Propaganda in Nazi Germany

As the party gained power, the scope and efficacy of its propaganda grew and permeated an increasing amount of space in Germany and, eventually, beyond.

These were later followed by many media types including books, posters, magazines, photos, art, films, and radio broadcasts which took increasingly prominent roles as the party gained more power.

Such ideology included promotion of Nazi policies and values at home, worldview beyond their borders, antisemitism, vilification of non-German peoples and anti-Nazi organizations, eugenics and eventually total war against the Allied Nations.

After Germany’s defeat and subsequent surrender on 7 May 1945, the Allied governments banned all forms of Nazi propaganda and the organizations which produced and disseminated such materials during the years of denazification.

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.

[3] 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.

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.

[5]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.

[8] 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.

[13][14]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.

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.

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.

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.

Particularly prominent is the violent antisemitism of Hitler and his associates, drawing, among other sources, on the fabricated "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (1897), which implied that Jews secretly conspired to rule the world.

[30] 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).

[50] 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[51] although Jewish authors were impossible for classrooms.

"[53] 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.

[59] 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.

[61] Reichsamtsleiter Karl Neumann declared that the goal of the Department of Film was not directly political in nature, but was rather to influence the culture, education, and entertainment of the general population.

The movie is done in the style of a feature-length documentary, the central thesis being the immutable racial personality traits that characterise the Jew as a wandering cultural parasite.

[91] Das Deutsche Mädel, in contrast, recommended that girls take up hiking, tending the wounded, and preparing to care for children.

The quality of the magazine itself was quite high, featuring complete reviews from the front lines rich in information and photos, even displaying a double center-page full-color picture.

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 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.

[118] Hitler's speeches became so significant to the Nazis that even restaurants and pubs were expected to have their radios on whenever he was delivering one, and in some cities public speakers were used so passersby could hear them.

[120] 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.

[129] 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.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler recounted that he had realised that it was not written matter but the spoken word that brought about changes, as people would not read things that they disagreed with, but would linger to hear a speaker.

[148] 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.