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Using Nazi Propaganda During The Holocaust

Decent Essays

Joshua McConnell
Mrs. Johnson
Honors English 10 4X
12-15-2014
Nazi Propaganda
Nazi propaganda played a big role during the Holocaust because it was used to brainwash the German people into thinking that Jews were subhuman and were not worth anything. Some of the things they used included posters, books, and propaganda films that portrayed concentration camps as positive. This led to the Holocaust being accepted by the German citizens. This essay will talk about how Nazi propaganda was used during the Holocaust, who used it, and why they used it.
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels were the main people to use Nazi propaganda in order to control the German people. An example of how he used this is in Adolf Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, where he states, …show more content…

Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea." (Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 3) This is where he first supported and pushed for the use of propaganda to spread the principles of National Socialism. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Hitler founded a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda lead by Joseph Goebbels. The Reich was a Nazi government department used to enforce the Nazism ideology. Goebbels had two main tasks as Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, which were to ensure nobody in Germany could read or see anything that was hostile or harmful to the Nazi Party and to make sure that the Nazi views were put out in the most persuasive way possible. Joseph Goebbels also said something about manipulating the German citizens, “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them …show more content…

It reminded them of their past struggles with foreign enemies and the Jews. The propaganda created an atmosphere of violence and hatred against Jews, mainly in 1935 and 1938 to conceal the truth from the German citizens of what the concentration camps really were. Joseph Goebbels once said, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” (Joseph Goebbels, 1933) He said this in order to encourage the German soldiers to keep putting out propaganda. Propaganda also encouraged passiveness and approval of the actions done against the Jews, as it made the Nazi government appear to be “restoring order” to Germany. A quote by Adolf Hitler affirms this by saying, “Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.” (Adolf Hitler, 1933) Newspapers in Germany, mainly Der Stürmer (The Attacker), made cartoons that featured anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews. After the Germans had started World

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