How Did Hitler Use Propaganda

Hitler and the Nazis used propaganda to suppress the Jews’ freedoms and human rights. Films portrayed Germans as powerful and mighty while showing the Jews to be “subhuman creatures” (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 1). German newspapers portrayed Jews in their cartoons as anti semitic caricatures while radios played Hitler’s manipulative speeches all over Germany. By dehumanizing Jewish people through propaganda, Hitler was able to encourage Germans to support the Nazis and look down on the Jews. Without propaganda, less people would have been motivated to support Hitler.

Hitler once stated “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” Hitler was born in Braunau-am-Inn Austria. He did very poorly in school and did not complete all his credits during his schooling. Hitler’s father died when he was 13 and 6 years later his mother died, yet he still managed to be a very successful person. Somehow he managed to gain and maintain power because he used force, lots of scapegoating, and lastly propaganda.

Propaganda in general is the idea of getting others to believe in one’s own beliefs. Propaganda is the “attempt to influence behavior…by affecting through the use of mass media of communications, the manner in which a mass audience perceives and ascribes meaning to the material world.”1 Propaganda was a major part of Germany’s way to brain wash people into following Hitler and his army. The theme of Hitler and Goebbels, (Paul Joseph Goebbels, was appointed Hitler’s Reichspropagandaleiter, the Nazis national director of propaganda), using propaganda, “was to merge the traditional German patriotism with Nazi ideological motifs”2, this was basically used from1919 to 1945.

Prior to his upbringing and continuing, anti-Semitism propaganda was abundant in production. Nonetheless, Hitler established a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels. The Ministry's aim was to ensure the Nazi’s anti-semitic message was successfully spread through any mode of communication. The propaganda reignited the resentment and underlying hatred inside every German through the exploitation of anti-semetic myths entrenched in the European culture for generations. Propaganda also encouraged passivity and acceptance of the impending measures against Jews, as these appeared to depict the Nazi government restoring

Through propaganda, the Nazis’ ideals are spread effectively to the people so that they have the support as a complete country, accomplishing the first step in their plans. For the Germans, “propaganda [is] the tool by which nearly every facet of German life [dictates]” (Kinser???). Propaganda has become a stepping stone for what the Germans has to offer, even more to anti-semitism. Similarly, the ideologies of German are anti-semitic so they use that to their advantage, combining it with propaganda even though most images are false. The Germans blames the Jews for all their errors and has become the scapegoats for Hitler. All the posters about Jews by the Germans, “[has] little to no truth behind them, but [are] rather elaborate myths [that are created] to single out a group of people that [are] seen as a threat” (Kinser?). This prompts to unity amongst the people with the same perspective toward a single race.

The anti-Semitic propaganda led the minority Nazi party into the place of superiority so they could influence the public that Jews were subhuman. Various forms of propaganda ranged from posters, radio broadcasts, marches and more. These helped influence those or pressured those had opposing views of those of the Nazi party. Sheldon Kishner mentions in his article Nazi propaganda shaped German opinion, “No sooner had Hitler been appointed chancellor than he embarked on a quest to destroy the free press and thus shape popular opinion” (6) This limited the information the public was to intake in daily life and shaped their opinions of what was going wrong in the country. Since

To what extent did Nazi propaganda influence the citizens of Germany during World War II? Propaganda is the function to attract supporters and the function to win different members over to make the people believe in certain beliefs. “World War II, which began in 1939 and ended in 1945, was the deadliest and most destructive war in history.” (The National WWII Museum para.1). The object of propaganda is to indoctrinate the people to allow people to change their behaviour in the desire of the propagandist. Forms of propaganda were eye opening to the Germans who were affected by fear and beliefs from the propagandists who implemented it into the society. However, Hitler was able to maintain his dictatorship due in large part because of the ideas and messages presented in the propaganda that was produced in Germany. The propaganda had to be simple and direct because most people during this deadliest war were not very intelligent since it was so power to new ideas from Hitler’s ideology, everyone was so susceptible to it. Hitler was able to persuade the people to his belief of unification of Germany through propaganda and the pride of the people. But, without propaganda, it is without a doubt that the war would have taken another route to make the ideology as widespread as it got during WWII. The citizens of Germany during World War II were emotionally drawn into the war due in large part because of propaganda. Propaganda affected individual beliefs and values, as well as

As can be seen by the extensive collection of newspapers, posters, films, and radio broadcasts, there was a large influence of anti-Semitic propaganda throughout Germany for several years, form the beginning if the late 1920’s to the mid 1940’s. That’s almost twenty years of rising and implementing hatred of the Jewish people. These types of propaganda were created and promoted in the public sphere in an attempt to eradicate the Jewish population, instigated by the Nazi party of Germany. One can see the development and connection of propaganda to this attempt at annihilation of the Jews in the “Ten Stages of Genocide” by Gregory H.

The Nazi party’s main vehicle to control German media was the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. The Nazi party believed that successful propaganda focused on little brute force, and more on fear mongering. One man who held this ideology high was Joseph Goebbels. He used the idea of fear mongering when ordering the Sturmabteilung, also know as the

One way Hitler persuaded the German people was through propaganda. A specific example of how Hitler and the Nazis used propaganda to generate obedience was to create the ‘perfect race’. Hitler and the Nazis adopted the Darwinian evolutionary theory, expressing the statement of survival of the fittest. Hitler used pseudo-scientific (falsified) research to support claims that Germans were the master race that would lead mankind. Hitler said that one of the causes that Germany lost World War I was because the German race was weakened through Aryans marrying non-Aryans. In order to make Germany strong again, the Nazis had to ensure the absolute purity of the Aryan race (Pine). Through propaganda posters, Hitler encouraged this image by showing

The Nazis and Hitler used extreme propaganda in attempt for people to accept their actions. Hitler made the Jews out to be a problem and a threat to the purity and perfection of German society (Holocaust Encyclopdia: Nazi Propaganda ). In Hitler’s speech to the Reichstag in September, 1942, he states,

(Lee, 1998, p.33) According to David Welch, Goebbels attempted to do this through four propaganda themes. Firstly appeal to national unity and attempt to promote the idea of a ’people’s community (Volksgemeinschaft); secondly attempt to establish a ‘Führer cult’ (Führerprinzip); thirdly, closely linked with the idea of a ‘people’s community’ was the idea of a need to establish racial purity, and finally propaganda would be used to direct hatred towards the Jews and the Bolsheviks (The Third Reich – Politics and Propaganda, 1995, p.52). Whilst all of these aims have a significant part to play when attempting to answer

The conditions that allowed the Fascist leaders to take control before World War 2 was when propaganda and indoctrination lead people to easily believe that they need to deify their leader and never question them. Fascism is a form of totalitarianism that focuses on nationalism, militarism and racism. Fascist dictators, like Hitler, focused on building up the military in order to expand the nation through conquest. Hitler wanted to rule the world by having a war, leading him to take full control. During the 1920s, global economic depression has also helped Hitler to take control since he promised to make Germany great again after losing World War 1 and having the Treaty of Versailles against Germany. The Treaty of Versailles made Germany pay full war reparations and not allow military, making Germany very hopeless and depressed economically.

More propaganda was being used to have more of the population follow the Nazi ideals. They made it seem as if the Jewish people were the problem. That they are doing all these horrible things and that they should be punished. But, they didn’t tell the media and the people that they would be executed because of their differences, because of their race and beliefs. So the people of Germany saw nothing wrong with what they were doing. They didn’t suspect a

Hitler discussion of the importance of propaganda is highlighted by Goebbels’s speech when he speaks on how to effectively use propaganda to further the party’s goals. Randall Bytwerks analysis on the argument of Jewish genocide and the propaganda used to carry it out especially exemplifies how the use of “homo sacer” was communicated to the German population to advocate the battle between worthy and unworthy life by means of continuous propaganda. For diversity of research, I will also include research done on Jewish kosher killing of animals, foreign concentration camp propaganda, and how Plato reinforced Nazi prejudices. These all together highlight the importance of continuous, polarizing rhetoric to make the “final solution” digestible for the German population in the sense that they were not all hungry to end the Jewish; rather, they were merely accepting of it as a necessity.