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,
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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
One central focus of Nazi propaganda was anti-Semitism. Germans were fed stories of Jewish greed and assistance to foreign enemies (Welch). During periods preceding legislation or executive measures against Jews, propaganda campaigns created an atmosphere tolerant of violence against Jews, particularly in 1935, prior to Nuremberg Race Laws of September and in 1938, before anti-Semitic economic legislation following Kristallnacht (Welch). Propaganda also encouraged acceptance of anti-Semitic legislation, as these appeared to depict the Nazi government as stepping in and “restoring order” (Welch). Newspapers in Germany, such as The Attacker, printed cartoons depicting Jews with stereotypical features and personalities. After the Germans began World War II with the invasion of Poland in September
The Forms of Propaganda Used by the State in Nazi Germany One of the purposes of dictatorship was to give the Nazis control of people's lives. The more control they had, the more easily they could put their aims into effect. The job of controlling people thus became one of the main tasks of the Nazi state. Party propaganda was evident throughout German society and served as a means by which the state could effectively reach every German and summon absolute loyalty to the Nazi party. Following the Nazi party's rise to power in 1933, Hitler established the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels - who was a master of propaganda that used all means at his
First of all, propaganda initiated brainwashing, indoctrination, and distortion in the people, causing them to allow the genocides to occur. One example is shown in the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a mass extermination of the Jews and others, led by Hitler and the Nazis from 1933 to 1945. Before the Holocaust occurred, propaganda was the main cause that influenced many Germans to agree with getting rid of the Jews. They were brainwashed into thinking that Jews were evil and should be erased from their country. In Night, a documentary by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel states, “The gypsy looked him up and down slowly, from head to front. As if he wanted to convince himself that this man addressing him was
Adolf Hitler used propaganda throughout Germany to brainwash people to believe that that “the Jews are our misfortune”. Some of the tools that he used as propaganda against the Jews was the weekly newspaper called the “der sturmer” which meant the attacker. At the front of all the newspapers it said in bold that the Jews are our misfortune. There were also many cartoons that showed Jews as if they were hooked-nosed. The influence of the newspaper was spreading fast and by 1938 almost half a million copies where distributed a week.
In order for Adolf Hitler to become successful, he knew that he had to spread Nazism to the far corners of the world. He accomplished this to some extent by using propaganda. “Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Hitler established a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels” (“Nazi Propaganda”). Goebbels was the master propagandist and orator to whom Hitler gave the responsibility of spreading the favorable image of the Nazi regime. The Nazis took control of all means of entertainment in order to spread their beliefs. “The ministry’s aim was to ensure that the Nazi message was successfully communicated through art, music, theater, films, books, radio, educational materials, and the press” (“Nazi Propaganda). The main target of the propaganda was the Jewish race. Goebbels’ “propaganda campaigns created
The Nazis began to use propaganda to “mislead” other governments, such as Europe, by making it look like the German government was making “fair demands for annexations” (“Nazi Propaganda” 3). These false actions that the Nazis made then led to even more conflict to people around the world because once a government begins to fall the people begin to have more problems. The Nazi propaganda also affected the Jews life by hiding what the Nazis were really doing to the Jews in the camps they had set up. The Jews were forced to move away from their homes and loved ones by the Nazis, and the world had no clue that the Jews were being treated so badly and even killed because the propaganda provided “false information” to the people (“World War II Propaganda”). Not only did the propaganda effect Jews, but it also affected ordinary people in their daily lives because they were limited to knowledge about the rest of the world because the Nazis restricted their accessibility to books, radio, media, and
Propaganda was formed around the holocaust when Joseph Goebbels was Hitler’s minister for the Holocaust. He played an important role in being part of the Holocaust to the Nazi Germany. He wasn’t able to participate in the first World war,because of his weight and he also had a clubbed foot. Joseph then decided to join “The Nazi party” by the end of 1924;1928 he was elected for the reichstag and in 1933 he began.
The Nazi regime had a top-notch propaganda ministry of the time. In fact, the government was able to adjust the public’s idea quickly. For the most part, They were able to control all media sources. As shown above, The public thought that the Jewish community was responsible for the hardship that they faced after the WWI. Furthermore, The head of the propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels was able to accomplish his goals by keeping the public from watching or listening to anti-Nazi ideas and to construct Nazi ideas are compelling to the audience (Trueman).
On January 30th, 1933, one of the most influential men throughout the history of time, Adolf Hitler, was newly appointed Chancellor of Germany. His reign brought about many new controversial ideas, values and beliefs. Some of which played a large role in a six-year war with full participation of the Hitler Youth eventually down to the youngest child. So how was Hitler able to gain power to be able to perpetrate such a crime of this proportion? A large role was the use of propaganda. Hitler himself advocated in his book; Mein Kampf "Propaganda tries to force 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" (Hitler, 1926, p. 849). Nazi propaganda had several audiences in which it targeted. It impacted the
Nazi propaganda can be dated back to 1926 when Hitler wrote his book “Mein Kampf” (ushmm, 2015) Hitler wrote two chapters about war propaganda, which he always expressed how the power and destruction that propaganda could cause in the right hands, and the importance of mass communication through different mediums. "The first duty of the propagandist is to win over people who can subsequently be taken into the organization. And the first duty of the organization is to select and train men who will be capable of carrying on the propaganda” Hitler continues by saying “ The second duty of the organization is to disrupt the existing order of things and thus make room for the penetration of the new teaching which it represents, while the duty of the organizer must be to fight for the purpose of securing power, so that the doctrine may finally triumph." (James Murphy, 2011)
When looking back on the events of the Nazi regime, it is impossible not to note the triumph of the libelous propaganda of minority groups. The success stems from the nationalistic and anti-Semitic thoughts born through the misfortune of being involved in World War I—a war that left Germany in financial shambles. Though Dr. Joseph Goebbels and The Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment did not start the fire of radical thoughts, they took advantage of the situation and fueled the flames with incessant propaganda commending the aforementioned ideals. As the world media blanketed the horrors of the Holocaust to the back page, millions of innocent Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, political enemies, and Jehovah Witnesses were condemned for
Deemed as an empire that was a creation of propaganda and thrived by propaganda, the Nazi empire under Adolf Hitler was one of the strongest forces in the Second World War between 1937 and 1945. Defined by propaganda, the Nazi Party under the leadership of Hitler dictated the economy, politics, education and military based on their ability to communicate, convince and manipulate masses of people based on their wishes. The perfection on the use of propaganda by Adolf Hitler was apparent in the capacity of the Nazi Party to
In one of his famous articles titled, The Jews are Guilty! , he made it clear that Jews were responsible for the war, and their future in Germany was over (Goebbels). Another form of propaganda used by Goebbels was the mass burning of books. He began trying to bring Germany’s culture on par with the goals of the Nazi party. Schools played a important role in transforming the youth and their minds.
Without jobs and money, the Jewish people fell into a state of poverty and decrepitude. Thus, the Gentile German populace began to see the Jews as poor degenerates and saps on the German economy. (“Anti-Jewish Legislation in Prewar Germany”) Throughout its rule, the Nazi party also tried to influence public opinion by repeatedly accusing the Jews of leading an international conspiracy against the German nation. Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Nazi Propaganda and writer of the weekly newspaper “Das Reich”, in an article titled “The Jews are Guilty!”, infamously declared: “The Jews are our destruction. They started this war [World War II] and direct it … The Jews are the enemy’s agents among us” (85-91). Through this accusation of Jewish terrorism, the Nazi Party succeeded in effectively convincing the German people to allow their persecution of the Jewish people in the name of national security. The Nazis also utilized another method of swaying public opinion against the Jews: accusations of
The Nazis and Hitler used extreme propaganda in attempt for people to accept their actions. Hitler made the Jews out to be a problem and a threat to the purity and perfection of German society (Holocaust Encyclopdia: Nazi Propaganda ). In Hitler’s speech to the Reichstag in September, 1942, he states,