Download The Nazi Party: origins, ideas, early development

Repression and
Control
- Propaganda,
1933 - 1939
Nazi Propaganda Machine
O Run by Goebbels
O 1935 – propaganda ministry
O Aim
O Gleichschaltung
O glorify regime
O spread Nazi ideology
O win over people
Nazi Propaganda Machine
O Method
O All means of public communication under
state control
O Deliver simple message
O Constant repetition
O Appeal to all members of society
O Paint contrasts in ‘black and white’
O Use new technology
O Film, radio, microphones, loudspeakers
O Construction – impressive buildings
Press
O In 1933 – 4,700 daily newspapers (difficult
to control)
O Controlled by Reich Association of the
German Press
O List of approved editors, journalists etc.
O 1933 – law – editors responsible for anti-
Nazi sentiment in newspapers - treason
O RMVP
O Press Agency – provided 50% content
O Detail about length/ position of articles
Press
O Eher Verlag founded
O bought up newspapers
O By 1939 – owned two-thirds of German
press
O Result – bland journalism – 10% decline in
readership by 1939
Radio
O From April 1934 – run by Nazis
O Goebbels – radio was ‘spiritual weapon of the
totalitarian state’
O Created Volksempfänger (only one station)
O 1932 – less than 25% German houses had radio
O 1939 – 70% had a radio (highest in the world)
O Public Broadcasting
O Key speeches
O cafés, factories, offices
O ‘radio wardens’ – check listenership
Film
O 1933 – 1942 – 4x more filmgoers
O 1942
O Nationalised under Ufi (Ufa Film GmbH)
Film
O Reich Film Chamber
O Regulated content of German and imported
films
O Many USA films banned
O Goebbels approved every film made
O Over 1000 films made – only one-sixth very
propagandist
Film
O Famous films/filmmakers
O Leni Riefenstahl (Triumph of the Will – 1935,
Olympia – 1938)
O https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6WMXd8ZqmM
O https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLnGqMoNXRI
O 1940 – anti-semitic films – first too extreme -
unpopular
O Der Ewige Jude - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DOI3FqCZJE
O Jud Süss –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOvYTl1kRYM
O Priority = entertainment – side benefit – keeping
support in regime
Photographs and Posters
O Photographs
O Heinrich Hoffmann – official photographer
O Staged
O Hitler practised
O Printed on cigarette packets, postcards etc.
O Posters
O Used to gain support
O Monopoly from 1933
Meetings and Rallies
O Mass suggestion
O Strengthened committment
O Won over bystanders
O Films – showed Nazis as impressive movement –
attract people
O Goebbels – rallies changed person ‘from a little worm
into part of a large dragon’
O Speer – designed them – used architecture of light
O Uniforms, mass movements, stirring music,
striking flags, symbols, feeling of belonging
O Address from Hitler - emotional
Festivals
O Rallies on those days
O Swastika flags everywhere
O Failure to celebrate
O Gestapo
Sport
O Coordinated under Reichssportsführer
O Hitler Youth and DAF – organised
gymnastics etc
O Fit soldiers and mothers
O Spectator sport
O Gymnastics – mass spectacle
O About group – not individual
Sport
O 1936 Olympics
O Modernist style stadium – linked to militarism
(memorials to dead German soldiers)
O Show Germans as ‘master race’
O Germany led league table (despite African-
American Jesse Owens winning gold medals)
O less anti-semitism
O 1938 – English football team
O ‘Heil Hitler’ salute before beating Germany 6-3
Jesse Owens – 4 Gold
medals
Max Schelling beats Joe
Louis
Autobahns
O Began in 1920
O Peak of construction – 1936 – only
250,000 employed
O In 1942 – only 3,870km finished
O No ‘people’s car’
O (only 1 in 44 Germans had a car in 1938)
O Successful as a concept (modernist) but
usefulness exaggerated as propaganda
Social Policy
O Idea of Volksgemeinschaft
O DAF (Beauty of Work and Strength through Joy)
O Facilities for workers
O ‘People’s Car Scheme’
O Potential to help everyone
O Winterhilfe
O Provide food, clothes etc. to unemployed
O Pressure on Germans to donate
O Eintopf
O Have ‘one-pot meal’ one Sunday a month
O Donate saving to Winterhilfe
Paintings
O From 1936
O Removed ‘degenerate’ art
O Replaced by ‘healthy’ Aryan art
O Art of the masses
O Depictions
O People as heroes
O Hitler – wise, imperious leader
O Landscapes - unmechanised
Paintings
O Artists
O Members of ‘Reich Chamber of Culture’
O Malverbot from government
O Popular exhibitions
O Result
O Mass of stereotyped images
O Best artists – left or made lifeless art
Architecture
O Most important?!
O Neo-classical, monumental style – Greek
O HUGE – individual dwarfed
O Speer responsible
O Around Nuremberg – 30km2 complex
planned
O Plan for new world capital - Germania
Literature
O May 1933 – book burning
O 20,000 in Berlin
O Thomas Mann, Stefan Zweig, Erich Maria
Remarque - exile
O Novelists had to promote Nazi ideals
O Mein Kampf – bestseller
O 6 million copies sold
Sculpture
O 1934 – all new public buildings
O Statues with Nazi message
O Perfect, lifeless body shapes (see page 262)
O Muscle men
O Arno Breker and Josef Thorak – studios
O Produce heroic figures and dominant animals
Theatre
O Playwrights emigrated or were banned
O Bertolt Brecht and Ernst Toller
O Approved
O Historical drama, light entertainment, ‘blood
and soil’ stories
O ‘Strength Through Joy’ theatres – subsidised
O Thingspielen (new)
O Pageant and circus
O Pagan past in outdoor theatres
Music
O Reich Chamber of Music
O Headed by Richard Strauss 1933 to 1935
O Controlled production
O Banned
O Experimental music – eg. Schoenberg
O Mendellsohn (Jewish)
O Hitler’s favourites – strong music – Germanic themes
O Wagner, Strauss and Bruckner
O Bayreuth festival (started by Wagner)
O Carl Orff – Carmina Burana (Germanic Medieval
Themes) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXFSK0ogeg4
Successes of propaganda
O ‘Hitler myth’ created
O Strengthened regime after economic
crisis – Herzstein in ‘The War that
Hitler Won’
O Appeared to reinforce family values &
nationalism
O Welch – successful at strengthening
overall support – generate
enthusiasm
Failures of propaganda
O Didn’t denounce Catholic church
O Didn’t seduce working classes away from
established identity through ideal of
‘Volksgemeinschaft’. - Mason
O Didn’t develop a distinctive Nazi culture
O Welch – specific policies less strengthened
O Germans became anti-Semites, not
annihilationists
O Reiniforced militarism – not widespread
support for war by 1939
Failures of Propaganda
O Welch
O Better at reinforcing attitudes than countering
existing ones
O Failure in indoctrinating Germans with
‘Weltanschauung’
O Geary
O Agrees with Welch – reinforced middle class
values, where opposed loyalties (working
class and churches) – less successful
Conclusion
O It is generally considered that propaganda
was secondary to the SS-police system when
it came to controlling the German people
O We must not be taken in by Nazi
propaganda ‘newsreels of rallies’, and
believe it was an entirely united, disciplines
nation, committed to Nazism