The Nazi Party 's Failure Of Convincing The German Population Of Their Ideology Essay

"Propaganda attempts to force a doctrine on the whole people... Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea." These words of Adolf Hitler are taken from his book Mien Kampf (My Struggle) published in 1926. Propaganda was an elaborate and essential tool used extensively by Hitler and the Nazi's during their terrorizing reign of Germany and throughout Europe. Not only was it used to promote and endorse the party and its leader's extreme anti-Semitic values, but also to mask the horrifying truths of what was to become known as the Holocaust.

Hitler’s rise to power was the result of many factors, but Hitler’s ability to take advantage of Germany’s poor leadership and economical and political conditions was the most significant factor. His ability to manipulate the media and the German public whilst taking advantage of Germany’s poor leadership resulted in both the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler and the nazi party. During the early 1920s, Germany was struggling with economic instability and political uncertainty. Germany, after being defeated in the Great War, was forced to sign the unforgiving treaty of Versailles, which the Weimar Republic was held responsible for. This brought forward feelings of fear, anger and

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.

The Nazi regime had a top-notch propaganda ministry of the time. In fact, the government was able to adjust the public’s idea quickly. For the most part, They were able to control all media sources. As shown above, The public thought that the Jewish community was responsible for the hardship that they faced after the WWI. Furthermore, The head of the propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels was able to accomplish his goals by keeping the public from watching or listening to anti-Nazi ideas and to construct Nazi ideas are compelling to the audience (Trueman).

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.

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.

When looking back on the events of the Nazi regime, it is impossible not to note the triumph of the libelous propaganda of minority groups. The success stems from the nationalistic and anti-Semitic thoughts born through the misfortune of being involved in World War I—a war that left Germany in financial shambles. Though Dr. Joseph Goebbels and The Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment did not start the fire of radical thoughts, they took advantage of the situation and fueled the flames with incessant propaganda commending the aforementioned ideals. As the world media blanketed the horrors of the Holocaust to the back page, millions of innocent Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, political enemies, and Jehovah Witnesses were condemned for

On the other hand, for the vast mass of German youth, propaganda was most successful in indoctrinating ideas, especially those of a ‘national community’. The state can be said to have aimed propaganda at the youth with “the intention of enveloping the individual at every stage of development within a single organization by subjecting him to a planned course of indoctrination” (Welch). Although Kershaw, in his detailed analysis of Bavaria, has persuasively argued that the ‘national community’ idea had little impact in changing behavioural patterns, it is undeniable that those who had been born during the regime were subject to the most effective forms of propaganda that is difficult to reject. Nursery and primary school teachers preached the regime as a form of propaganda that comes from below, and Nazi organizations offered youth comradeship and a pioneering role in rejecting Marxism and glorifying Hitler. As Hans Schemm, the leader of the Nazi Teachers’ League put it, ‘those who have youth on their side control the future.’

One significant theme that the propaganda centered on was “supremacy” where it dealt greatly with “every area of German life.” Propaganda was displayed through various forms of media throughout the world. It was crucial that propaganda appealed to the Germans because their support was needed in order for the Nazi’s to achieve their goals of war and extermination of Jews. The propaganda had to be believable and advertised in Germans

Once Hitler and the Nazi party had succeeded in ending democracy and turning Germany into a totalitarian society, the Nazis orchestrated a major propaganda campaign to gain the loyalty and cooperation of the German people. The Nazi Propaganda Ministry, directed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, controlled all forms of communication

Films were made to spread the Nazi ideology across Germany to manipulate the citizens as did newspapers. In Germany, the cartoons in the newspapers portrayed the Jewish people with antisemitic caricatures. Rallies held by the Nazi Party in the Zeppelinfeld were propaganda events used to arouse enthusiasm and show off the power of National Socialism. All of these forms of propaganda worked together to manipulate an entire nation into supporting acts of genocide.

In 1933 Hitler set up a “Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and propaganda directed by Joseph Goebbels”. (“Nazi Propaganda” 1). Germans were constantly reminded of their war against foreign countries and the Jewish

After World War I, Germany was is great debt and in great need for a political change in its government. Adolf Hitler hired a man named Joseph Goebbels to create posters and media by using the “art of persuasion” to ensure his message over the world (“Propaganda in Nazi Germany” 7). Hitler and Goebbels goal in the propaganda was to “Nazify” the German culture (“How did the Nazis” 5). However, the media that the Nazis presented didn’t state all the negative outcomes of their choices, instead the propaganda only praised the Nazis and the things that they were doing. One film that the Nazis created was of the Theresienstadt ghetto-camp.

In this literature the authors (King, Rosen, Tanner, Wagner 2008) explore the voting behavior in order to explain the rise of the Nazi Party during the Weimar Republic and who turned to the Nazis and who didn’t. Some of the literature’s arguments there are two theories mentioned, the first one being group-based theory and the second one the Catchall theory. Alternative arguments to this suggest that those who were hurt by the economy and had little risk of unemployment labeled in the readings as the working poor supported the Nazi Party. This group of people disliked the on-going welfare programs from the current government and were seeking for economic stability, new capital goods and more. In contrast those who were unemployed or at high risk of becoming unemployed were in favor of the Communist Party or Zentrum Party, these people were against the Nazi party mainly because they were already benefiting from the different kinds of social assistants and the Nazi policies did not favor the average peasant workers. The data shown in the essay covers elections from December 1924 to March 1933, after having a set of 681 precincts that were stable. This is divided into six regions, each showing 3 different levels of unemployment (low, middle and high) as well as religious affiliation (Protestants and Catholics plus a couple of others). Some of the findings illustrate that Protestants were located to the Northeast, in contrast Catholics regions were located in the Southwest.