Effects of Popaganda films on World War II

Effects of popaganda films on WWII

The effects of film on WWII propaganda

Without the advent of the medium of film to wage a war of propaganda both the Axis and the Allies of World War II would have found it difficult to gather as much support for their causes as they did. Guns, tanks, and bombs were the principal weapons of World War II, but there were other, more subtle, forms of warfare as well. Words, posters, and films waged a constant battle for the hearts and minds of the masses of the world just as surely as military weapons engaged the enemy. Persuading the public became a wartime industry, almost as important as the manufacturing of bullets and

planes. Both sides launched an aggressive propaganda campaign to galvanize public support, and some of these nation’s foremost intellectuals, artists, and

filmmakers became warriors on that front.

Propaganda in the broadest sense is the technique of influencing human action by the manipulation of representations. These representations may take the spoken, written, pictorial, or musical form. Since the cinema uses all four of these types of representations, a filmmaker would seem to wield a lot of power as a propagandist. If he so chooses to use his power to its fullest potential. The essential distinction lies in the intentions of the propagandist to persuade an audience to adopt the attitude or action he or she espouses. This is ever so prevalent as Hitler gained support from his nation to exterminate the Jewish people from Germany and Europe alike. He adopted such support by using his Nazi propaganda films as a weapon of mass distraction and manipulation of the people of Germany. If he had not idealized the German soldier as a hero, and bestowed nationalism in his people, and blamed the economic problems of German on the Jewish race then he never would have been able to accomplish what he had in such a short amount of time. The most famous Nazi propaganda film is Der ewige Jude (“The Eternal Jew”).

“Der Ewige Jude” was engineered by Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda.It was created to legitimize the exclusion, and the ultimately the destruction, of an entire people. It depicts the Jews of Poland as corrupt, filthy, lazy, ugly, and perverse: they are an alien people which have taken over the world through their control of banking and commerce, yet which still live like animals. The narra...

... middle of paper ...

...at the various means of propaganda have on the great masses, film is without question the most powerful. The written and spoken word depend entirely on the content or on the emotional appeal of the speaker, but film uses pictures, pictures that for eighty years have been accompanied by sound. We know that the impact of a message is greater if it is less abstract, more visual. That makes it clear why film, with its series of continually moving images, must have a particular persuasive force. Film is a very effective tool in waging a war. With out it, it would be hard to get the people to stand behind you and

support your cause. Without the people it is hard to win a war. Thus I feel that with out films contribution to the propaganda effort the WWII would have been very, very different.

Bibliography

“Der exige Jude”: Quellenkritische Analyse eines antisemititschen Propagandaf ilms, Institute Fur Wissenschaftlichen Film, Gottingen, 1995,p.134

Ellul, Jacques, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes. New York: Alfred A. Knoph, 1965.

Hippler, Fritz, “Der Film als Waffe,” Unser Wille und Weg, 7(1937), pp.21-23.

“Propaganda,” Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2000.