As we have seen, the editors of the Völkischer Beobachter were dedicated to validating Nazi ideology with reference to the main figures and ideas of Western creative history, thereby providing the National Socialist movement with cultural legitimacy and grounding it in a far-reaching past. However, adhering to another significant strain of volkish ideas, Nazi ideologues were simultaneously wary of identifying their movement or its supposed forefathers with any sort of intelligentsia. While contributors to the paper often supported their efforts to assimilate iconic hero-artists into Nazi culture by turning to claims of German descent – real or projected – the notion of Volkstümlichkeit or volkishness also served to identify those creators who deserved elevation into the party’s pantheon.

Although he maintained a self-image as a man of Bildung, especially in extensive table talks where he pontificated on every conceivable political and cultural topic, Hitler denounced intellectual pretension and cultivated the public image of a man of the Volk. Above all, he prided himself in being able to bridge the gap between his presumed genius and the “smallest minds,” claiming in Mein Kampf that “among a thousand speakers there is perhaps only a single one who can manage to speak to locksmiths and university professors at the same time, in a form which not only is suitable to the receptivity of both parties, but also influences both parties with equal effect or actually lashes them into a wild storm of applause.” He insisted, accordingly, that Nazi ideology be promoted in terms easily accessible to the average German, holding that, particularly in the field of propaganda, “we must never let ourselves be led by aesthetes or people who have grown blasé because the form and expression of our propaganda would soon have drawing power only for literary teas, instead of being suitable for the masses.” It was important, in his mind, that Nazi leadership should not appear effete, “since a nation composed of learned men who are physical weaklings, hesitant about decisions of the will, and timid pacifists, is not capable of assuring even its own existence on this earth.”