Nazi propaganda
Encyclopedia
Propaganda, the coordinated attempt to influence public opinion through the use of media, was skillfully used by the NSDAP in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler
's leadership of Germany
(1933–1945). National Socialist propaganda provided a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of their policies, including the pursuit of total war
and the extermination of millions of people in the Holocaust
.
The pervasive use of propaganda
by the Nazis is largely responsible for the word "propaganda" itself acquiring its present negative connotations.
, itself a propaganda tool, to the study and practice of propaganda. He claimed to have learnt the value of propaganda as a World War I
infantryman exposed to very effective British and ineffectual German propaganda. The argument that Germany lost the war largely because of British propaganda efforts, expounded at length in Mein Kampf, reflected then-common German nationalist claims. Although untrue – German propaganda during World War I was mostly more advanced than that of the British – it became the official truth of Nazi Germany thanks to its reception by Hitler.
Mein Kampf contains the blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts. Assessing his audience, Hitler writes in chapter VI:
As to the methods to be employed, he explains:
Hitler put these ideas into practice with the reestablishment of the Völkischer Beobachter
, a daily newspaper published by the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from February 1925 on, whose circulation reached 26,175 in 1929. It was joined in 1926 by Joseph Goebbels
's Der Angriff
, another unabashedly and crudely propagandistic paper.
During most of the Nazis' time in opposition, their means of propaganda remained limited. With little access to mass media, the party continued to rely heavily on Hitler and a few others speaking at public meetings until 1929. In April 1930, Hitler appointed Goebbels head of party propaganda. Goebbels, a former journalist and Nazi party officer in Berlin, soon proved his skills. Among his first successes was the organization of riotous demonstrations that succeeded in having the American anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front banned in Germany.
, stressed several themes. Their goals were to create external enemies (countries that allegedly inflicted the Treaty of Versailles
on Germany) and internal enemies (Jews). Hitler and Nazi propagandists played on the anti-Semitism and resentment present in Germany. The Jews were blamed for things such as robbing the German people of their hard work while themselves avoiding physical labour. Der Stürmer
, a Nazi propaganda newspaper, told Germans that Jews kidnapped small children before Passover
because “Jews need the blood of a Christian child, maybe, to mix in with their Matzah.” Posters, films, cartoons, and fliers were seen throughout Germany which attacked the Jewish community, such as the 1940 film The Eternal Jew.
Reaching out to ethnic Germans in other countries such as Czechoslovakia
, France
, Poland
, the Soviet Union
and the Baltic states
was another aim of Nazi party propaganda. In Mein Kampf, Hitler makes a direct remark to those outside of Germany. He states that pain and misery is forced upon ethnic Germans outside of Germany, and that they dream of common fatherland. He finished by stating they needed to fight for one’s nationality. Throughout Mein Kampf, he pushed Germans worldwide to make the struggle for political power and independence their main focus.
Nazi propaganda efforts then focused on creating external enemies. Propagandists strengthened the negative attitude of Germany towards the Treaty of Versailles by territorial claims and ethnocentrism. When the Treaty was signed in 1919 non-propagandists newspapers headlines across the nation spoke German’s feelings, such as “UNACCEPTABLE” which appeared on the front page of the Frankfurter Zeitung in 1919. The Berliner Tageblatt, also in 1919, predicted “Should we accept the conditions, a military furore for revenge will sound in Germany within a few years, a militant nationalism will engulf all.” Hitler, knowing his nation's disgust with the Treaty, used it as leverage to influence his audience. He would repeatedly refer back to the terms of the Treaty as a direct attack on Germany and its people. In one speech delivered on January 30, 1937 he directly states that he is withdrawing the German signature from the document to protest the outrageous proportions of the terms. He claims the Treaty makes Germany out to be inferior and “less” of a country than others only because blame for the war is placed on it. The success of Nazi propagandists and Hitler won the Nazi party control of Germany and eventually led to World War II.
For months prior to the beginning of World War II
in 1939, German newspapers and leaders had carried out a national and international propaganda
campaign accusing Polish authorities of organizing or tolerating violent ethnic cleansing
of ethnic German
s living in Poland. On 22 August, Adolf Hitler
told his generals:
The main part of this propaganda campaign was the false flag
project, Operation Himmler
, which was designed to create the appearance of Polish
aggression against Germany, which was subsequently used to justify the invasion of Poland
.
on February 4, 1943, German propaganda emphasized the prowess of German arms and the humanity German soldiers had shown to the peoples of occupied territories. Pilots of the Allied bombing fleets were depicted as cowardly murderers, and Americans in particular as gangsters in the style of Al Capone
. At the same time, German propaganda sought to alienate Americans and British from each other, and both these Western nations from the Soviets. One of the primary sources for propaganda was the Wehrmachtbericht
, a daily radio broadcast that described the military situation on all fronts. Nazi victories let themselves easily to propaganda broadcasts and were at this point difficult to mishandle. Satires on the defeated, accounts of attacks, and praise for the fallen all were useful for Nazis. Still, failures were not easily handled even at this stage; when the Ark Royal proved to have survived an attack that German propaganda had hyped, considerable embarrassment resulted.
After Stalingrad, the main theme changed to Germany as the sole defender of what they called "Western European culture" against the "Bolshevist hordes". The introduction of the V-1 and V-2 "vengeance weapons" was emphasized to convince Britons of the hopelessness of defeating Germany.
Problems in propaganda arose easily in this stage; expectations of success were raised too high and too quickly, which required explanation if they were not fulfilled, and blunted the effects of success, and the hushing of blunders and failures caused mistrust. The increasing hardship of the war for the German people also called forth more propaganda that the war had been forced on the German people by the refusal of foreign powers to accept their strength and independence. Goebbels called for propaganda to toughen up the German people and not make victory look easy.
On June 23, 1944, the Nazis permitted the Red Cross to visit concentration camp Theresienstadt to dispel rumors about the Final Solution
, which was intended to kill every Jew. In reality, Theresienstadt was a transit camp for Jews en route to extermination camps, but in a sophisticated propaganda effort, fake shops and cafés were erected to imply that the Jews lived in relative comfort. The guests enjoyed the performance of a children's opera, Brundibar
, written by inmate Hans Krása
. The hoax
was so successful for the Nazis that they went on to make a propaganda film (Theresienstadt
) at Theresienstadt. Shooting of the film began on February 26, 1944. Directed by Kurt Gerron
, it was meant to show how well the Jews lived under the "benevolent" protection of the Third Reich. After the shooting, most of the cast, and even the filmmaker himself, were deported to the concentration camp of Auschwitz where they were killed.
Goebbels committed suicide on May 1, 1945, shortly after Hitler had killed himself. Hans Fritzsche
, who had been head of the Radio Chamber, was tried and acquitted by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal
.
("People's Observer") was the official daily newspaper of the NSDAP since December 1920. It disseminated Nazi ideology in the form of brief hyperboles directed against the weakness of parliamentarism, the evils of Jewry and Bolshevism, the national humiliation of the Versailles Treaty and other such topics. It was joined in 1926 by Der Angriff
("The Attack"), a weekly and later daily paper founded by Joseph Goebbels. It was mainly dedicated to attacks against political opponents and Jews – one of its most striking features were vehemently antisemitic cartoons by Hans Schweitzer
– but also engaged in the glorification of Nazi heroes such as Horst Wessel
. The Illustrierter Beobachter
was their weekly illustrated paper.
Other Nazi publications included
After Hitler's rise to power in 1933, all of the regular press came under complete Nazi editorial control through the policy of Gleichschaltung
, and short-lived propaganda newspapers were also established in the conquered territories during World War II.
, recounted that he had realized that it was not written matter but the spoken word that brought about changes, as people would not read things that disagreed, but would linger to hear a speaker. Furthermore, speakers, having their audiences before them, could see their reactions and adjust accordingly, to persuade. His own oratory was a major factor in his rise, and he despised those who came to read pre-written speeches.
Such speakers were particularly important when it was not wanted that the information put across not reach foreigners, who could access the mass media. Schools were instituted to substitute for the political conflict that had formed the old speakers. In 1939, Walter Tiessler, speaking of his own experience as an early speaker, urged that they continue.
Sturmabteilung
speakers were used, though their reliance on instinct sometimes offended well-educated audiences, but their blunt and folksy manner often had their own appeal.
The ministry would provide such speakers with information, such as how to spin the problems on the eastern front, or how to discuss the cuts in food rations. The party propaganda headquarters, sent the Redner-Schnellinformation [Speakers’ Express Information] out with guidelines for immediate campaigns, such as anti-Semitic campaigns and what information to present.
Specific groups were targeted with such speakers. Speakers, for instance, were created specifically for Hitler Youth. These would, among other things, lecture Hitler Youth
and the BDM
on the need to produce more children.
art was a mainstay of the Nazi propaganda effort, aimed both at Germany itself and occupied territories. It had several advantages. The visual effect, being striking, would reach the viewer easily. Posters were also, unlike other forms of propaganda, difficult to avoid.
Imagery frequently drew on heroic realism
. Nazi youth and the SS were depicted monumentally, with lighting posed to produce grandeur.
Hans Schweitzer
, under the pen name "Mjölnir" produced many Nazi posters.
Posters were also used in schools, depicting, for instance, an institution for the feeble-minded on one hand and houses on the other, to inform the students that the annual cost of this institution would build 17 homes for healthy families.
or Aryan
type, German military and industrial strength, and the evils of the Nazi enemies. On March 13, 1933, The Third Reich established a Ministry of Propaganda
, appointing Joseph Goebbels as its Minister. On September 22, 1933, a Department of Film was incorporated into the Chamber of Culture. The department controlled the licensing of every film prior to its production. Sometimes, the government would select the actors for a film, financing the production partially or totally, and would grant tax breaks to the producers. Awards for "valuable" films would decrease taxes, thus encouraging self-censorship among movie makers.
Under Goebbels and Hitler, the German film industry became entirely nationalised. The National Socialist Propaganda Directorate, which Goebbels oversaw, had at its disposal nearly all film agencies in Germany by 1936. Occasionally, certain directors such as Wolfgang Liebeneiner
were able to bypass Goebbels by providing him with a different version of the film than would be released. Such films include those directed by Helmut Käutner: Romanze in Moll (Romance in a Minor Key, 1943), Große Freiheit Nr. 7
(The Great Freedom, No. 7, 1944), and Unter den Brücken (Under the Bridges, 1945).
Schools were also provided with motion pictures projectors because film was regarded as particularly appropriate for propagandizing children.Anthony Rhodes, Propaganda: The art of persuasion: World War II, p21 1976, Chelsea House Publishers, New York Films specifically created for schools were termed "military education."
Newsreels were explicitly intended to not be the truth, but to portray such of the truth as was in the interest of Germany to spread.
Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1934) by film-maker Leni Riefenstahl
chronicles the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg
. It features footage of uniformed party members (though relatively few German soldiers), who are marching and drilling to classical melodies. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including speeches by Adolf Hitler.
Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew or The Wandering Jew, 1940) was directed by Fritz Hippler
at the insistence of Goebbels, though the writing is credited to Eberhard Taubert
. The movie is done in the style of a documentary, the central thesis being the immutable racial personality traits that characterize the Jew as a wandering cultural parasite. Throughout the film, these traits are contrasted to the Nazi state ideal: while Aryan men find satisfaction in physical labour and the creation of value, Jews only find pleasure in money and a hedonist lifestyle.
, eugenics
and anti-Semitism
had been in circulation since the 19th century, and the Nazis seized on this body of existing work in their own publications.
The most notable is Adolf Hitler
's Mein Kampf
detailing his beliefs. The book outlines major ideas that would later culminate in World War II. It is heavily influenced by Gustave Le Bon
's 1895 The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, which theorized propaganda as a way to control the seemingly irrational behaviour of crowds. Particularly prominent is the violent anti-Semitism of Hitler and his associates, drawing, among other sources, on the fabricated "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". For example, Hitler claimed that the international language Esperanto
was part of a Jewish plot and makes arguments toward the old German nationalist ideas of "Drang nach Osten
" and the necessity to gain Lebensraum
("living space") eastwards (especially in Russia).
Other books such as Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Ethnology of German People) by Hans F. K. Günther and Rasse und Seele (Race and Soul) by Dr. Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss attempt to identify and classify the differences between the German
, Nordic
or Aryan
type and other supposedly inferior peoples. These books were used as texts in German schools during the Nazi era.
The pre-existing and popular genre of Schollen-roman, or novel of the soil, also known as blood and soil
novels, was given a boost by the acceptability of its themes to the Nazis and developed a mysticism of unity.
The immensely popular "Red Indian" stories by Karl May
were permitted despite the heroic treatment of the hero Winnetou
and "colored" races; instead, the argument was made that the stories demonstrated the fall of the Red Indians was caused by a lack of racial consciousness, to encourage it in the Germans. Other fictional works were also adapted; Heidi
was stripped of its Christian elements, and Robinson Crusoe
's relationship to Friday was made a master-slave one.
was much higher than that of the Eastern regions (where they would seek Lebensraum
). Geography text books stated how crowded Germany had become. Other charts would show the cost of disabled children as opposed to healthy ones, or show how two-child families threatened the birthrate. Math books discussed military applications and used military word problems, physics and chemistry concentrated on military applications, and grammar classes were devoted to propaganda sentences. Other textbooks dealt with the history of the Nazi Party. Elementary school reading text included large amounts of propaganda.
Map showing the racial composition of Europe were banned from the classroom after many efforts that did not define the territory widely enough for party officials.
Even fairy tale
s were put to use, with Cinderella
being presented as a tale of how the prince's racial instincts lead him to reject the stepmother's alien blood for the racially pure maiden. Nordic sagas were likewise presented as the illustration of Führerprinzip
, which was developed with such heroes as Frederick the Great and Bismark.
Literature was to be chosen within the "German spirit" rather than a fixed list of forbidden and required, which made the teachers all the more cautious although Jewish authors were impossible for classrooms. While only William Shakespeare
's MacBeth
and The Merchant of Venice
were actually recommended, none of the plays were actually forbidden, even Hamlet
, denounced for "flabbiness of soul."
Biology texts, however, were put the most use in presenting eugenic principles and racial theories; this included explanations of the Nuremberg Laws
, which were claimed to allow the German and Jewish peoples to co-exist without the danger of mixing. Science was to be presented as the most natural area for introducing the "Jewish Question", once teachers took care to point out that in nature, animals associated with those of their own species.
Teachers' guidelines on racial instruction presented both the handicapped and Jews as dangers. Despite their many photographs glamorizing the "Nordic" type, the texts also claimed that visual inspection was insufficient, and genealogical analysis was required to determine their types, and report any hereditary problems.
Nazi publications also carried various forms of propaganda.
Neues Volk
, the monthly publication of the Office of Racial Policy
, carried racial propaganda. While chiefly aimed at fomenting ethnic pride through ideal Aryan types, it also included articles aimed at Jews and "defectives."
The NS-Frauen-Warte
, aimed at women, included such topics as the role of women in the Nazi state. Despite its propaganda elements, it was predominately a woman's magazine. It defended anti-intellectualism, urged women to have children, even in wartime, put forth what the Nazis had done for women, discusses bridal schools, urged women to greater efforts in total war
.
Der Pimpf
was aimed at boys and contained both adventure and propaganda.
Das deutsche Mädel
, in contrast, recommended for girls hiking, tending the wounded, and preparing for care for children. It lay far more emphasis than NS-Frauen-Warte on the strong and active German woman.
during World War II
. It was distributed throughout occupied Europe and neutral countries. "Signal" was published from April 1940 to March 1945, and had the highest sales of any magazine published in Europe during the period 1940 to 1945—circulation peaked at two and one half million in 1943. At various times, it was published in at least twenty languages. There was an English edition distributed in the British
Channel Islands of Guernsey
, Jersey
, Alderney
, and Sark
—these islands were occupied by the Wehrmacht
during World War II.
The promoter of the magazine was the chief of the Wehrmacht propaganda office, Colonel Hasso von Wedel. Its annual budget was 10 million Reichmarks, roughly $2.5 million at the pre-war exchange rate.
The image that Signal hoped to create was that of Nazi Germany
and its New Order
as the great benefactor of Europe
an peoples and of Western civilization in general. Germany and its allies were depicted as the humane liberators of the occupied nations. Some articles displayed color photographs of dramatic battle scenes. The magazine contained little anti-Semitic
propaganda, and the Jews
were hardly mentioned.
.
) were subsidised by the government. Goebbels claimed the radio was the "eighth great power", and he, along with the Nazi party, recognized the power of the radio in the propaganda machine of Nazi Germany. In that "Radio as the Eighth Great Power" speech, Goebbels proclaimed:
By the start of the Second World War
over 70% of German households had one of these radios, which were deliberately limited in range in order to prevent loyal citizens from considering other viewpoints in foreign broadcasts. Radio broadcasts were also played over loudspeakers in public places and workplaces.
In private homes, however, people could easily turn off the radio when bored and did so once the novelty of hearing the voice from a box wore off; this caused the Nazis to introduce many non-propaganda elements, such as music, advice and tips, serials and other entertainment. This was accelerated in the war to prevent people from tuning in enemy propaganda broadcasts; though Goebbels claimed in his Das Reich article that it was to make the radio a good companion to the people, he admitted the truth in his diary.
to where William Joyce
broadcast regularly, gaining the nickname 'Lord Haw-Haw
' in the process. Joyce first appeared on German radio on 6 September 1939 reading the news in English but soon became noted for his often mischievous propaganda broadcasts. Joyce was executed in 1946 for treason
. Although the most notorious, and most regularly heard, of the UK propagandists, Joyce was not the only broadcaster, with others such as Norman Baillie-Stewart
, Jersey
-born teacher Pearl Vardon, British Union of Fascists
members Leonard Banning and Susan Hilton, Barry Payne Jones of the Link
and Alexander Fraser Grant, whose show was aimed specifically at Scotland
, also broadcasting through the 'New British Broadcasting Service'.
Broadcasts were also made to the United States
, notably through Robert Henry Best and 'Axis Sally
' Mildred Gillars. Best, a freelance journalist based in Vienna
, was initially arrested following the German declaration of war on the US but before long he became a feature on propaganda radio, attacking the influence of the Jews in the US and the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He would later be sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. Gilders, a teacher in Germany, mostly broadcast on similar themes as well as peppering her speech with allegations of infidelity against the wives of servicemen. Her most notorious broadcast was the 'Vision of Invasion' radio play, broadcast immediately prior to D-Day
, from the perspective of an American mother who dreamed that her soldier son died violently in Normandy
.
France also received broadcasts from Radio-Stuttgart, where Paul Ferdonnet
, an anti-Semitic journalist, was the main voice during the Phoney War. Following the occupation Radio Paris
and Radio Vichy became the main organs of propaganda, with leading far right figures such as Jacques Doriot
, Philippe Henriot
and Jean Hérold-Paquis
regularly speaking in support of the Nazis. Others who broadcast included Gerald Hewitt, a British citizen who lived most of his life in Paris and had been associated with Action Française
. The use of domestic broadcasters intended to galvanise support for occupation was also used in Belgium
, where Ward Hermans
regularly spoke in support of the Nazis from his base in Bremen
, and the Italian Social Republic
, to where Giovanni Preziosi
broadcast a vehemently anti-Semitic show from his base in Munich
. Pro-Nazi broadcasts were even heard in North Africa
, where Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
helped to insure the spread of Nazi ideas in the Arabic language
.
By Nazi standards, fine art was not propaganda. Its purpose was to create ideals, for eternity. This produced a call for heroic and romantic art, which reflected the ideal rather than the realistic. Explicitly political paintings were very rare. Still more rare were anti-Semitic paintings, because the art was supposed to be on a higher plane. Nevertheless, selected themes, common in propaganda, were the most common topics of art.
Sculpture was used as an expression of Nazi racial theories. The most common image was of the nude male, expressing the ideal of the Aryan race. Nudes were required to be physically perfect. At the Paris Exposition of 1937, Josef Thorak
's Comradeship stood outside the German pavilion, depicting two enormous nude males, clasping hands and standing defiantly side by side, in a pose of defense and racial camaraderie.
Landscape painting featured mostly heavily in the Greater German Art exhibition, in accordance with themes of blood and soil
. Peasants were also popular images, reflecting a simple life in harmony with nature, frequently with large families. With the advent of war, war art came to be a significant though still not predominating proportion.
The continuing of the German Art Exhibition throughout the war was put forth as a manifestation of German's culture.
(leader principle), Volksgemeinschaft
(people's community), Blut und Boden (blood and soil) and pride in the German race. Propaganda was also used to maintain the cult of personality
around Nazi leader Adolf Hitler
, and to promote campaigns for eugenics
and the annexation of German-speaking areas
. After the outbreak of World War II
, Nazi propaganda vilified Germany's enemies, notably the United Kingdom
, the Soviet Union and the United States, and exhorted the population to partake in total war
.
writers, agree about its remarkable effectiveness. Their assessment of its significance, however – whether it shaped or merely directed and exploited public opinion – is influenced by their approach to wider questions raised by the study of Nazi Germany, such as the question whether the Nazi state was a fully totalitarian dictatorship, as argued by Hannah Arendt
, or whether it also depended on a certain societal consensus.
In addition to media archives, an important primary source for the study of the Nazi propaganda effort are the reports on civilian morale and public opinion that the Sicherheitsdienst
and later the RMVP compiled from 1939 on. Another are the Deutschland-Berichte, reports gathered by underground agents of the Sopade
that particularly dealt with German popular opinion.
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's leadership of Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
(1933–1945). National Socialist propaganda provided a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of their policies, including the pursuit of total war
Total war
Total war is a war in which a belligerent engages in the complete mobilization of fully available resources and population.In the mid-19th century, "total war" was identified by scholars as a separate class of warfare...
and the extermination of millions of people in the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
.
The pervasive use of propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
by the Nazis is largely responsible for the word "propaganda" itself acquiring its present negative connotations.
In opposition (1919–33)
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler devoted two chapters of his 1925/26 work Mein KampfMein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
, itself a propaganda tool, to the study and practice of propaganda. He claimed to have learnt the value of propaganda as a World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
infantryman exposed to very effective British and ineffectual German propaganda. The argument that Germany lost the war largely because of British propaganda efforts, expounded at length in Mein Kampf, reflected then-common German nationalist claims. Although untrue – German propaganda during World War I was mostly more advanced than that of the British – it became the official truth of Nazi Germany thanks to its reception by Hitler.
Mein Kampf contains the blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts. Assessing his audience, Hitler writes in chapter VI:
"Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses.
The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood."
As to the methods to be employed, he explains:
"Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula."
Hitler put these ideas into practice with the reestablishment of the Völkischer Beobachter
Völkischer Beobachter
The Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923...
, a daily newspaper published by the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from February 1925 on, whose circulation reached 26,175 in 1929. It was joined in 1926 by Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
's Der Angriff
Der Angriff
Der Angriff was a German language newspaper founded in 1927 by the Berlin Gau of the Nazi Party.The newspaper was set up by Joseph Goebbels, who in 1926 had become the Nazi Party leader in Berlin, and the party provided most of the money needed to ensure publication...
, another unabashedly and crudely propagandistic paper.
During most of the Nazis' time in opposition, their means of propaganda remained limited. With little access to mass media, the party continued to rely heavily on Hitler and a few others speaking at public meetings until 1929. In April 1930, Hitler appointed Goebbels head of party propaganda. Goebbels, a former journalist and Nazi party officer in Berlin, soon proved his skills. Among his first successes was the organization of riotous demonstrations that succeeded in having the American anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front banned in Germany.
In power (1933–39)
Before World War II, Nazi propaganda strategy, officially promulgated by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and PropagandaMinistry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda was Nazi Germany's ministry that enforced Nazi Party ideology in Germany and regulated its culture and society. Founded on March 13, 1933, by Adolf Hitler's new National Socialist government, the Ministry was headed by Dr...
, stressed several themes. Their goals were to create external enemies (countries that allegedly inflicted the Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
on Germany) and internal enemies (Jews). Hitler and Nazi propagandists played on the anti-Semitism and resentment present in Germany. The Jews were blamed for things such as robbing the German people of their hard work while themselves avoiding physical labour. Der Stürmer
Der Stürmer
Der Stürmer was a weekly tabloid-format Nazi newspaper published by Julius Streicher from 1923 to the end of World War II in 1945, with brief suspensions in publication due to legal difficulties. It was a significant part of the Nazi propaganda machinery and was vehemently anti-Semitic...
, a Nazi propaganda newspaper, told Germans that Jews kidnapped small children before Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
because “Jews need the blood of a Christian child, maybe, to mix in with their Matzah.” Posters, films, cartoons, and fliers were seen throughout Germany which attacked the Jewish community, such as the 1940 film The Eternal Jew.
Reaching out to ethnic Germans in other countries such as Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and the Baltic states
Baltic states
The term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
was another aim of Nazi party propaganda. In Mein Kampf, Hitler makes a direct remark to those outside of Germany. He states that pain and misery is forced upon ethnic Germans outside of Germany, and that they dream of common fatherland. He finished by stating they needed to fight for one’s nationality. Throughout Mein Kampf, he pushed Germans worldwide to make the struggle for political power and independence their main focus.
Nazi propaganda efforts then focused on creating external enemies. Propagandists strengthened the negative attitude of Germany towards the Treaty of Versailles by territorial claims and ethnocentrism. When the Treaty was signed in 1919 non-propagandists newspapers headlines across the nation spoke German’s feelings, such as “UNACCEPTABLE” which appeared on the front page of the Frankfurter Zeitung in 1919. The Berliner Tageblatt, also in 1919, predicted “Should we accept the conditions, a military furore for revenge will sound in Germany within a few years, a militant nationalism will engulf all.” Hitler, knowing his nation's disgust with the Treaty, used it as leverage to influence his audience. He would repeatedly refer back to the terms of the Treaty as a direct attack on Germany and its people. In one speech delivered on January 30, 1937 he directly states that he is withdrawing the German signature from the document to protest the outrageous proportions of the terms. He claims the Treaty makes Germany out to be inferior and “less” of a country than others only because blame for the war is placed on it. The success of Nazi propagandists and Hitler won the Nazi party control of Germany and eventually led to World War II.
For months prior to the beginning of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in 1939, German newspapers and leaders had carried out a national and international propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
campaign accusing Polish authorities of organizing or tolerating violent ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
of ethnic German
German minority in Poland
The registered German minority in Poland consists of 152,900 people, according to a 2002 census.The German language is used in certain areas in Opole Voivodeship , where most of the minority resides...
s living in Poland. On 22 August, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
told his generals:
The main part of this propaganda campaign was the false flag
False flag
False flag operations are covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own...
project, Operation Himmler
Operation Himmler
Operation Himmler was a Nazi Germany false flag project to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which was subsequently used by Nazi propaganda to justify the invasion of Poland...
, which was designed to create the appearance of Polish
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
aggression against Germany, which was subsequently used to justify the invasion of Poland
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
.
At war (1939–45)
Until the conclusion of the Battle of StalingradBattle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad was a major battle of World War II in which Nazi Germany and its allies fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 23 August 1942 and 2 February 1943...
on February 4, 1943, German propaganda emphasized the prowess of German arms and the humanity German soldiers had shown to the peoples of occupied territories. Pilots of the Allied bombing fleets were depicted as cowardly murderers, and Americans in particular as gangsters in the style of Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
. At the same time, German propaganda sought to alienate Americans and British from each other, and both these Western nations from the Soviets. One of the primary sources for propaganda was the Wehrmachtbericht
Wehrmachtbericht
The Wehrmachtbericht was a daily radio report on the Großdeutscher Rundfunk of Nazi Germany, published by the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht regarding the military situation on all fronts of World War II....
, a daily radio broadcast that described the military situation on all fronts. Nazi victories let themselves easily to propaganda broadcasts and were at this point difficult to mishandle. Satires on the defeated, accounts of attacks, and praise for the fallen all were useful for Nazis. Still, failures were not easily handled even at this stage; when the Ark Royal proved to have survived an attack that German propaganda had hyped, considerable embarrassment resulted.
After Stalingrad, the main theme changed to Germany as the sole defender of what they called "Western European culture" against the "Bolshevist hordes". The introduction of the V-1 and V-2 "vengeance weapons" was emphasized to convince Britons of the hopelessness of defeating Germany.
Problems in propaganda arose easily in this stage; expectations of success were raised too high and too quickly, which required explanation if they were not fulfilled, and blunted the effects of success, and the hushing of blunders and failures caused mistrust. The increasing hardship of the war for the German people also called forth more propaganda that the war had been forced on the German people by the refusal of foreign powers to accept their strength and independence. Goebbels called for propaganda to toughen up the German people and not make victory look easy.
On June 23, 1944, the Nazis permitted the Red Cross to visit concentration camp Theresienstadt to dispel rumors about the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
, which was intended to kill every Jew. In reality, Theresienstadt was a transit camp for Jews en route to extermination camps, but in a sophisticated propaganda effort, fake shops and cafés were erected to imply that the Jews lived in relative comfort. The guests enjoyed the performance of a children's opera, Brundibar
Brundibár
Brundibár is a children's opera by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása with a libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister, originally performed by the children of Theresienstadt concentration camp in occupied Czechoslovakia...
, written by inmate Hans Krása
Hans Krása
Hans Krása was a Czech composer who was killed in the Holocaust at Auschwitz. He helped to organize cultural life in Theresienstadt concentration camp.-Life:...
. The hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
was so successful for the Nazis that they went on to make a propaganda film (Theresienstadt
Theresienstadt (film)
Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet was a black and white projected Nazi propaganda film shot in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt....
) at Theresienstadt. Shooting of the film began on February 26, 1944. Directed by Kurt Gerron
Kurt Gerron
Kurt Gerron was a German Jewish actor and film director.-Life:Born Kurt Gerson into a well-off merchant family in Berlin, he initially studied medicine but was called up for military service in World War I. Seriously wounded he qualified as a military doctor of the German Army...
, it was meant to show how well the Jews lived under the "benevolent" protection of the Third Reich. After the shooting, most of the cast, and even the filmmaker himself, were deported to the concentration camp of Auschwitz where they were killed.
Goebbels committed suicide on May 1, 1945, shortly after Hitler had killed himself. Hans Fritzsche
Hans Fritzsche
Hans Georg Fritzsche was a senior German Nazi official, ending the war as Ministerialdirektor at the Propagandaministerium.- Career :...
, who had been head of the Radio Chamber, was tried and acquitted by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
.
Newspapers
The Völkischer BeobachterVölkischer Beobachter
The Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923...
("People's Observer") was the official daily newspaper of the NSDAP since December 1920. It disseminated Nazi ideology in the form of brief hyperboles directed against the weakness of parliamentarism, the evils of Jewry and Bolshevism, the national humiliation of the Versailles Treaty and other such topics. It was joined in 1926 by Der Angriff
Der Angriff
Der Angriff was a German language newspaper founded in 1927 by the Berlin Gau of the Nazi Party.The newspaper was set up by Joseph Goebbels, who in 1926 had become the Nazi Party leader in Berlin, and the party provided most of the money needed to ensure publication...
("The Attack"), a weekly and later daily paper founded by Joseph Goebbels. It was mainly dedicated to attacks against political opponents and Jews – one of its most striking features were vehemently antisemitic cartoons by Hans Schweitzer
Hans Schweitzer
Hans Schweitzer , known as Mjölnir, was an artist who produced many posters for the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler.He was recruited to produce Nazi propaganda posters by Joseph Goebbels. The posters depicted crude but memorable caricatures of the NSDAP's opponents...
– but also engaged in the glorification of Nazi heroes such as Horst Wessel
Horst Wessel
Horst Ludwig Wessel was a German Nazi activist who was made a posthumous hero of the Nazi movement following his violent death in 1930...
. The Illustrierter Beobachter
Illustrierter Beobachter
Illustrierter Beobachter was an illustrated propaganda magazine which the Nazi Party published. It was published from 1926 to 1945 and was published in Munich....
was their weekly illustrated paper.
Other Nazi publications included
- Das ReichDas Reich (newspaper)Das Reich was a weekly newspaper founded by Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister of the Third Reich, in May 1940...
, a more moderate and highbrow publication aimed at intellectuals and foreigners; - Der StürmerDer StürmerDer Stürmer was a weekly tabloid-format Nazi newspaper published by Julius Streicher from 1923 to the end of World War II in 1945, with brief suspensions in publication due to legal difficulties. It was a significant part of the Nazi propaganda machinery and was vehemently anti-Semitic...
, the most virulently antisemitic of all; and - Das Schwarze KorpsDas Schwarze KorpsDas Schwarze Korps was the official newspaper of the Schutzstaffel . This newspaper was published on Wednesdays and distributed free of charge. Each SS member was supposed to read the publication and urge others to do so as well...
, an SSSchutzstaffelThe Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
publication, aiming at a more intellectual tone.
After Hitler's rise to power in 1933, all of the regular press came under complete Nazi editorial control through the policy of Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung
Gleichschaltung , meaning "coordination", "making the same", "bringing into line", is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control and tight coordination over all aspects of society. The historian Richard J...
, and short-lived propaganda newspapers were also established in the conquered territories during World War II.
Newspapers in occupied countries
In Ukraine, after Nazis cracked down on the papers, most papers printed only articles from German agencies, producing the odd effect of more anti-American and anti-British articles than anti-Communist ones. They also printed articles about antecedents of German rule over Ukraine, such as Catherine the Great and the Goths.Speakers
The Nazi party relied heavily on speakers to make its propaganda presentations, most heavily before they came to power, but also afterwards. Hitler, in Mein KampfMein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
, recounted that he had realized that it was not written matter but the spoken word that brought about changes, as people would not read things that disagreed, but would linger to hear a speaker. Furthermore, speakers, having their audiences before them, could see their reactions and adjust accordingly, to persuade. His own oratory was a major factor in his rise, and he despised those who came to read pre-written speeches.
Such speakers were particularly important when it was not wanted that the information put across not reach foreigners, who could access the mass media. Schools were instituted to substitute for the political conflict that had formed the old speakers. In 1939, Walter Tiessler, speaking of his own experience as an early speaker, urged that they continue.
Sturmabteilung
Sturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
speakers were used, though their reliance on instinct sometimes offended well-educated audiences, but their blunt and folksy manner often had their own appeal.
The ministry would provide such speakers with information, such as how to spin the problems on the eastern front, or how to discuss the cuts in food rations. The party propaganda headquarters, sent the Redner-Schnellinformation [Speakers’ Express Information] out with guidelines for immediate campaigns, such as anti-Semitic campaigns and what information to present.
Specific groups were targeted with such speakers. Speakers, for instance, were created specifically for Hitler Youth. These would, among other things, lecture Hitler Youth
Hitler Youth
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung...
and the BDM
League of German Girls
The League of German Girls or League of German Maidens , was the girl's wing of the overall Nazi party youth movement, the Hitler Youth. It was the only female youth organization in Nazi Germany....
on the need to produce more children.
Posters
PosterPoster
A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...
art was a mainstay of the Nazi propaganda effort, aimed both at Germany itself and occupied territories. It had several advantages. The visual effect, being striking, would reach the viewer easily. Posters were also, unlike other forms of propaganda, difficult to avoid.
Imagery frequently drew on heroic realism
Heroic realism
Heroic realism is a term which has sometimes been used to describe art used as propaganda. Examples include the Socialist realism style associated with Communist regimes, and the very similar art style associated with Fascism...
. Nazi youth and the SS were depicted monumentally, with lighting posed to produce grandeur.
Hans Schweitzer
Hans Schweitzer
Hans Schweitzer , known as Mjölnir, was an artist who produced many posters for the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler.He was recruited to produce Nazi propaganda posters by Joseph Goebbels. The posters depicted crude but memorable caricatures of the NSDAP's opponents...
, under the pen name "Mjölnir" produced many Nazi posters.
Posters were also used in schools, depicting, for instance, an institution for the feeble-minded on one hand and houses on the other, to inform the students that the annual cost of this institution would build 17 homes for healthy families.
Films
The Nazis produced many films to promote their views. Themes included the virtues of the NordicNordic theory
The Nordic race is one of the racial subcategories into which the Caucasian race was divided by anthropologists in the first half of the 20th century...
or Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
type, German military and industrial strength, and the evils of the Nazi enemies. On March 13, 1933, The Third Reich established a Ministry of Propaganda
Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda was Nazi Germany's ministry that enforced Nazi Party ideology in Germany and regulated its culture and society. Founded on March 13, 1933, by Adolf Hitler's new National Socialist government, the Ministry was headed by Dr...
, appointing Joseph Goebbels as its Minister. On September 22, 1933, a Department of Film was incorporated into the Chamber of Culture. The department controlled the licensing of every film prior to its production. Sometimes, the government would select the actors for a film, financing the production partially or totally, and would grant tax breaks to the producers. Awards for "valuable" films would decrease taxes, thus encouraging self-censorship among movie makers.
Under Goebbels and Hitler, the German film industry became entirely nationalised. The National Socialist Propaganda Directorate, which Goebbels oversaw, had at its disposal nearly all film agencies in Germany by 1936. Occasionally, certain directors such as Wolfgang Liebeneiner
Wolfgang Liebeneiner
Wolfgang Georg Louis Liebeneiner was a German actor, film director and theater director.He was born in Liebau in Prussian Silesia. In 1928, he was taught by Otto Falckenberg, the director of the Munich Kammerspiele, in acting and directing...
were able to bypass Goebbels by providing him with a different version of the film than would be released. Such films include those directed by Helmut Käutner: Romanze in Moll (Romance in a Minor Key, 1943), Große Freiheit Nr. 7
Große Freiheit Nr. 7
Große Freiheit Nr. 7 is a 1944 German musical drama film directed by Helmut Käutner. It was named after Große Freiheit , a street next to Hamburg's Reeperbahn road in the St...
(The Great Freedom, No. 7, 1944), and Unter den Brücken (Under the Bridges, 1945).
Schools were also provided with motion pictures projectors because film was regarded as particularly appropriate for propagandizing children.Anthony Rhodes, Propaganda: The art of persuasion: World War II, p21 1976, Chelsea House Publishers, New York Films specifically created for schools were termed "military education."
Newsreels were explicitly intended to not be the truth, but to portray such of the truth as was in the interest of Germany to spread.
Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1934) by film-maker Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
chronicles the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
. It features footage of uniformed party members (though relatively few German soldiers), who are marching and drilling to classical melodies. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including speeches by Adolf Hitler.
Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew or The Wandering Jew, 1940) was directed by Fritz Hippler
Fritz Hippler
Fritz Hippler was a German filmmaker who ran the film department in the Propaganda Ministry of the Third Reich, under Joseph Goebbels. He is most famous as director of the propaganda film Der ewige Jude ....
at the insistence of Goebbels, though the writing is credited to Eberhard Taubert
Eberhard Taubert
Eberhard Taubert was a lawyer and anti-Semitic Nazi propagandist. Since 1933 he was a member of the Nazi Propagandaministerium under Joseph Goebbels.His nickname in Nazi circles was Dr. Anti...
. The movie is done in the style of a documentary, the central thesis being the immutable racial personality traits that characterize the Jew as a wandering cultural parasite. Throughout the film, these traits are contrasted to the Nazi state ideal: while Aryan men find satisfaction in physical labour and the creation of value, Jews only find pleasure in money and a hedonist lifestyle.
Books
The Nazis and sympathizers published many books. Most of the beliefs that would become associated with the Nazis, such as German nationalismNationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
and anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
had been in circulation since the 19th century, and the Nazis seized on this body of existing work in their own publications.
The most notable is Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf
Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
detailing his beliefs. The book outlines major ideas that would later culminate in World War II. It is heavily influenced by Gustave Le Bon
Gustave Le Bon
Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist...
's 1895 The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, which theorized propaganda as a way to control the seemingly irrational behaviour of crowds. Particularly prominent is the violent anti-Semitism of Hitler and his associates, drawing, among other sources, on the fabricated "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". For example, Hitler claimed that the international language Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
was part of a Jewish plot and makes arguments toward the old German nationalist ideas of "Drang nach Osten
Drang nach Osten
Drang nach Osten was a term coined in the 19th century to designate German expansion into Slavic lands. The term became a motto of the German nationalist movement in the late nineteenth century...
" and the necessity to gain Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
("living space") eastwards (especially in Russia).
Other books such as Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Ethnology of German People) by Hans F. K. Günther and Rasse und Seele (Race and Soul) by Dr. Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss attempt to identify and classify the differences between the German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
, Nordic
Nordic theory
The Nordic race is one of the racial subcategories into which the Caucasian race was divided by anthropologists in the first half of the 20th century...
or Aryan
Aryan race
The Aryan race is a concept historically influential in Western culture in the period of the late 19th century and early 20th century. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race or...
type and other supposedly inferior peoples. These books were used as texts in German schools during the Nazi era.
The pre-existing and popular genre of Schollen-roman, or novel of the soil, also known as blood and soil
Blood and soil
Blood and Soil refers to an ideology that focuses on ethnicity based on two factors, descent and homeland/Heimat...
novels, was given a boost by the acceptability of its themes to the Nazis and developed a mysticism of unity.
The immensely popular "Red Indian" stories by Karl May
Karl May
Karl Friedrich May was a popular German writer, noted mainly for adventure novels set in the American Old West, and similar books set in the Orient and Middle East . In addition, he wrote stories set in his native Germany, in China and in South America...
were permitted despite the heroic treatment of the hero Winnetou
Winnetou
Winnetou is a fictional Native American hero of several novels written by Karl May in German, including the sequels Winnetou I through Winnetou IV....
and "colored" races; instead, the argument was made that the stories demonstrated the fall of the Red Indians was caused by a lack of racial consciousness, to encourage it in the Germans. Other fictional works were also adapted; Heidi
Heidi
Heidi is a Swiss work of fiction, published in two parts as Heidi's years of learning and travel and Heidi makes use of what she has learned.It is a novel about the events in the life of a young girl in her grandfather's care, in the Swiss Alps...
was stripped of its Christian elements, and Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...
's relationship to Friday was made a master-slave one.
Text books
"Geopolitical atlases" emphasized Nazi schemes, demonstrating the "encirclement" of Germany, depicting how the prolific Slav nations would cause the German people to be overrun, and (in contrast) showing the relative population density of GermanyVolk ohne Raum
"Volk ohne Raum" was a political slogan used in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. The term was coined by the nationalist writer Hans Grimm with his novel Volk ohne Raum...
was much higher than that of the Eastern regions (where they would seek Lebensraum
Lebensraum
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German population, for a Greater Germany...
). Geography text books stated how crowded Germany had become. Other charts would show the cost of disabled children as opposed to healthy ones, or show how two-child families threatened the birthrate. Math books discussed military applications and used military word problems, physics and chemistry concentrated on military applications, and grammar classes were devoted to propaganda sentences. Other textbooks dealt with the history of the Nazi Party. Elementary school reading text included large amounts of propaganda.
Map showing the racial composition of Europe were banned from the classroom after many efforts that did not define the territory widely enough for party officials.
Even fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
s were put to use, with Cinderella
Cinderella
"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...
being presented as a tale of how the prince's racial instincts lead him to reject the stepmother's alien blood for the racially pure maiden. Nordic sagas were likewise presented as the illustration of Führerprinzip
Führerprinzip
The Führerprinzip , German for "leader principle", prescribes the fundamental basis of political authority in the governmental structures of the Third Reich...
, which was developed with such heroes as Frederick the Great and Bismark.
Literature was to be chosen within the "German spirit" rather than a fixed list of forbidden and required, which made the teachers all the more cautious although Jewish authors were impossible for classrooms. While only William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's MacBeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
and The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...
were actually recommended, none of the plays were actually forbidden, even Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, denounced for "flabbiness of soul."
Biology texts, however, were put the most use in presenting eugenic principles and racial theories; this included explanations of the Nuremberg Laws
Nuremberg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany introduced at the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. After the takeover of power in 1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official ideology incorporating scientific racism and antisemitism...
, which were claimed to allow the German and Jewish peoples to co-exist without the danger of mixing. Science was to be presented as the most natural area for introducing the "Jewish Question", once teachers took care to point out that in nature, animals associated with those of their own species.
Teachers' guidelines on racial instruction presented both the handicapped and Jews as dangers. Despite their many photographs glamorizing the "Nordic" type, the texts also claimed that visual inspection was insufficient, and genealogical analysis was required to determine their types, and report any hereditary problems.
Books for occupied countries
In occupied France, the German Institute encouraged translation of German works, although chiefly German nationalists, not ardent Nazis, and produced a massive increase in the sale of translated works. The only books from English to be sold were English classics, and books with Jewish authors or Jewish subject matter (such as biographies) were banned, except for some scientific works. Control of the paper supply allowed Germans the easy ability to pressure publishers about books.Comics
The Nazi-controlled government in German-occupied France produced the Vica comic book series during World War II as a propaganda tool against the Allied forces. The Vica series, authored by Vincent Krassousky, represented Nazi influence and perspective in French society, and included such titles as Vica contre le service secret anglais, and Vica défie l’Oncle Sam.Magazines
In and after 1939, the Zeitschriften-Dienst was sent to magazines to provide guidelines on what to write for appropriate topics.Nazi publications also carried various forms of propaganda.
Neues Volk
Neues Volk
Neues Volk was the monthly publication of the Office of Racial Policy in Nazi Germany. Founded by Walter Gross in 1933, it was a mass-market, illustrated magazine. It aimed at a wide audience, achieving a circulation of 300,000...
, the monthly publication of the Office of Racial Policy
Office of Racial Policy
The NSDAP Office of Racial Policy was a Nazi Party office created in 1933 for "unifying and supervising all indoctrination and propaganda work in the field of population and racial politics"...
, carried racial propaganda. While chiefly aimed at fomenting ethnic pride through ideal Aryan types, it also included articles aimed at Jews and "defectives."
The NS-Frauen-Warte
NS-Frauen-Warte
NS-Frauen-Warte was the Nazi magazine for women. Put out by the NS-Frauenschaft, it had the status of the only party approved magazine for women and served propaganda purposes, particularly supporting the role of housewife and mother as exemplary....
, aimed at women, included such topics as the role of women in the Nazi state. Despite its propaganda elements, it was predominately a woman's magazine. It defended anti-intellectualism, urged women to have children, even in wartime, put forth what the Nazis had done for women, discusses bridal schools, urged women to greater efforts in total war
Total war
Total war is a war in which a belligerent engages in the complete mobilization of fully available resources and population.In the mid-19th century, "total war" was identified by scholars as a separate class of warfare...
.
Der Pimpf
Der Pimpf
Der Pimpf was the Nazi magazine for boys, particularly those in the Deutsches Jungvolk, with adventure and propaganda. It first appeared in 1935 as Morgen, changing its name to Der Pimpf in 1937; its frequency went down with the war....
was aimed at boys and contained both adventure and propaganda.
Das deutsche Mädel
Das deutsche Mädel
Das deutsche Mädel was the Nazi magazine aimed at German girls, particularly members of League of German Girls....
, in contrast, recommended for girls hiking, tending the wounded, and preparing for care for children. It lay far more emphasis than NS-Frauen-Warte on the strong and active German woman.
Signal
Signal was a propaganda magazine published by the WehrmachtWehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It was distributed throughout occupied Europe and neutral countries. "Signal" was published from April 1940 to March 1945, and had the highest sales of any magazine published in Europe during the period 1940 to 1945—circulation peaked at two and one half million in 1943. At various times, it was published in at least twenty languages. There was an English edition distributed in the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Channel Islands of Guernsey
Guernsey
Guernsey, officially the Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British Crown dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.The Bailiwick, as a governing entity, embraces not only all 10 parishes on the Island of Guernsey, but also the islands of Herm, Jethou, Burhou, and Lihou and their islet...
, Jersey
Jersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...
, Alderney
Alderney
Alderney is the most northerly of the Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency. It is long and wide. The area is , making it the third-largest island of the Channel Islands, and the second largest in the Bailiwick...
, and Sark
Sark
Sark is a small island in the Channel Islands in southwestern English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. It is a royal fief, geographically located in the Channel Islands in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, with its own set of laws based on Norman law and its own parliament. It has a population...
—these islands were occupied by the Wehrmacht
Occupation of the Channel Islands
The Channel Islands were occupied by Nazi Germany for much of World War II, from 30 June 1940 until the liberation on 9 May 1945. The Channel Islands are two British Crown dependencies and include the bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey as well as the smaller islands of Alderney and Sark...
during World War II.
The promoter of the magazine was the chief of the Wehrmacht propaganda office, Colonel Hasso von Wedel. Its annual budget was 10 million Reichmarks, roughly $2.5 million at the pre-war exchange rate.
The image that Signal hoped to create was that of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and its New Order
New Order (political system)
The New Order or the New Order of Europe was the political order which the Nazis wanted to impose on Europe, and eventually the rest of the world, during their reign over Germany from 1933 to 1945...
as the great benefactor of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an peoples and of Western civilization in general. Germany and its allies were depicted as the humane liberators of the occupied nations. Some articles displayed color photographs of dramatic battle scenes. The magazine contained little anti-Semitic
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
propaganda, and the Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
were hardly mentioned.
Radio
The radio was an important tool in Nazi propaganda and it has been argued that it was the Nazis who pioneered the use of what was still a relatively new technology as a tool of genocideGenocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
.
Internal broadcasts
Certainly the Nazis recognised the importance of radio in disseminating their message and to that end Goebbels approved a scheme whereby millions of cheap radio sets (the VolksempfängerVolksempfänger
The Volksempfänger was a range of radio receivers developed by engineer Otto Griessing at the request of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels....
) were subsidised by the government. Goebbels claimed the radio was the "eighth great power", and he, along with the Nazi party, recognized the power of the radio in the propaganda machine of Nazi Germany. In that "Radio as the Eighth Great Power" speech, Goebbels proclaimed:
- It would not have been possible for us to take power or to use it in the ways we have without the radio....It is no exaggeration to say that the German revolution, at least in the form it took, would have been impossible without the airplane and the radio. ...[Radio] reached the entire nation, regardless of class, standing, or religion. That was primarily the result of the tight centralization, the strong reporting, and the up-to-date nature of the German radio.
By the start of the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
over 70% of German households had one of these radios, which were deliberately limited in range in order to prevent loyal citizens from considering other viewpoints in foreign broadcasts. Radio broadcasts were also played over loudspeakers in public places and workplaces.
In private homes, however, people could easily turn off the radio when bored and did so once the novelty of hearing the voice from a box wore off; this caused the Nazis to introduce many non-propaganda elements, such as music, advice and tips, serials and other entertainment. This was accelerated in the war to prevent people from tuning in enemy propaganda broadcasts; though Goebbels claimed in his Das Reich article that it was to make the radio a good companion to the people, he admitted the truth in his diary.
External broadcasts
As well as domestic broadcasts, the Nazi regime also used radio to deliver its message to both occupied territories and enemy states. One of the main targets was the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
to where William Joyce
William Joyce
William Joyce , nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an Irish-American fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He was hanged for treason by the British as a result of his wartime activities, even though he had renounced his British nationality...
broadcast regularly, gaining the nickname 'Lord Haw-Haw
Lord Haw-Haw
Lord Haw-Haw was the nickname of several announcers on the English-language propaganda radio programme Germany Calling, broadcast by Nazi German radio to audiences in Great Britain on the medium wave station Reichssender Hamburg and by shortwave to the United States...
' in the process. Joyce first appeared on German radio on 6 September 1939 reading the news in English but soon became noted for his often mischievous propaganda broadcasts. Joyce was executed in 1946 for treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
. Although the most notorious, and most regularly heard, of the UK propagandists, Joyce was not the only broadcaster, with others such as Norman Baillie-Stewart
Norman Baillie-Stewart
Norman Baillie-Stewart was a British army officer known as The Officer in the Tower when he was imprisoned in the Tower of London...
, Jersey
Jersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...
-born teacher Pearl Vardon, British Union of Fascists
British Union of Fascists
The British Union was a political party in the United Kingdom formed in 1932 by Sir Oswald Mosley as the British Union of Fascists, in 1936 it changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists and then in 1937 to simply the British Union...
members Leonard Banning and Susan Hilton, Barry Payne Jones of the Link
The Link (organisation)
The Link was established in July 1937 as an 'independent non-party organisation to promote Anglo-German friendship'. It generally operated as a cultural organisation, although its journal, the Anglo-German Review reflected the pro-Nazi views of Admiral Sir Barry Domvile, and particularly in London...
and Alexander Fraser Grant, whose show was aimed specifically at Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, also broadcasting through the 'New British Broadcasting Service'.
Broadcasts were also made to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, notably through Robert Henry Best and 'Axis Sally
Axis Sally
Axis Sally can refer to:*Mildred Gillars, German-American female radio personality during World War II, best known for her propaganda broadcasts for Nazi Germany...
' Mildred Gillars. Best, a freelance journalist based in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, was initially arrested following the German declaration of war on the US but before long he became a feature on propaganda radio, attacking the influence of the Jews in the US and the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He would later be sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. Gilders, a teacher in Germany, mostly broadcast on similar themes as well as peppering her speech with allegations of infidelity against the wives of servicemen. Her most notorious broadcast was the 'Vision of Invasion' radio play, broadcast immediately prior to D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
, from the perspective of an American mother who dreamed that her soldier son died violently in Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
.
France also received broadcasts from Radio-Stuttgart, where Paul Ferdonnet
Paul Ferdonnet
Paul Ferdonnet , dubbed "the Stuttgart traitor" by the French press, was a French journalist....
, an anti-Semitic journalist, was the main voice during the Phoney War. Following the occupation Radio Paris
Radio Paris
Radio Paris was a French radio broadcasting company best known for its Axis propaganda broadcasts in Vichy France during World War II.Radio Paris evolved from the first private radio station in France, called Radiola, founded by pioneering French engineer Émile Girardeau in 1922...
and Radio Vichy became the main organs of propaganda, with leading far right figures such as Jacques Doriot
Jacques Doriot
Jacques Doriot was a French politician prior to and during World War II. He began as a Communist but then turned Fascist.-Early life and politics:...
, Philippe Henriot
Philippe Henriot
Philippe Henriot was a French politician.Moving to the far right after beginnings in Roman Catholic conservatism in the Republican Federation, Henriot was elected to the Third Republic's Chamber of Deputies for the Gironde département in 1932 and 1936...
and Jean Hérold-Paquis
Jean Hérold-Paquis
Jean Auguste Hérold, better known as Jean Hérold-Paquis , was a French journalist who fought for Franco and the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. In 1940 he was appointed as Delegate for Propaganda in the Hautes-Alpes department by the Vichy authorities...
regularly speaking in support of the Nazis. Others who broadcast included Gerald Hewitt, a British citizen who lived most of his life in Paris and had been associated with Action Française
Action Française
The Action Française , founded in 1898, is a French Monarchist counter-revolutionary movement and periodical founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois and whose principal ideologist was Charles Maurras...
. The use of domestic broadcasters intended to galvanise support for occupation was also used in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, where Ward Hermans
Ward Hermans
Cornelius Eduardus Hermans was a Belgian Flemish nationalist politician and writer....
regularly spoke in support of the Nazis from his base in Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
, and the Italian Social Republic
Italian Social Republic
The Italian Social Republic was a puppet state of Nazi Germany led by the "Duce of the Nation" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Benito Mussolini and his Republican Fascist Party. The RSI exercised nominal sovereignty in northern Italy but was largely dependent on the Wehrmacht to maintain control...
, to where Giovanni Preziosi
Giovanni Preziosi
Giovanni Preziosi was an Italian fascist politician noted for his anti-Semitism.- Early career :...
broadcast a vehemently anti-Semitic show from his base in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. Pro-Nazi broadcasts were even heard in North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
, where Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in the British Mandate of Palestine. From as early as 1920, in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state he actively opposed Zionism, and was implicated as a leader of a violent riot...
helped to insure the spread of Nazi ideas in the Arabic language
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
.
Fine art
By Nazi standards, fine art was not propaganda. Its purpose was to create ideals, for eternity. This produced a call for heroic and romantic art, which reflected the ideal rather than the realistic. Explicitly political paintings were very rare. Still more rare were anti-Semitic paintings, because the art was supposed to be on a higher plane. Nevertheless, selected themes, common in propaganda, were the most common topics of art.
Sculpture was used as an expression of Nazi racial theories. The most common image was of the nude male, expressing the ideal of the Aryan race. Nudes were required to be physically perfect. At the Paris Exposition of 1937, Josef Thorak
Josef Thorak
Josef Thorak was an Austrian-German sculptor.In 1922 Thorak's reputation increased when he created Der sterbende Krieger, a statue in memory to the dead of World War I of Stolpmünde.In 1933 and in following years, Thorak joined Arno Breker as one of the two "official sculptors" of the Third Reich...
's Comradeship stood outside the German pavilion, depicting two enormous nude males, clasping hands and standing defiantly side by side, in a pose of defense and racial camaraderie.
Landscape painting featured mostly heavily in the Greater German Art exhibition, in accordance with themes of blood and soil
Blood and soil
Blood and Soil refers to an ideology that focuses on ethnicity based on two factors, descent and homeland/Heimat...
. Peasants were also popular images, reflecting a simple life in harmony with nature, frequently with large families. With the advent of war, war art came to be a significant though still not predominating proportion.
The continuing of the German Art Exhibition throughout the war was put forth as a manifestation of German's culture.
Themes
Nazi propaganda promoted Nazi ideology by demonizing the enemies of the Nazi Party, especially Jews and communists, but also capitalists and intellectuals. It promoted the values asserted by the Nazis, including heroic death, FührerprinzipFührerprinzip
The Führerprinzip , German for "leader principle", prescribes the fundamental basis of political authority in the governmental structures of the Third Reich...
(leader principle), Volksgemeinschaft
Volksgemeinschaft
Volksgemeinschaft is a German expression meaning "people's community". Originally appearing during World War I as Germans rallied behind the war, it derived its popularity as a means to break down elitism and class divides...
(people's community), Blut und Boden (blood and soil) and pride in the German race. Propaganda was also used to maintain the cult of personality
Cult of personality
A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...
around Nazi leader Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, and to promote campaigns for eugenics
Nazi eugenics
Nazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's racially-based social policies that placed the improvement of the Aryan race through eugenics at the center of their concerns...
and the annexation of German-speaking areas
Heim ins Reich
The Heim ins Reich initiative was a policy pursued by Adolf Hitler starting in 1938 and was one of the factors leading to World War II. The initiative attempted to convince people of German descent living outside of the German Reich that they should strive to bring these regions "home" into a...
. After the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Nazi propaganda vilified Germany's enemies, notably the United Kingdom
Nazi propaganda and the United Kingdom
The position of Nazi propaganda towards the United Kingdom and its inhabitants changed over time. Prior to 1938, while Hitler tried to court Britain into an alliance, his propaganda praised the British as proficient Aryan imperialists. Later, as the Nazis realized that they would have to fight the...
, the Soviet Union and the United States, and exhorted the population to partake in total war
Total war
Total war is a war in which a belligerent engages in the complete mobilization of fully available resources and population.In the mid-19th century, "total war" was identified by scholars as a separate class of warfare...
.
Historiography
Nazi propaganda is a relatively recent topic of close study. Historians of all persuasions, including Eastern BlocEastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
writers, agree about its remarkable effectiveness. Their assessment of its significance, however – whether it shaped or merely directed and exploited public opinion – is influenced by their approach to wider questions raised by the study of Nazi Germany, such as the question whether the Nazi state was a fully totalitarian dictatorship, as argued by Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
, or whether it also depended on a certain societal consensus.
In addition to media archives, an important primary source for the study of the Nazi propaganda effort are the reports on civilian morale and public opinion that the Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
and later the RMVP compiled from 1939 on. Another are the Deutschland-Berichte, reports gathered by underground agents of the Sopade
Sopade
Sopade was the name of the exile organization of the Social Democratic Party of Germany . It operated in Prague from 1933 to 1938, from 1938 to 1940 in Paris and until 1945 in London....
that particularly dealt with German popular opinion.
See also
- Amt RosenbergAmt RosenbergAmt Rosenberg was an official body for cultural policy and surveillance within the Nazi party, headed by Alfred Rosenberg.It was established in 1934 under the name of Dienststelle Rosenberg , with offices at Margarethenstraße 17 in Berlin, to the west of Potsdamer Platz.Due to the long official...
- LapplandsenderLapplandsenderLapplandsender was during the World War II a military radio station for Nazi German forces in Northern Finland and Northern Norway. The transmitter was situated in the German garrison area outside the provincial capital of Rovaniemi in the Arctic Circle...
- Japanese propaganda during World War II
- Propaganda of Fascist ItalyPropaganda of Fascist ItalyPropaganda of Fascist Italy was the material put forth by Italian Fascism to justify its authority and programs and encourage popular support.-Use:...
- British propaganda during World War IIBritish propaganda during World War IIBritish propaganda during World War II took various forms. Using a wide variety of media, it called for actions needed for the war, such as production and proper behavior in the blackout, painted a dark picture of the Axis powers, and praised the Allies....
- American propaganda during World War IIAmerican propaganda during World War IIDuring World War II, American propaganda was used to increase support for the war and commitment to an Allied victory. Using a wide variety of media, propagandists fomented hatred for the enemy and support for America's allies, urged greater public effort for war production and victory gardens,...
- Propaganda in the Soviet UnionPropaganda in the Soviet UnionCommunist propaganda in the Soviet Union was extensively based on the Marxism-Leninism ideology to promote the Communist Party line. In societies with pervasive censorship, the propaganda was omnipresent and very efficient...
- Censorship in GermanyCensorship in GermanyCensorship in Germany has taken many forms during the history of the region. Various regimes have restricted the press, theatre, cinema, and other entertainment venues.-German Empire :In the German Empire, many media were under Imperial control...
External links
- Advertising Evil: Pro-Nazi Posters — slideshow by Life magazine
- Nazi and East German Propaganda Guide Page German Propaganda Archive
- "What is at Stake" by Joseph Goebbels German Propaganda Archive
- Vica Nazi Propaganda Comics - Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
- 2010 German Exhibit Shows Mass Appeal Of Nazi Ideology - audio report by NPRNPRNPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...