the novelty of the NSDAP's (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) politics enabled the party to break into the political realm in Germany with revolutionary force. The rise of the Nazis thus featured the penetration and takeover of traditional institutions and rituals of politics by a new style and ethos, whose challenge and danger the party's opponents, tired and conventional in their approach to politics, were too slow to grasp.

This analytical perspective on the rise of National Socialism has been pervasive and compelling. It has found powerful metaphorical expression in Hermann Broch's novel, The Spell. Like Broch, historians have written as if the Nazis appeared as an alien element with strange new powers of persuasion to take over the realm of German politics after the First World War.