Download Propaganda Explore the Nazis` sophisticated propaganda

PROPAGANDA
Explore the Nazis’ sophisticated propaganda campaigns and their legacy.
Directions: Select one of the themes to learn about. In groups of four, explore the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museums’ propaganda website
(http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/). Use the following questions as a guide to create
a two-three PowerPoint slide communicating your understanding of the theme. You
will present this information to your peers. You should not copy and paste information
but it is okay to paraphrase. It is okay to take screen shots of the different propaganda
images to include in your PowerPoint. Make sure to look at all the resources available in
each theme.
MAKING A LEADER
1. How was Hitler depicted in the various forms of propaganda posters?
2. Why was a radical leader like Hitler able to gain power? (Look into the Treaty of
Versailles- 1919)
3. What population of people was most attracted to Hitler’s ideas? Why?
4. What are the major types of roles Hitler took on in different propaganda posters?
5. What three posters stand out the most to you? Why?
RALLYING THE NATION
1. How did the aftermath of World War I affect the Germans’ discontentment with the
Weirmar Republic?
2. The Nazi party was promoted as a voice for all non-Jewish Germans (including
women). How did this promotion create unity despite its foundation in separatism?
3. What assumptions are made about the “Aryan” race?
4. How is the image of the "Aryan" family modified to send the propagandists'
message in these periods?
5. What was the purpose of alternating the images of fear and hope?
DEFINING THE ENEMY
1. Why was it important to define the enemy?
2. What was the enemy defined as?
3. What did the voices of the excluded struggle with the most, regarding being defined
as an outsider?
4.
5.
6.
7.
What forms of public antisemitism were most often used?
What other groups were excluded from the vision of the “national community”?
What were the Nuremburg Laws?
How did the Nazi Party sell genocide?
WRITING THE NEWS
1. In what ways did Hitler control the media?
2. What were the benefits of using radio, film and television as propaganda?
3. What were the two main forms of press propaganda? How where they used?
4. What propaganda techniques did the Nazi Party use against the United States?
5. What was Kristallanacht? How did the Nazi Party frame this event?
DECEIVING THE PUBLIC
1. What stereotypes did Nazi Propaganda sell to the Germans?
2. How did propagandist disguise military aggression?
3. How did the Nazi Party use Theresienstadt to persuade the Red Cross?
4. What fear did the Nazis’ use to keep non-Jews from entering the ghettos? How did
this become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
5. How did the use of propaganda start to back fire towards the end of the war? What
ways did citizen try to become more informed?
ASSESSING GUILT
1. What was the process of assessing guilt?
2. What was the purpose of the International Military Tribunal?
3. What is incitement to genocide?
4. What did denazification entail?
5. What kind of atrocities took place at Auschwitz?
6. Was the prosecution of propagandists for "crimes against humanity" successful?