Download Key themes of German propaganda

Making of the Modern World
Lecture
Fascism and Modern Propaganda
Propaganda
a specific type of message presentation,
aimed at serving an agenda.
Even if the message conveys true
information, it may be partisan and fail to
paint a complete picture.
Appeal to the emotions.
Mobilizing and influencing perceptions,
behaviour and actions.
‘Propaganda is absolutely necessary, even if it is
only a means to an end. Otherwise, the idea
could never take over the state. I must be able to
get what I think important across to many
people. The task of a gifted propagandist is to
take that which many have thought and put it in
a way that reaches everyone from the educated
to the common man.’
Joseph Goebbels, Knowledge and Propaganda (1928)
“We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but
rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses.
Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. … I
do not enter the meeting hall to discover intellectual truths, but
to persuade others of what I think to be right. I learn methods
there that I can use to reach others with what I have found to be
right. ”
Joseph Goebbels, Knowledge and Propaganda (1928)
“The task of propaganda is not to discover a theory or to develop
a programme, but rather to translate that theory and programme
into the language of the people, to make them comprehensible to
the broad masses of the people. ”
Joseph Goebbels, Will and Way (1931)
Fascist propaganda before
1933
Hypodermic model: small doses have incremental ‘dripdrip’ effect
`The receptivity of the great masses is very
limited, their intelligence is small, and their
power of forgetting is enormous. In
consequence all effective propaganda must be
limited to a very few points and must harp on
these in slogans until the last member of the
public understands what you want him to
understand by your slogan.'
Hitler (Mein Kampf, 1925)
Nazi propaganda poster (1931-1932)
Propaganda’s limitations
• Least effective among those with counterexperience (older generation) or counterideology (Marxists or Christians)
• Most effective when receiver’s defences
are down (passive media, e.g. film & TV)
versus active media (newspapers, books)
Propaganda and the State
Key themes of NS-Propaganda
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Anti-Semitism
Militarism
Nationalism
Supremacy of the Aryan race
Economic recovery and welfare measures
Cult of the Führer
Traditional German ‘Volks’ culture
The Mass Spectacle
Key themes of German propaganda
Anti-Semitic
propaganda
‘Where something is
rotten, the Jew is the
cause.’
Nazi newspaper Der
Stürmer (1931)
Propaganda can
reinforce existing
prejudices
The headline reads
(1934): Jewish Murder
Plan against Gentile
Humanity Revealed.
Key themes of German propaganda
Economic recovery and welfare measures
No one shall go hungry! No one shall be cold!"
Key themes of German
propaganda: The Cult of the
leader
1935 portrait by Heinrich Knirr.
Radio (home front)
• Cheap, mass produced
medium wave radio
• Goebbels described radio as
‘the spiritual weapon of the
totalitarian state’
• All news broadcasts came
through the Nazi Office of
Propaganda
• By 1939 Germany largest radio
audience in world
• Group-listening to Fuehrer
speeches
• Gendered scheduling for
predominantly female listeners
All Germany hears the Fuehrer • High proportion of musical
with the People’s Receiver
entertainment
“If one wants the spoken and heard word of the radio to realise a
common will, it cannot be done only through transmitters and
receivers; instead, a real human connection between sender and
receiver must be established.
The radio warden is the living bridge between the two, and in a
larger sense, also the grouping of radio listeners that occurs in
radio listener organizations. On the one hand, radio is in a certain
sense the ideal propaganda instrument because it brings the human
voice to every ear. On the other hand, it is totally ineffective if
these technical qualities are not supplemented by human
organisational means.
One of the most important ways of doing this is to bring many
radio listeners together for community listening, which National
Socialism has developed to a major degree...”
Eugen Hadamovsky, "Die lebende Brücke: Vom Wesen der Funkwartarbeit," in
Dein Rundfunk (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1934), pp. 22-26.
Radio, the double-edged sword
• Germany Calling: throughout WW2,
infamously by William Joyce, aka Lord
Haw-Haw
• BBC overseas service counterbroadcast; by end of war perhaps half
of all Germans listened in to Allied
broadcasting for ‘real’ news
• Cf. German triumphalism early in war
(then Wagnerian self-sacrifice towards
end), with British limited self-criticism
• Attraction of dance music & jazz for
younger generation; NS forced to
sanction sanitised jazz, despite official
condemnation as ‘degenerate music’
Cinema & Film
Historians’ interpretations
• Siegfried Kracauer, 1943: German audiences
brainwashed by propaganda
• David S. Hull, 1969: cinema a ‘free space’ relatively
devoid of overt propaganda (Hollywood rivalry,
commercial pressures)
• David Welch, 1983: analyses more obviously political
films of Third Reich (self-sacrifice, anti-Semitism)
• Linda Schulte-Sasse, 1996: psychoanalytic model;
cinema creates illusion of ‘wholeness’, reconciling
individual desire as part of mass will
• Eric Rentschler, Ministry of Illusion, 1996: highlights
entertainment films of Third Reich
• Erica Carter, Dietrich’s Ghosts, 2005: star system
cultivates an anti-modernist aesthetic of sublime beauty;
Zarah Leander is not the same sort of star as Marlene
Dietrich
Dietrich vs. Leander
Propaganda as entertainment?
• Disagreed with Hitler on
propaganda strategy
• Need to ‘sugarcoat bitter pill’ of
propaganda with entertainment
• ‘It may be a good thing to possess
power that rests on arms. But it is
better and more gratifying to win
and hold the heart of the people.’
(1934)
• ‘Our historic mission is to
transform the very spirit itself to
the extent that people and things
are brought into a new
Joseph Goebbels, 1897- relationship with one another.’
1945, Nazi Minister of
Propaganda
Youth Dynamism
• Biopic based on
life of Herbert
Norkus, ‘martyr’ to
communists
• Emphasis on flags
& uniforms
• Official viewing for
youth groups
Hitler Youth Quex (Steinhoff,
1933)
Wartime sacrifice
• Cameraderie & self-sacrifice
of air squadron
• Heavy use of singing
• ‘The ultimate purpose of all
National Socialist films is to
show the test of an individual
within the community – for the
individual’s fate only has
meaning when it can be placed
at the service of the
community, whereupon it
becomes part of a people and
nation.’ Goebbels
Stukas (Ritter, 1941)
Anti-Semitism
• Historical ‘biopic’ of
1738 hanging of
Jewish manipulative
financier after raping
‘Aryan’ woman
• Echoes Nuremberg
race laws of 1935
• Highlights perceived
danger of assimilated
Jews
Jew Suess (Harlan, 1940)
Wunschkonzert (1940)
• Centres on radio
request show,
uniting four corners
of Reich
• Goebbels personally
worked on script
Marika Rökk, 1913-2004
• Hungarian-born,
athletic dancer
• Cf. Ginger Rogers &
Eleanor Powell in
Busby Berkeley dance
musicals
• Escapism of highly
ornate, Agfacolor films
such as The Woman of
My Dreams (1944)
The Woman of My Dreams
(Jacoby, 1944)
The Fascist Historical Film
• Identification of current regime and leaders with
illustrious predecessors (Roman Empire;
Frederick the Great)
• Biopics favoured ‘great men’
• Scipio the African (Gallone, 1937): ‘When you
see the battlefield at Zama and a soldier says,
“Troops, we have conquered Cannae!” I thought
about our Duce who said, “Let’s conquer Adua!”
And a few months later he said, “We’ve
conquered Adua!”’ (youth interviewed in Bianco
e nero magazine)
Leni Riefenstahl, 1902-2003
• Star of pre-Nazi
mountaineering epics
• Asked by Hitler to film 1934
Nuremberg rally (Triumph
of the Will, 1935)
• Use of elaborate staging,
moving cameras, night
shots
• Long footage of marching
past & political speeches
put off audiences
• Always denied political
content of her
‘documentaries’
Triumph of the Will
(Riefenstahl, 1935)
Opening sequence:
“September 4, 1934. 20
years after the outbreak of
World War I, 16 years after
German woe and sorrow
began, 19 months after the
beginning of Germany’s
rebirth, Adolf Hitler flew
again to Nuremberg to
review the columns of his
faithful admirers.”
Juxtaposition of leader and masses
How successful was Nazi propaganda?
Difficult to find out
• How the people responded
• The impact of social, political, economic and
religious context for attitudes
• The effect of Nazi repression on attitudes and
behaviour in comparison with propaganda
• So – different opinions in historiography
How successful was Nazi
propaganda?
• Mason (Nazism, Fascism, and the Working Class 1995),
sceptical of effect of Nazi propaganda on all social
groups (working class)
• Welch (Third Reich. Politics and Propaganda 1993),
argues Nazi propaganda was successful in reinforcing
overall support for Hitler, but not its policies e.g. antiSemitism and some propaganda was arguably counterproductive, e.g. anti-Church propaganda – and it was a
relative failure in its role of indoctrinating Germans with
Nazi world view
• Geary (Hitler and Nazism 1993) and Evans (The Third
Reich in Power 2005) believe Nazi propaganda was
most successful when it played on traditional German
prejudices, e.g. nationalism, fear of Bolshevism, etc. but
when it opposed traditional loyalties, it was far less
successful
Appendix: Historians and Film:
methodologies
• Film as film: watch the films, don’t just read
about them; take notes; watch again!
• Note dialogue, but also camera movements for
mise-en-scène (pan, tilt, point-of-view shots)
• Note the cutting techniques (are juxtapositions
significant?)
• Is a linear narrative being told (classical
Hollywood) or is the screen a painterly canvas
(European arthouse)?
Production Histories
• Who was the director? (auteur theory)
• How many people made the film (Hollywood
production-line techniques involved hundreds)
• Who financed the film (private companies,
banks, state?)
• Who censored the film (what was omitted?)
• Did new technologies (mobile cameras, sound,
deep-focus film stock) alter filmic possibilities?
Reception Histories
• How did the audience respond (what were the
box office sales; readers’ letters to press; fan
mail to stars?)
• How did reviewers rate a film? (do you have a
decent range of papers?)
• Were certain sociological groups more likely to
be viewers (women; families; teenagers)
• How did competing technologies (TV in 1950s)
change film audiences?
• Reception theory: can we know the
psychological response of an audience then
compared with your viewing now?
Intertextuality
• Is the film based on a book which you should
consider too?
• How did the star’s off-screen persona interact
with his/her fictional persona? (‘my character
wouldn’t do that…’)
• How are directors quoting from one another’s
work? (e.g. is the end of Star Wars, 1977 a
reference to Triumph of the Will, 1935?)