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How did the Nazi’s use propaganda to manipulate the German population
How did the Nazi’s use propaganda to manipulate the German population
How propaganda influenced the world
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Propaganda is biased information, used to publicize a particular political cause or point of view. The Holocaust was the state-sponsored mass murder of six-million Jews by the Nazi Regime. During the ethnic cleansing in the 1930's-1940's, propaganda was the most conductive factor that allowed Adolf Hitler to conduct the Holocaust.
Posters were one way the Nazi's persuaded the Germans to fight for the Fuhrer and detest Jews. A poster featured a "young, swastika-waving, German student with the caption "The German student fights for the Fuhrer and the people." The central character is the physical
embodiment of the Nazi ideal for the Aryan: young, strong, blonde, and dedicated (Brown, 2012). The man on the poster suggests he is honored to carry the Swastika and to serve his country by dying in battle, which is "the ultimate sacrifice" (Brown, 2012). The poster, and its
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content, supports propaganda was the most effective factor leading to the Holocaust because it persuaded people that serving their country was honorable because the man on the poster was happy and full of life, so they want to be like him.
Hitler used propaganda by persuading the Germans they need to get rid of Jews to create their desired community. Surrounding war might have been seen as a more conductive factor allowing Hitler to conduct the Holocaust because the people felt as if they were endangered if they did not do what Hitler told them to do. "The Nazi ideal of a "community of the people" taped into German traditions that lauded social harmony over conflict and in addition valued
hard work, clean living, and law and order, For the Nazi's, this idealized community could never see the light of day unless it was based on social purity" (Nazi propaganda). The Nazis persuaded the Germans the elimination of social types is necessary to create the society they desire. Hitler used propaganda to convince the people that Jews who did not fit into the white "Aryan" race, needed to be exterminated, because they were holding back the nation from meeting their
goals. German children were taught at a young age stereotypes and the idea of Jews being bad. Surrounding war might have been seen as a more conductive factor allowing Hitler to conduct the Holocaust because the people felt forced to believe in what Hitler was saying because they had nowhere else to go due to the war. The children's book Der Giftpilz, which appeared in Germany in 1938 "begins innocently enough by describing a favourite German pastime , picking wild mushrooms in the woods, A young boy, Franz, accompanies his mother on a walk in a beautiful, wooded area and helps her gather mushrooms. After carefully describing and showing Franz several varieties of both edible and poisoness mushrooms, his mother compares the good mushrooms to the good people and the harmful mushrooms to the bad people. The most dangerous people are, of course, the Jews" (Nazi Propaganda). The children read books that teach them certain people are bad people, which helped Hitler gain an army, of those who were "good" and wanted to get rid of the "bad", also known as the Jews. Propaganda in this form, helped Hitler gain control because not only are the parents of the children for the extermination of Jews to separate the good people from the bad, but their children now are against them, such as Hitler. Propaganda played the most important role in Adolf Hitler gaining control and conducting the Holocaust by having posters that persuaded the people to join him in his plan, telling everyone their dream society will come life by joining his party, as well as implanting his plans into children while they are young and can grow older to further spread his ideas. Without propaganda, the Holocaust probably would not have been conducted the way it was.
By implementing the “Final Solution,” Hitler transformed the war from a war on Germany’s enemies, into a “war against the Jews.” Originally taken from Volkish ideals, the Nazi ideology was strictly based on race as the defining factor of nationalism. The Nazis consistently pushed this ideology of race in their propaganda, ultimately playing towards the overly popular Volkish ideals. In addition to tying in Volkish ideal in Nazi propaganda, other themes included were:
Beginning in 1933, Hitler and his Nazi party targeted not only those of the Jewish religion but many other sets. Hitler was motivated by religion and nationalism to eradicate any threats to his state. It was Hitler’s ideology that his Aryan race was superior to any other. Hitler’s goal was to create a “master race” by eliminating the chance for “inferiors” to reproduce. Besides the Jews the other victims of the genocide include the Roma (Gypsies), African-Germans, the mentally disabled, handicapped, Poles, Slavs, Anti-Nazi political parties, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Homosexuals. In Hitler’s eyes all of these groups needed to be eliminated in order for his master race to be a success.
Hitler used propaganda and manufacturing enemies such as Jews and five million other people, to prepare the country for war. This shows Hitler’s attempt of genocide toward the Jewish race and other races.
Introductory Paragraph: Propaganda is a tool of influence that Adolph Hitler used to abuse the German population by brainwashing them and completely deteriorating an entire race. How does one person get the beliefs of an entire country? Hitler put Joseph Goebbels in charge of the propaganda movement. Goebbels controlled every element of propaganda, there were many varieties of Nazi Propaganda. Propaganda was also being used as a tool to gain the support of the German population for the war, and supporting their government. The Jew’s were the targeted race and were completely pulverized by the Nazi’s. Hitler not only tried to destroy an entire race, he gained complete control of an entire country.
During World War II propaganda was ubiquitous. It consisted of a wide range of carriers including leaflets, radio, television, and most importantly posters. Posters were used based on their appeal: they were colorful, creative, concise, and mentally stimulating. Posters often portrayed the artist's views on the war. They demonstrated the artist concern for the war, their hopes for the war, and reflected the way enemies were envisioned. Posters also show a nations political status: they reflect a nations allies and enemies, how the nation saw itself, and its greatest hopes and fears of the war.
After Germany lost World War I, it was in a national state of humiliation. Their economy was in the drain, and they had their hands full paying for the reparations from the war. Then a man named Adolf Hitler rose to the position of Chancellor and realized his potential to inspire people to follow. Hitler promised the people of Germany a new age; an age of prosperity with the country back as a superpower in Europe. Hitler had a vision, and this vision was that not only the country be dominant in a political sense, but that his ‘perfect race’, the ‘Aryans,’ would be dominant in a cultural sense. His steps to achieving his goal came in the form of the Holocaust. The most well known victims of the Holocaust were of course, the Jews. However, approximately 11 million people were killed in the holocaust, and of those, there were only 6 million Jews killed. The other 5 million people were the Gypsies, Pols, Political Dissidents, Handicapped, Jehovah’s witnesses, Homosexuals and even those of African-German descent. Those who were believed to be enemies of the state were sent to camps where they were worked or starved to death.
In the Summer of 1941, Adolf Hitler started exterminating Jews and other non-Aryans, as a part of his plan to create a perfect Germany and to carry out his ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘Jewish Question’. Before exterminating 6,000,000 Jewish people, Adolf Hitler had already performed several actions which singled out the Jew as an evil person and one who should be killed. In 1923, Hitler was caught while trying to overturn the Bavarian government and was imprisoned for 5 years. In prison, he wrote the famed autobiography, Mein Kampf, in which he stated his first publicly known anti-Semitic beliefs and his ‘Final Solution’ to the ‘Jewish Question’. While imprisoned, there was a worldwide depression as economic markets crashed worldwide. This would help Hitler because once out of prison he would use this to help gain power both for the Nazi’s and for himself politically by promising better things to come in the future. In 1933, while preaching in front of a large Nazi crowd, Hitler used the Jews as scapegoats for Germany’s loss in World War One. “If at the beginning of the War and during the War twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in the field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.'; Many people were upset at the loss, and blaming the Jews made many people anti-Semites. Once he was named chancellor in 1933, Hitler preached about creating a Germany for true German people and a more centralized Germany. This included eliminating those who were non-Aryans and/or non-German. He would later detail about what a true German was in the Nuremberg Laws. He stated that Jews were not really Germans but instead, they were non-Aryan, and they were malignant tumors.
Propaganda posters were used by most countries involved in WWII to persuade their citizens to support patriotism and nationalism in their country. Most countries also used propaganda to persuade their citizens to support their cause and join their armed forces. The Allied Powers used propaganda to persuade their individual countries that winning the war was the only “road to justice”. Most of the propaganda posters distributed by the Axis Powers were aimed towards winning the war and supporting the beliefs of the Nazis. Most of the propaganda posters from WWII were used to recruit for the war, support the war, or spread the racial views of their country.
Hitler realizes he must eliminate the Jews because they control the press, and the only way that the Nazis can gain support is through the press. Hitler then goes into detail about how great the Aryan nation is and how belittled the Jews are. Hitler writes about the Jews, “The Jew remains united only if forced by a common danger or is attracted by a common booty…If the Jews were alone in this world, they would suffocate as much in dirt and filth, as they would carry on a detestable struggle to chat and to ruin each other…” (Mein Kampf, Page 416.) From this passage Hitler truly believes that the Jews have no place on this earth and that they serve no purpose in helping humankind advance. Through his writings in Mein Kampf Hitler was able to create a following that believed
"Propaganda tries 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." ( Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1926). During Adolf Hitler’s time, the Jews in Europe were not very well liked. They were doing very well economically because they were prominent bankers and were blamed for the economic problems in Germany because Germans were struggling. He blamed the Jews for the hardships the country was facing. Pamphlets,flyers and flags were put up all over the country that showed Germans that the Jews were being “taken care of”, and caused a bad perspective upon them. Hitlers method of propaganda ranged in variety such as; films, cartoon and even educational material. He used his way of thinking to manipulate change of all Europe to go against the Jewish with the help of Goebbles, the minister of Propaganda and Public Information.
Hitler's main idea was to, as he called it, 'cleanse' Europe of these non-deserving people. Hitler despite having gained anti-Semitic views on his own from things. he saw he was influenced a lot by Neil Darwin. He based a lot of his racial arguments and views on this. However, another point to consider was that the Jews were being used as scapegoats for German problems.
The Nazis are infamous for their heavy use of propaganda during their reign in the Third Reich, they used many means of propaganda such as posters, cartoons, radio, film, etc. The German citizens’ constant exposure to all of this propaganda from all directions had a deep psychological and psychoanalytical impact on them, it redefined their identity and who they were as well as what they thought of the world around them. Nazi propaganda often had deep symbolic meaning usually associated with anti-semitism and German nationalism, these elements were already present in the minds of the majority of Germans so it wasn’t hard for Adolf Hitler and the rest of the Nazi party to further provoke and enrage the emotions of people concerning these things, they merely had to tap into these pre disposed emotions in a way that would have the most favourable psychological impact for the Nazis. Some of the opinions and mindsets that German citizens had may have been there even before the Nazis came into power and made it seemed like they were brainwashing people with their propaganda, but with what justification can it be said that Nazi propaganda had a psychological and psychoanalytic impact on the German population to a great extent, rather than it being the work of pre set psychological states of mind of people due to the Treaty of Versailles, the Great Depression, Hyperinflation, and other sources which may have led the German population to support and hold anti-semitistic and nationalistic ideologies.
Many people before the Holocaust, and before Hitler, still hated the Jews. But Hitler made it his goal to kill this imperfect race.“Born in Austria,Hitler served in the German army during World War One.”( The Holocaust) To him the Jews were an inferior race the needed to be eliminated. He thought that by using anti-semitism he would become more popular with the crowd. “While imprisoned, Hitler wrote,
What does the term “propaganda” say, what does one think of, when approached with this term? Would one think it was of a positive of negative connotation? What about the association it had with the holocaust, would it then be considered negative? Did the Nazis use the role of propaganda overtly?
Hitler had thought that the Jews did not believe in the “right” thing so he tried to eliminate the race. He did not want them to believe in what they did and still do. He thought that the Jewish race was inferior and did not mean anything. The way that Hitler treated the Jews were crimes against humanity and I know that many non Jews saw that but did...