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Figure 6: Czech Jews at forced labor clear ice in the center of Prague. (Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Ivan Vojtech Fric, 1944)

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Figure 5: Front page of the Nazi publication, Der Stuermer, with an anti-Semitic caricature depicting the Jew as the instigator of war. (Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Mira Wallerstein, 1938)

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Figure 4: Propaganda slide entitled "Smear Campaign" (Hetze), which portrays the Jew as responsible for inciting world opinion against Germany. (Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Library of Congress, 1936)

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Figure 3: Nazi propaganda poster of Adolf Hitler standing before a saluting crowd. The caption reads, "Yes, Fuehrer, we are following you!" (Source: Studio of H. Hoffmann, 1933-1939)

Photo credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Galerie Prospect

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Figure 2: Nazi propaganda of a soldier brandishing a flag with a swastika. The text reads: "One day-suddenly [as if] overnight--the swastika comes to power!"(Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Dottie Bennett, 1926)

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Figure 1: Adolf Hitler addresses a rally of the SA. (Source: Studio of H. Hoffmann, 1933)

Photo credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of William O. McWorkman.

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Nazi Propaganda - “fake news”

Definition of news:

Noteworthy information (not necessarily factual) of recent/new events presented through some form of media.

Nazi propaganda:

Propaganda is defined as “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.” Hitler’s ultimate tool to gain control over the German population was to utilise the media in distributing the propaganda throughout the country and inevitably the world. A large portion of the stories and ‘news’ Hitler and the Nazi’s distributed was extremely inaccurate and constructed to sway the German public to side with him and  form his dangerously violent army. For political purposes in particular, Hitler’s rise to power was scripted through empty promises of jobs and food towards lower and working class Germans who feared the depression would hinder their life expectancy, ultimately gaining him a large following. The globalisation of the German media defined how the country’s opinions were formed during the years preceding 1930, beliefs which were threatening to the Nazi’s or their regime were censored or eliminated altogether. Hitler gained power rapidly and began to infiltrate the privacy of the public, officials were given the ability to read people’s mail, listen in on telephone calls and search houses without a warrant. The modes of distribution that were primarily used to spread misinformation was newspapers,in particular “Der Stürmer” (German Propaganda Archive, 1932), which was controlled by the overarching dictatorship of the Fuhrer himself and the governing body of Nazi Germany. Representation of the Jewish in Nazi Germany was falsely constructed, they were portrayed as the ‘alien race’ who were thought to be feeding off the home nation, poisoning their culture, seizing employment from the German’s and therefore corrupting the economy. The widespread public displays of anti semitism against the Jewish was depicted on posters, newspapers, even films and radio addresses in order to reach diverse audiences of those who weren’t Nazi supporters. His actions projected a global outrage and sparked an uprising from defending countries who disapproved with Hitler’s views, to the point where war broke out and the Allies fought to defend the honour of prior treaty obligations. The overriding implications of the ‘fake news’ that the Nazi party spread caused worldwide disruption and chaos. This inevitably illustrated an idea in the German public’s minds that it was culturally and socially acceptable to condone violence against minorities during that time. The central focus behind Hitler’s motives for the distribution of fake news throughout Germany was political power. His superiority in the government was only sanctioned by the German public because he was extremely charismatic and his ability to depict his viewpoint in a positive light was paramount. Nazi’s understood the developing technology and the impact it was about to have on the public, therefore they preempted the rise of TV, radio and film as modes of distribution and had ultimate control over what was broadcast through the media.

Summary:

The total political and economic control over Germany can be summed up with a quote by Allen Ginsberg (1989) “whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture,” this defined the culture throughout Nazi Germany in the early 1930s and inevitably led to the world’s largest escalation of fake news to date. Both the combination of propaganda and the Nazi’s complete control over mainstream media led to the spread of inaccurate information far and wide without any factual evidence to support the claims, affecting millions of people worldwide.

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References

Holocaust Encyclopedia - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (1933). The Nazi terror begins. Retrieved from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nazi-terror-begins?series=21810

Holocaust Encyclopedia - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (1920-1936). Defining the enemy. Retrieved from  https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/defining-the-enemy

German Propaganda Archive. (1927-1932). Caricatures from Der Stürmer. Retrieved from http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/sturm28.htm

BBC. (2018). Hitler takes political control 1933-1934. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zxs2pbk/revision/2

Ginsberg, A. (1989). Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture.