Propaganda-Staffel

The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi policies.

Themes

Nazi propaganda promoted Nazi ideology by demonizing the enemies of the Nazi Party, notably Jews and communists, but also capitalists and intellectuals. It promoted the values asserted by the Nazis, including heroic death, '' Führerprinzip'' (leader principle), '' Volksgemeinschaft'' (people's community), ''Blut und Boden'' (blood and soil) and pride in the Germanic ''Herrenvolk'' (master 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 in 1943 exhorted the population to total war.

History

''Mein Kampf'' (1925)

Adolf Hitler devoted two chapters of his 1925 book ''Mein Kampf'', itself a propaganda tool, to the study and practice of propaganda. He claimed to have learned 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.Welch, 11.

While dictating Mein Kampf, Hitler used the term Big lie (in German: große Lüge), to refer to the use of a lie so enormous that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

''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.''Mein Kampf'' citations are from the Project Gutenberg-hoste
1939 English translation by James Murphy
/ref>

As to the methods to be employed, he explains:

Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favorable 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 favorable 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.

Early Nazi Party (1919–1933)

Hitler put these ideas into practice with the reestablishment of the ''Völkischer Beobachter'', a newspaper published by the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from December 1920 onwards, whose circulation reached 26,175 in 1929. It was joined in 1927 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. One study finds that the Weimar government's use of pro-government radio propaganda slowed Nazi growth. 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.Welch, 14.

In power (1933–1939)

A major political and ideological cornerstone of Nazi policy was the unification of all ethnic Germans living outside the Reich's borders (e.g. in Austria and Czechoslovakia) under one Greater Germany. In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler denounced the pain and misery of ethnic Germans outside Germany, and declared the dream of a common fatherland for which all Germans must fight. Throughout ''Mein Kampf'', he pushed Germans worldwide to make the struggle for political power and independence their main focus, made official in the ''Heim ins Reich'' policy beginning in 1938.

On 13 March 1933, Nazi Germany established a Ministry of Propaganda, appointing Joseph Goebbels as its Minister. Its goals were to establish enemies in the public mind: the external enemies which had imposed the Treaty of Versailles on Germany, and internal enemies such as Jews, Romani, homosexuals, Bolsheviks, and cultural trends including " degenerate art".

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 Germans living in Poland. On 22 August, Adolf Hitler told his generals:

The main part of this propaganda campaign was the false flag Operation Himmler, which was designed to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, in order to justify the invasion of Poland.

Research finds that the Nazis' use of radio propaganda helped it consolidate power and enroll more party members.

There are a variety of factors that increased the obedience of German soldiers in terms of following the Nazi orders that were given to them regarding Jews. Omer Bartov, a professor on subjects such as German Studies and European History, mentioned in his book, ''Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich'', how German soldiers were told information that influenced their actions. Bartov mentioned that General Lemelson, a corps commander, explained to his German troops regarding their actions toward Jews, "We want to bring back peace, calm and order to this land…" German leaders tried to make their soldiers believe that Jews were a threat to their society. Thus, German soldiers followed orders given to them and participated in the demonization and mass murders of Jews. In other words, German soldiers saw Jews as a group that was trying to infect and take over their homeland. Omer Bartov's description of Nazi Germany explains the intense discipline and unity that the soldiers had which played a role in their willingness to obey orders that were given to them. These feelings that German soldiers had toward Jews grew more and more as time went on as the German leaders kept pushing further for Jews to get out of their land as they wanted total annihilation of Jews.

Antisemitism

''Der Stürmer'', a Nazi propaganda newspaper published by Julius Streicher 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." A version was published in Romania by Karl Leopold von Möller. Posters, films, cartoons, and fliers were seen throughout Germany which attacked the Jewish community. One of the most infamous such films was '' The Eternal Jew'' directed by Fritz Hippler.

A study finds that the Nazis' use of radio propaganda incited antisemitic acts. Nazi radio was most effective in places where antisemitism was historically high but had a negative effect in places with historically low antisemitism.

Adolf Hitler and Nazi propagandists played on widespread and long-established German antisemitism. The Jews were blamed for things such as robbing the German people of their hard work while themselves avoiding physical labour. Hitler declared that the mission of the Nazi movement was to annihilate " Jewish Bolshevism", which was also called " Cultural Bolshevism". Hitler asserted that the "three vices" of "Jewish Marxism" were democracy, pacifism, and internationalism, and that the Jews were responsible for Bolshevism, communism, and Marxism. Joseph Goebbels in 1937 The Great Anti-Bolshevist Exhibition declared that Bolshevism and Jewry were one and the same.

At the 1935 Nazi Party congress rally at Nuremberg, Goebbels declared that "Bolshevism is the declaration of war by Jewish-led international subhumans against culture itself."

Euthanasia

The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring was introduced on 14 July 1933, and various propaganda was used to target the disabled. A special euthanasia program, called Aktion T4 began in 1939, related propaganda arguments were based on the books, ''Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens'' ("Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Living"), written by Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche and the book ''Human Heredity Theory and Racial Hygiene'', written by Eugen Fischer, Erwin Baur and Fritz Lenz.

Nuremberg Laws

In 1935, antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany were introduced known as the Nuremberg Laws, the laws excluded non-Aryans and political opponents of the Nazis from the civil-service and any sexual relations and marriage between people classified as "Aryan" and "non-Aryan" (Jews, Romani, Blacks) was prohibited as ''Rassenschande'' or "race defilement". The Nuremberg Laws were based on notions of racial purity and sought to preserve the Aryan race, who were at the top of the Nazi racial hierarchy and were said to be the Übermenschen "Herrenvolk" (master race), and to teach the German nation to view the Jews as subhumans.

Working Class

The Strength Through Joy (KdF) program was created to monitor what workers were doing in their non-working time. This was done to ensure that no German worker would be doing anything remotely involved with activities against the state. The KdF also monitored holidays and all leisure time by scheduling activities for workers so the workers would be happy and grateful for the activities and events/holidays that were given to them by the state. This produced support for the state from the working class which led to Nazi Germany's further rise in power. The KdF required members to participate in the activities offered to them, otherwise, any members who didn't participate were classified as anti-government. The classification of the said member would result in them being sent to a concentration camp as punishment. Robert Ley was head of the KdF and had a staff of roughly 7,000 working for the KdF and 30 million members prior to its dissolution in 1939 due to WWII.

Political opponents

Soon after the takeover of power in 1933, Nazi concentration camps were established for political opponents. The first people that were sent to the camps were political opponents, especially communists and socialists. They were sent because of their ties with the Soviet Union and because Nazism greatly opposed communism. Nazi propaganda dismissed the Communists as "Red subhumans".

Goebbels used the death of the Nazi Party's Sturmabteilung (SA) Berlin leader Horst Wessel who was killed in 1930 by two members of the Communist Party of Germany as a propaganda tool for the Nazis against "Communist subhumans".

Treaty of Versailles

When the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919, non-propagandists newspapers headlines across the nation spoke German's feelings, such as ''"Schändlich!"'' ("Shameful!") 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 furor 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 30 January 1937 he directly stated that he was withdrawing the German signature from the document to protest the outrageous proportions of the terms. He claimed the Treaty made Germany out to be inferior and "less" of a country than others only because blame for the war was placed on it. The success of Nazi propagandists and Hitler won the Nazi Party control of Germany and eventually led to World War II.

At war (1939–1945)

Until the conclusion of the Battle of Stalingrad on 2 February 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 Soviet Union. One of the primary sources for propaganda was the Wehrmachtbericht, a daily radio broadcast from the High Command of the Wehrmacht, the OKW. Nazi victories lent 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. For example, considerable embarrassment resulted when the ''Ark Royal'' proved to have survived an attack that German propaganda had hyped.

Goebbels instructed Nazi propagandists to describe the invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) as the "European crusade against Bolshevism" and the Nazis then formed different units of the Waffen-SS consisting of mainly volunteers and conscripts.

After Stalingrad, the main theme changed to Germany as the main 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.

On 23 June 1944, the Nazis permitted the Red Cross to visit the concentration camp Theresienstadt to dispel rumors about the Final Solution, which was intended to kill all Jews. In reality, Theresienstadt was a transit camp for Jews en route to extermination camps. 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''. The shooting of the film began on 26 February 1944. Directed by Kurt Gerron, it was meant to show how well the Jews lived under the "benevolent" protection of Nazi Germany. After the shooting, most of the cast, and even the filmmaker himself, were deported to the concentration camp of Auschwitz where they were murdered. Hans Fritzsche, who had been head of the Radio Chamber, was tried and acquitted by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal.

Antisemitism during World War II

Antisemitic wartime propaganda served a variety of purposes. It was hoped that people in Allied countries would be persuaded that Jews should be blamed for the war. The Nazis also wished to ensure that German people were aware of the extreme measures being carried out against the Jews on their behalf, in order to incriminate them and thus guarantee their continued loyalty through fear by Nazi-conjectured scenarios of supposed post-war "Jewish" reprisals. Especially from 1942 onwards,

Nazi media vilified arch-enemies of Nazi Germany as Jewish (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) or in the cases of Josef Stalin and Sir Winston Churchill abject puppets of an international Jewish conspiracy intent on ruining Germany and Nazism.

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.

After Hitler's death, his successor as chancellor of Germany, Joseph Goebbels, informed the '' Reichssender Hamburg'' radio station. The station broke the initial news of Hitler's death on the night of 1 May; an announcer claimed he had died that afternoon as a hero fighting against Bolshevism. Hitler's successor as head of state, Karl Dönitz, further asserted that the United States forces were continuing the war solely to spread Bolshevism, a Marxist-Leninist form of communism, within Europe.

Media

Books

The Nazis and sympathizers published many propaganda books. Most of the beliefs that would become associated with the Nazis, such as German nationalism, eugenics and antisemitism 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 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 behavior of crowds. Particularly prominent is the violent antisemitism of Hitler and his associates, drawing, among other sources, on the fabricated "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (1897), which implied that Jews secretly conspired to rule the world. This book was a key source of propaganda for the Nazis and helped fuel their common hatred against the Jews during World War II. 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'' ("Racial Science of the German People") by Hans Günther and ''Rasse und Seele'' ("Race and Soul") by Dr. (published under different titles between 1926 and 1934) 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.Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p. 79 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.

Children's books also made their appearance. In 1938, Julius Streicher published ''Der Giftpilz propaganda and stated that "The following tales tell the truth about the Jewish poison mushroom. They show the many shapes the Jew assumes. They show the depravity and baseness of the Jewish race. They show the Jew for what he really is: The Devil in human form."

Textbooks

"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 Germany was much higher than that of the Eastern regions (where they would seek Lebensraum).Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p. 76 Textbooks would often show that the birth rate amongst Slavs was prolific compared to Germans. 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. Children were taught through textbooks that they were the Aryan master race (''Herrenvolk'') while the Jews were untrustworthy, parasitic and '' Untermenschen'' (inferior subhumans). Course content and textbooks unnecessarily included information that was propagandistic, an attempt to sway the children's views from an early age.

Maps 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.

Fairy tales 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 (present in her daughters) for the racially pure maiden.Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p. 77-8 Nordic sagas were likewise presented as the illustration of Führerprinzip, which was developed with such heroes as Frederick the Great and Otto von Bismarck.Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p. 78

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."Milton Mayer, ''They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933–45'' p193 1995 University of Chicago Press Chicago

Biology texts, however, were put to 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.Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p. 85 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.Lynn H. Nicholas, ''Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web'' p. 86 However, the National Socialist Teachers League (NSLB) stressed that at primary schools, in particular, they had to work on only the Nordic racial core of the German ''Volk'' again and again and contrast it with the racial composition of foreign populations and the Jews.

Books for occupied countries

In occupied France, the German Institute encouraged the translation of German works although chiefly German nationalists, not ardent Nazis, produced a massive increase in the sale of translated works. The only books in 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

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