How Twitter Amplifies Authoritarianism

A brief history of communications technology for autocrats

The Germans didn’t invent the original microphone and the P.A., but they perfected them.

Hey, Jack Dorsey! A quick hypothetical for ya: what if it were 1936, and Hitler (the elected leader of Germany at the time) had a Twitter account? Would you block him?

Before you answer, let’s remember what happened back then: a technological innovation in media allowed the most toxic of voices to break the news cycle and enthrall the masses. Sound familiar?

From a technological standpoint, the legacy of the Nazis lives on most audibly through modern sound amplification and recording. Hitler’s party never could have created the modern totalitarian state without two major innovations: the modern condenser microphone (specifically the Neumann CMV3A, a.k.a. the “Hitlerflasche” or the “Hitler bottle”) and the P.A. (public address system).

Two Neumann CMV3As on the job

The Germans didn’t invent the original microphone and the P.A., but they perfected them. We hear the consequences of this every day, everywhere, anytime you listen to amplified sound — live or recorded.

Any musician who has spent time in a recording studio knows that the best mics are from Neumann, Telefunken, Gefell, Sennheiser, Schoeps and AKG (Akustische und. Kino-Geräte). These are the same folks (and their progeny) who gave a loud, booming voice to fascism way back when. Hitler needed a way to project his ranting to the masses in high fidelity, and the ingenious engineers delivered.

Waaaaayyyy bigger audience than the women’s march

Previous to these 1930s innovations, you could Sturm und Drang only to as many people who were within earshot of your naked voice, give or take a megaphone.

“SAD!”

Old-school orators were virtuosos at projecting their voices out to large audiences in market squares or auditoriums. But no way could anyone reach hundreds of thousands of folks from an acoustic soapbox.

And since this amplification invention was new, the novelty added to the mesmerizing effects of a little man shouting atop the biggest soapbox that had ever existed. The quality of sound had a mystical effect upon listeners. It imbued Hitler with godlike powers, making him a deity who could project himself everywhere at once, whether one was standing amid a vast audience or sitting in one’s living room listening to the radio. Sometimes the voice was live; sometimes the voice was recorded in life-like clarity by another cutting-edge German innovation — a reel of magnetic tape.

Fritz Pfleumer with his invention, the tape recorder

Nazi magnetic-tape-recording technology was kept a secret until after the war — allied forces found the tape machines and finally understood how the Germans had been “live” broadcasting orchestras, Hitler’s voice, etc., mid-war. The company that made the magnetic-tape technology — BASF — went on to make those cassettes that many of us used to make sexy mixtapes.

Nothing says love like a good ol’ fashioned mixtape

BASF also made Zyklon B gas for the extermination camps.

The world’s largest chemical producer

The key technical components in the “Hitler Bottle” CMV3A microphone went on to become the U47, which, 70 years later, is still considered by many to be the best vocal mic ever made. Here’s one on sale for $15,000.

So whether you’re bumpin’ at the club, listening to classic Beatles (George Martin’s favorite microphone!) or pretty much doing anything that has to do with live sound amplification or recording, the fact that it all sounds so good (or at least loud) can be attributed to Georg Neumann and the Nazis.