...Cinema: Nazi Propaganda Films German propaganda films were used by the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler in order to convey a message to the citizens of Germany. The messages would vary depending upon what Hitler and his party wanted to tell the people of Germany at that particular time. If it was pre-war propaganda it was Hitler on his rise to power. If it was wartime propaganda it was to keep Germany unite in their fight against the enemy and to keep them inspired with hope and promises of victory. "One of the most philosophically fascinating uses of cinema, is a vehicle for propaganda. Granted all mass media-books, television, music, newspaper, radio and nowadays the internet - can be used for propaganda, that is, as tools for getting a message broadly accepted in a target audience. But, it has been argued that film-as opposed to literature, the plastic arts, music and the other performing arts-has a unique power as a tool for propaganda" (Jason203). "The films of a nation reflect its mentality in a more direct way than other artistic films because films are never the product of an individual and the films address themselves and appeal to the anonymous multitude" (Kraucer, 5). This is why Hitler and the Nazi party decided to use film as a method for spreading their ideology. Film allowed them to reach the masses in a way that other mediums just couldn't do. Plus the "anonymous multitude" would be able to view the films and accept the ideology without...
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...How effective was Nazi propaganda 1933-1938? One of the main tools of Hitler’s rising Nazi regime was the scrupulous propaganda which enabled the Nazi party to keep the German people in check and under their control, exposing them to only what they saw necessary and vital for Nazi prosper. This helped raise the ideal race that the Nazis strived so wholeheartedly to create. But, how can we determine whether it was effective? To do this, we must look at the various techniques that were used by the ministry of propaganda, and to what extent they worked and helped the Nazi prosper. However, we can only speculate. We will never fully know statistics about how effective Nazi propaganda was, since there was no market research, very few non-Gestapo conducted opinion polls to look at, and even if there were many others, the information would not be accurate and the opinions affected. If there had been polls conducted, the results would have shown exactly what Goebbels and Hitler wanted people to think - this was achieved by making sure that only certain things were safe to think - and more importantly safe to say. Hitler was able to gain more and more followers and appeal to the people due to the severe state of the German economy and the critical state of the people that had no savings, no assets and practically no food. The Versailles treaty had simply been a recipe for destruction for the Weimar Republic and the crisis was the last straw leading to its demise. Hitler was the only...
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...According to Fredrich’s “six point syndrome”, a totalitarian state must consist of an official ideology, a single mass party, terroristic police control, monopoly control of the media and arms and central control of the economy. During the Nazi Reich between 1933-1939, under Hitler as Fuhrer (supreme leader), the Nazi regime was able to successfully achieve aspects of totalitarianism by exerting tight control of the media and police; leading to control of certain aspects of German social, political, legal, economical and cultural life. However, there are significant features of the Nazi regime that simply fail to fit Friedrich's six, all encompassing concepts of totalitarianism. Central to the concept of totalitarianism is an official ideology encapsulating a monolithic party led by an omnipotent, almost God-like figurehead. Whilst Hitler, supported by the Fuhrer myth, certainly fits the totalitarian leader definition, the Nazi Party structure contradicts the characteristics of a coordinated central party. Within, power rested on individuals and not in party structure; leading to increasingly fragmented party policy and intensifying interpersonal frictions as individuals radicalised in attempts to please the Fuhrer. In this structure, accountable and rational decision making in the long term became impossible; leaders lost any sense of stability and improvised agencies and policies to enact the amorphous will of the leader. The most radical policy of all, the extermination...
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...The Author Guida Diehl was the founder and leader of the Newland Movement, which pre-dated the Nazi Party by at least six years. She came from a nationalist and anti-Semitic family, and only joined the Nazi Party in August 1930. Following the advice of Adolf Stocker, who hated Jews and supported the emancipation of unmarried women, she attended social-work school and later worked as a teacher of social work in Frankfurt. Diehl constantly preached a spiritualist, quasi-Christian, and nationalist message, that went against the postwar values of Americanism, materialism, and mammonism, which threatened to overpower Volk, God, and fatherland. Diehl wholly supported National Socialist goals, the Nazi’s anti-communism and anti-Semitism, and was particularly concerned with stemming the tide of moral ‘filth’ including the campaign to legalize abortion. Diehl was installed as ‘cultural advisor’ in the Nazi Party, but by 1936 had lost any appreciable political influence or organizational role. The Document in its Historical Context The title of the document undergoing analysis is, “A New Type of Woman”, and “Principles of the National Socialist Women’s Organizations” (the document), both from the book ‘Die deutsche Frau und der National Sozialismus (The German Woman and National Socialism), and published in 1932. “A New Type of Woman”, as written by Guida Diehl, outlines what characteristics a German woman should possess, and what type of woman she should aspire to become....
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...the element of fear among the citizens. Totalitarianism was able to exercise influence, by garnering devotion from regime loyalist. Its prominent execution was purported to collectively influence the success of a country. Supporters of the regime were rewarded by significant posts and incentives while non-loyalists were expected to remain silent without questioning the administrations motives. Use of violence was supported by the administration system to neutralize any emergent form of oppression. Fascism was a prominent governing system that was established during the early twentieth century, based on the need to respond to western influence and assert dictatorial states as new world leaders. The common character present in both ideologies is the nation or state was put before the rest. If a state was conceived by fascist regimes then the nation would speaks would be organized, structured and from its unity arise above the rest (Eatwell, 2011).Stalwarts were the propellers of the movement, their role was to obey and follow the chain of command nurturing a controlled...
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...German public were in cooperation with the Nazi regime and agreed with both the enforced and promoted concept of the regime. Hitler had mainly achieved this by trying to ‘ win over the hearts and minds of all non-Jewish Germans’ this would mean he would have the majority of the Germans citizens on his side. However, it is also suggested that many of the people had only consented due to fear which can be inferred from source 5 that it was the methods of the Nazi apparatus of terror that had led to the people conforming. Although source 6 suggests, even without terror which wasn’t completely enforced on ordinary Germans, the German public had ‘little difficulty in conforming’. As source 6 suggests ‘Nazi terror posed no real threat to most ordinary Germans’ so most people were easily persuaded by popular policies to consent to the Nazi regime. Source 6 agrees that the Nazi Regime was a consensus dictatorship as the public knew of the terror the minority groups faced but chose to ignore it due to their own self-interest and advantages of Hitler’s policies. Evidence from reports produced by the SOPADE and SPD who were in exile indicates that the people viewed Nazi policies positively. Unemployment had also reduced falling to 350, 000 by January 1939. This prosperity the public faced due to Nazi reforms such as The Unemployment Relief Act in 1933 and the KDF where working class people could enjoy more leisure activities provided by the Nazi party had made the public consent and ignore...
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...Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda, in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda. Propaganda can be used as a form of political warfare. While the term propaganda has acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative and nationalistic examples, propaganda in its original sense is neutral. It may also be construed to refer to uses which are generally held to be somewhat benign or inoffensive, such as public health recommendations, signs encouraging citizens to participate in a census or election, or messages encouraging persons to report crimes to the police, among others. Propaganda was not invented by the Americans. It began with the Roman Catholic Committee for the Propagation of the Faith, an order of the church which was established by a papal bull in 1622. (Baran & Davis, 2013). Throughout the beginning of the twentieth century, the meaning of propaganda was debated as to whether or not it was a good or bad form of communication that could be corrupted...
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...women’s roles in different countries have been very diverse, and some cultures still adhere to traditional views. Depending on historical conditions, the role of women in Germany varied according to the principles of different epochs. When the Nazi Party came to rule, it dictated its perspective on women’s rights and duties, which was based on their ideology of Nazism. At that time, the role of women was quite specific and thought-out. In the beginning of 20th century, German women demanded that they get the right to vote, and succeeded in 1919. They also began working in spheres that were previously considered as dominated by men, stepped out of fashion boundaries by shortening their hair and skirts, and were freer...
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...Max Kiehne The Body Prof. Gordon Nazi Aesthetics The regime of the Nazi party had an explicitly approved form of art. Unlike the other totalitarian regimes of the era, the approved forms of art were firmly integrated into their iconography and ideology, and excluded any other art movement, including those that were popular at the time. These approved forms of art held a limited number of themes, which were repeated as often as necessary, in order to portray the values the Nazis deemed relevant to their cause. These values were, of course, fundamentally nationalistic, and those themes approved by the government were meant to glorify not only the Aryan race, but specifically the German nation. The Harvest: The painting Out To Harvest, by Oskar Martin-Amorbach, is a typical, governmentally approved, work of Nazi art. It depicts a family of farmers going out to harvest on what seems to be a summer day in a typical German countryside. It shows three generations of that family, a young boy at about 4-5 years of age, his mother, and what appear to be his father, grandfather, and a young woman who might be his older sister or aunt. As it’s title implies they are going out to harvest, for they are carrying scythes and rakes for harvesting and a small handheld basket, presumably holding their lunch for the day. In the background is portrayed a typical German landscape, rolling hills as far as they eye could see, symbolizing the Nazis’ slogan of Blood and Soil. Farm Life: What...
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...The 1936 Games were organized and convened under the shadow of the Nazi Party. The government used the Olympics as a means to promote their ideology and position within the international community. As such, the art and advertising associated with the Games had strict standards and symbolism embedded into their design. Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Games in an attempt to prove the superiority of the Aryan race, which failed when Jesse Owens won four gold medals. The Games were meant to be an international meeting of amateur athletes and instead became a showcase and propaganda machine for the National Socialist German Workers' Party leading up World War II. The Third Reich used posters in order to portray the Aryan race’s dominance and higher status...
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...The creation of a nazi mass movement In july 1932 the nazi gained 13,745,000 votes and their voters represented 37.3% of the electorate, making hitlers party the largest in the Reichstag. The results of the elections 1928-32 showed the changes in political parties. It was clear that the Nazis made gains from parties with a middle class/protestant identity. Catholic, communist and social democrat parties were able to withstand the Nazi advances. Geography and denomination Nazi support was higher in the North and east of the country and lower in the south and west. Across the North German plain from east Prussia to Schleswig Holstein, the Nazis gained their best results and reflects the significance of religion and degree of urbanisation. The areas with significant numbers of catholics, was were the Nazis gained the less support but the more protestant regions was were they gained more support, and didn’t do so well in large industrial areas but did well in rural areas. The Nazis did the worst in the west catholic areas such as Cologne. And it was at its highest in areas such as Pomerania. Class Nazi voters reflected the rural/urban division in terms of their social groupings. They gained the most support from peasants and farmers, the mittlestand (lower and middle class shop keepers), established ,idle class- teachers and white collar workers. High proportion of the middle class supported the party, but although the working class did join the Nazis in smaller proportions...
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...Holocaust was the systematic killing of European Jews by the Nazis before and during World War II. When Hitler came into power, Germany turned into a totalitarian government, “The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews, deemed “inferior,” were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community” ("Introduction to the Holocaust." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council. Web. 20 Mar. 2016). Hitler’s goal for Germany was to create the perfect Aryan race. The Nazis accepted that it was their duty to exterminate the Jews. Hitler’s twisted notion brainwashed German citizens into thinking that it was fine if other people...
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...Sanjida Afrin Morality of Massacres and Genocide Prof. Harman Salton 2nd March, 2016 Nazi Memorandum The Holocaust was an extreme incident of genocide as defined by the UN Genocide Convention that took place in the 20th century in Germany as a religious, political and economical manifesto targeting an ethnic, national or racial group such as the Jews. The plot of this heinous genocide however started back in the 1930 before the WWII when Hitler and the Nazis started spreading propagandas to wipe out Jews from Germany. This memo will give a critical overview on the purposes behind the holocaust, how propaganda were used to conduct such extreme genocide and the role played by the Nazis and the Germans, followed by a brief comparison between the genocide in different countries and the Holocaust. When we start talking about Holocaust, one of the basic terms to use is “Anti-Semitism” which refers to hatred against the Jews. Even though factual evidences hold Hitler’s strong hatred towards the Jewish population as a major reason behind the holocaust, it is still a debatable issue. One of the most interesting facts that come to attention is the wide support of many of the educated German elites in the Nazi propaganda. This might be result of the flourishing economic conditions of the Jews in the then Germany. The Jews were open to modern education, they flourished in business and basically not as much affected as the Germans after the WWI. This might have led to economic and political...
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...Malicious ideologies have enabled groups of people to inflict inhumane violence on other members of society through compliance to authority. Such historical events of massive genocides include the Holocaust; where Nazi soldiers killed six million innocent Jewish people based on their political and ethical reasoning. Troubled by situations of this nature, Stanley Milgram held a collection of experiments that his book “Obedience to Authority” outlines. Milgram tells us that “the aim of the study was to find when and how people defy authority in the face of clear moral imperatives” ( 4). Milgram found that there are social forces which allow populations to commit morally conflicting acts against other populations. The fundamental variable for this influence is ideology; which is defined in Webster’s dictionary as “a systematic body of concepts, especially about human life or culture”(“ideology”). Ideologies accompanied by social contagions, admit ordinary individuals to transgress in inhumane conformed evils. The obedient subjects of Milgram’s studies and the Nazi soldiers alike are not all necessarily sadistic psychopaths. Rather, they’re a result of ideological social conformity. It has been a commonly accepted idea that those who participated in the holocaust were all individually psychopaths, but conformity to a corrupt authority’s dogma influences ordinary people to behave malevolently. Between 1941- 1945, fifty-five thousand Nazi soldiers worked at death and work camps...
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...promoted German nationalism • German film output peaked in 1930 • Cinema attendances rose throughout the Depression years • Cinema allowed the unemployed to escape the misery of their lives and go somewhere warm. The Berlin Olympics • Berlin was awarded to host the 1936 Olympics • This presented Hitler with a great propaganda opportunity • He wanted the world to see that Germany was peaceful • As a result of Antisemitism there were calls to boycott the Berlin Olympics • In the months leading up to the games Hitler tried to create an image of a peaceful nation by ordering the media to refrain from attacking the Jews • Olympic Stadium seated 100,000 • German Olympic team were the first to train full-time before competition • First time an Olympic Torch was carried from Olympia to the main stadium. • 49 nations competed in the Berlin Olympic Games • Jesse Owens a US African-American athlete was the star of the games winning 4 gold medals, Hitler refused to congratulate him • Italy’s football team won the gold medal • 9 Jewish athletes won medals Rise of Hitler and the Nazi party • In 1919-20 the Weimar Republic had to...
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