NAZI PROPAGANDA
3.1 State Control of the Mass Media
Messages to be conveyed
- ‘One people, one empire and one leader’ more important than the individual, family, religion, class or region.
- Cult of the leader
- Anti-Semitism
- Nationalism
- Anti-communism
- Appeal to groups (workers, women, youth)
Goebbles (listed)
Working class, limped from birth, very
clever.
Doctor of Literature
Started as a socialist but won over by H.
1926 Gauleiter of Berlin (party leader)
Founded Der Angriff (the attack), nazi
newspaper.
Minister for Propaganda
Controlled all mass media
Exploited the Reichstag fire, the burning
of the books and the Olympics.
Very anti-Semitic. Big part in the
Nuremberg Laws and Crystal Night.
Poisoned family and shot himself.
The Media
Posters
Posters and paintings showed the peasant
and the factory worker as the backbone of Germany
Radio
Direct contact with people.
Goebbles only allowed one radio company the
Reich Radio Company.
Radios produced cheaply so that every
family had one.
Played everything German.
Press
1933 The Reich Press Law banned all
opposition papers and all Jews and left wing journalists sacked.
Goebbles held a news conference every day
to make sure guidelines were followed.
‘The Attack’ and ‘Peoples Observer’ were
widely read
Foreign papers could only be got through
the German Press Agency.
Cinema
Goebbles really interested and did not use
it too much.
He banned all Jews
Marlene Dietrich left for the US
Leni Riefenstahl (listed) made technically brilliant films of 1934 Nuremberg Rally and the
Olympics.
‘The Eternal Jew’ was almost a horror film.
Films made to boost morale during the war
were shown when they were losing.
Literature
Thousands of writers blacklisted.
1933 liberaries ransacked and books burned.
2500 writers left Germany and criticised
Nazism (Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann)
Music
Beethoven and Wagner revered.
The works of Jewish composers like
Mendelssohn were banned.
Jazz considered Negro music and banned.
Others considered too modern.
Many gifted people emigrated.
Art and Architecture
Hitler considered himself an expert
All modern art seen as degenerate and
left-wing.
Picasso, Gauguin, Cezanne and Van Gogh all
removed from galleries.
Many left Germany.
1933 Albert Speer appointed Reich
Architect.
He designed the arenas for the Nuremberg
Rally and the Olympics.
Hitler liked grandiose and classical style.
Speer put in charge of armament production
during the war. Slave labour was used and he served 20 years.
3.2 The Nuremberg Rallies: Case Study
Hitler adopted great medieval city of
Nuremberg as the city of Nazism.
He hoped it would play the same part as
ancient Rome had.
1927 the first rally was held in the town
square.
1929 special trains brought over 30,000 SA,
SS and Hitler Youth
1933 ‘The Rally of Victory’
Held in the Zeppelin Airfield outside the
town.
500,000 enthralled by Hitler and Goebbles.
Goebbles speech was about the evils of
Judaism
1934 Rally
The best remembered as 31year old Leni
Riefenstahl made a film of it called ‘Triumph of the Wills’. Regarded as a
masterpiece.
She also made ‘Olympia’
She always claimed the films were
documentaries.
She was blacklisted after the war and only
died in 2003.
It was religious in tone and Hitler was a
god-like figure.
See page 59 for an analysis of the film.
1935 The Reich Party Rally of Freedom
The Reichstag was brought to the city and
the Nuremberg Laws proclaimed.
Jews lost citizenship.
Sexual relations with Jews forbidden.
1936 Rally of Honour
Hitler came to believe he was the new
Messiah
1 million attended.
Speer built the arena.
See page 63 for an account
Hitler announced a 4 year plan of
rearmament emphasising autarky.
1937 Rally
Hitler attacked ‘Jewish Bolshevism’
Night
1937 and 1938 Rallies
Designed to show the glory of Nazism.
At night Hitler consecrated the Nazi
colours with a ‘blood banner’ supposed to be soaked with the blood of the
‘marytys’ of the 1923 putsch.
All done under a lights that shot 800
metres into the sky (Speer).
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