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CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: HITLER, PROPAGANDA AND REPRESSION
The document examines Adolf Hitler's use of propaganda to achieve his domestic aims up to 1941, emphasizing its role in promoting Nazism, antisemitism, and anti-bolshevism. It discusses the establishment of the Reich Ministry for Propaganda, the economic recovery under Hitler's regime, and the manipulation of public perception to legitimize violence against Jews. Additionally, it details how propaganda facilitated the acceptance of the Holocaust and the mobilization of the German public for the Nazi war effort.
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CAMBRIDGE A2 HISTORY: HITLER, PROPAGANDA AND REPRESSION
- 1. HISTORY CAMBRIDGE A2(PAPER 4) PRESENTATION 10 HITLER MODULE 3. ACHIEVING DOMESTIC AIMS UP TO 1941 HITLER, PROPAGANDA AND REPRESSION
- 2. "Propaganda tries toforce a doctrine on the whole people... Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea." Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler
- 3. ADVOCATING FOR PROPAGANDA AdolfHitler wrote these words in his book Mein Kampf (1926), in which he first advocated the use of propaganda to spread the ideals of National Socialismāamong them racism, antisemitism, and anti-Bolshevism.
- 4. THE REICH MINISTRYFOR PROPAGANDA Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Hitler established a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels. The Ministry's aim was to ensure that the Nazi message was successfully communicated through art, music, theatre, films, books, radio, educational materials, and the press.
- 5. AUDIENCE FOR NAZIPROPAGANDA There were several audiences for Nazi propaganda. Germans were reminded of the struggle against foreign enemies and Jewish subversion. During periods preceding legislation or executive measures against Jews, propaganda campaigns created an atmosphere tolerant of violence against Jews, particularly in 1935 (before the Nuremberg Race Laws of September) and in 1938 (prior to the barrage of antisemitic economic legislation following Kristallnacht). Propaganda also encouraged passivity and acceptance of the impending measures against Jews, as these appeared to depict the Nazi government as stepping in and ārestoring order.ā
- 6. FIRM ECONOMIC RESULTS Hitlerpromised the German people work and bread and he delivered both. As most shrewd politicians are capable, Hitler gave the people what they wanted the most. He launched a massive public works program to pull Germany out of the Depression. Superhighways, office buildings, huge stadiums and public buildings were constructed at a rapid pace. By 1936, however, government spending was now being directed almost entirely to the military, necessary for the coming war Hitler had already specified in Mein Kampf. Meanwhile, unemployment dropped steadily. In January 1937, unemployment stood at 7 million. Twelve months later it had fallen to 1 million and by 1938, Germany witnessed a shortage of labour. The standard of living increased by 20% and business profits were finally increasing.
- 7. VICTORIES FOR THEPROPAGANDA MACHINE What all this recovery showed was that Hitler was more than show. Hitler had accomplished something for Germany and the German people. For those Germans who were not Jews, Slavs, Gypsies or communists, liberals, non-Germans, or insane or weak, Hitler's government meant greater opportunity and greater equality. Older class barriers were replaced by individuals who, like Hitler, were rootless and had risen to the top. The Nazis tolerated privilege and wealth, but only when it served the Party. Big business was constantly ordered around thus making, once again, the invisible hand of Adam Smith, a thing of the past. We can identify a similar tendency in the United States with the New Deal and Stalin's Five Year Plans in Soviet Russia. Planning was essential.
- 8. German children readan anti-Jewish propaganda book titled DER GIFTPILZ ( "The Poisonous Mushroom"). The girl on the left holds a companion volume, the translated title of which is "Trust No Fox." Germany, ca. 1938.
- 9. USING DISCRIMINATION AGAINSTGERMANS AS A TOOL Real and perceived discrimination against ethnic Germans in east European nations which had gained territory at Germany's expense following World War I, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, was the subject of Nazi propaganda. This propaganda sought to elicit political loyalty and so-called race consciousness among the ethnic German populations. It also sought to mislead foreign governmentsāincluding the European Great Powersāthat Nazi Germany was making understandable and fair demands for concessions and annexations.
- 10. JUDEO-BOLSHEVIK THREAT After theGerman invasion of the Soviet Union, Nazi propaganda stressed to both civilians at home and to soldiers, police officers, and non-German auxiliaries serving in occupied territory themes linking Soviet Communism to European Jewry, presenting Germany as the defender of āWesternā culture against the āJudeo-Bolshevik threat, and painting an apocalyptic picture of what would happen if the Soviets won the war. This was particularly the case after the catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943. These themes may have been instrumental in inducing Nazi and non-Nazi Germans as well as local collaborators to fight on until the very end.
- 11. FILMS AND PROPAGANDA Filmsin particular played an important role in disseminating racial antisemitism, the superiority of German military power, and the intrinsic evil of the enemies as defined by Nazi ideology. Nazi films portrayed Jews as "subhuman" creatures infiltrating Aryan society. For example, The Eternal Jew (1940), directed by Fritz Hippler, portrayed Jews as wandering cultural parasites, consumed by sex and money. Some films, such as The Triumph of the Will (1935) by Leni Riefenstahl, glorified Hitler and the National Socialist movement. Two other Riefenstahl works, Festival of the Nations and Festival of Beauty (1938), depicted the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games and promoted national pride in the successes of the Nazi regime at the Olympics.
- 13. NEWSPAPERS AND PROPAGANDA Newspapersin Germany, above all Der StĆ¼rmer (The Attacker), printed cartoons that used antisemitic caricatures to depict Jews. After the Germans began World War II with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazi regime employed propaganda to impress upon German civilians and soldiers that the Jews were not only subhuman, but also dangerous enemies of the German Reich. The regime aimed to support, or at least knowledge, for policies aimed at removing Jews permanently from areas of German settlement.
- 15. FINAL SOLUTION ANDPROPAGANDA During the implementation of the so-called Final Solution, the mass murder of European Jews, SS officials at killing centres compelled the victims of the Holocaust to maintain the deception necessary to deport the Jews from Germany and occupied Europe as smoothly as possible. Concentration camp and killing centre officials compelled prisoners, many of whom would soon die in the gas chambers, to send postcards home stating that they were being treated well and living in good conditions. Here, the camp authorities used propaganda to cover up atrocities and mass murder.
- 16. THERESIENSTADT CASE STUDY InJune 1944, the German Security Police permitted an International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Republic). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in November 1941 as an instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled by the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians āto the Eastā for ālabour.ā
- 20. In preparation forthe 1944 visit, the ghetto underwent a ābeautificationā program. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a film using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish āresidentsā of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the film was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing centre. THERESIENSTADT CASE STUDY cont.
- 24. The Nazi regimeused propaganda effectively to mobilize the German population to support its wars of conquest until the very end of the regime. Nazi propaganda was likewise essential to motivating those who implemented the mass murder of the European Jews and of other victims of the Nazi regime. It also served to secure the acquiescence of millions of othersāas bystandersāto racially targeted persecution and mass murder. PROPAGANDA TO SUPPORT THE WAR EFFORT