Repression and Control - Propaganda,

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 O O 1940 – anti-semitic films – first too extreme - unpopular O Der Ewige Jude O Jud Süss – 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) -

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