...'socialist realism' for artistic and literary expression" (235). Do you think that this is comparable to the Nazi book burnings? I think Stalin, like Mark mentioned, enforced only areas of education which benefited his plans for the government and its people. There was a big change in the way that classes of people were treated; Stalin cared much less about women than the previous leader and he aimed to increase profits through industry for the already wealthy elite and the military (Goff, 2008). During this time he promoted education which would reinforce the values of hard work and discipline, but did very little for the people who worked just as hard as others, the farmers. They were living in poverty. I think that the only difference between Stalin and Hitler here is that Stalin's goals were centered around earning more wealth and making people more productive, though at the expense of certain classes' qualities of life. Hitler sought to "extinguish" an entire race of people, based on superior beliefs of a duty to cleanse the world. Thanks for the interesting posts about Stalin and Hitler! Let's go a bit deeper into the comparison of Hitler's and Stalin's use of propaganda. In "Mein Kampf" Hitler wrote the following about propaganda: "The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must...
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...Historical content Growth of German cinema in Weimar Germany • German film industry grew under the Wiemar Republic. • Economic stability translated into growing cinema attendances due to having enough money to pay for a ticket • Called the Golden age for German Cinema • Cinematography was considered highly artistic and used unusual camera angles, abstract shot composition, symbolism and dramatic lighting • At the end of the 1920's German film industry made a significant shift from expressionist inspired films • Expressionism films were losing appeal among film enthusiasts • Germany was swinging towards escapist films and films that 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...
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...When thinking about influential women in film, Marilyn Monroe and Katherine Hepburn are names that come to mind because of their work in front of the camera. However, less known, yet possibly more influential than them in the cinematography business, Leni Riefenstahl shaped the cinematic world through her work behind the camera. Although being on the “wrong side of history” in terms of her alleged alliance with Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, having the influence of the Nazi philosophy shaped her films as the innovative pieces of work many recognize. Through several filming techniques, Leni Riefenstahl was a renowned film director in the 1930’s who was famous for her relationship between the Nazi Party and her relationship influenced the development and message of her films while also executing phenomenal and groundbreaking cinematography in the 20th century and its influence today. The 1930’s was...
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...Research Essay: LENI RIEFENSTAHL a. Outline the life of the personality you have studied The German actor, filmmaker and Nazi associate, Leni Riefenstahl, has stirred one of the greatest controversies of modern times. Seen as either a Nazi propagandist or a pioneering artist of great ingenuity, the discussion regarding Riefenstahl is still a prevalent issue in today’s world. Born into a financially stable family on 22nd August 1902, Riefenstahl was reasonably sheltered from Germany’s economic and political unrest up until as well as after WWI. As a child, she was extremely passionate about dance and the theatre. Wanting to dance on stage, although acceptable to Leni’s mother, was seen as below their social status by her father. Throughout Leni’s adolescence, she caused a continuous rift between the family, as her enthusiasm for the arts never declined, leading to her secret enrolment in the Grimm-Reiter Dance School in Berlin in 1918, as well as agreeing to work as a secretary for her father’s company in order to gain his later approval for dance lessons in 1920. After being persuaded by Leni’s mother, he enrolled her in the Jutta Klamt School where Leni studied under the ballerina Eugenie Euardova. Riefenstahl’s career in dance began in October 1923 and was abruptly ended in June 1924. She performed her first solo performance at the age of 21 and received positive reviews. During her second recital she caught the interest of Max Reinhardt, a leading theatrical director...
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... The Use of Film During WWII At the beginning of World War I, America was neutral to what was happening across the pond. Americans went about with their everyday life. One of the new trends that came about at the time, were cinemas. Cinemas were used to entertain the masses, but that soon changed when President Woodrow Wilson saw how it affected the people. Wilson saw the cinemas as an opportunity to influence Americans to enter war against the Axis powers in Europe. Hollywood agreed with Wilson, and supported his ideas about reaching the audience with films. This was the beginning of film being used as propaganda in the World Wars. During WWII, the role of propaganda film changed a bit. World War 2 caused a spike in propaganda films, films now needed to be monitored by many government agencies, and one of the greatest propaganda films was created. Up until the bombing of Pearl Harbor, many American citizens were closed off from the war. Many of the citizens who remembered WWI believed it was a bad idea for American to join because America was still vulnerable and was just fixing itself after The Great Depression. They believed that Europe and Asia should worry about their own problems without the involvement of the United States (Grzan). However, the government knew that America was going to have to join the war sooner or later. We had alliances that needed to be protected. At the relation of what needed to be done, a rise in war films came about. One film that particular...
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...convince numerous amount of men, women and children that these innocent groups of people were so evil, so evil that they had to be exterminated? One word, Propaganda. "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 wrote these words in his book Mein Kamp. The propaganda used was all just a matter of media control, the lie that Jews were the cause of all things wrong with the German business world. Then, racial purity, as if they’re such animals for having their certain beliefs. One of the main tools of the Nazi’s was the production of films. Their effectiveness with the use of films that looked like documentaries were carefully edited and presented exactly what and only what they wanted. Having the power to do that, these films helped them raise the support for the movement by brainwashing Germans to believe that the Jews were the cause of all corruption. Nazi propaganda provided a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of their policies, including the pursuit of total war and the extermination of millions of people in the Holocaust. There were posters that used symbolic imagery. These posters offered a romanticized ideal of the Nazi party as a force for good, often employing religious imagery, which represented...
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...TOPIC: NAZI GERMANY Propaganda, terror and coercion underpinned the creation and maintenance of the Nazi state. Consider this in the period 1933-1939. The adage that perception is often stronger than reality has never been truer than in the Nazi state of 1933-1939, where image played a colossal role in the anti-semitic and Hitler myth propaganda of Joseph Goebbels. Image manufactured the fearful aura of the Gestapo as well as the ubiquitous representation of the law, both of which created and cemented acquiescence amongst the German population. It was through the creation of perception in Nazi society that propaganda, terror and coercion underpinned the creation and maintenance of the Nazi state. Any attempt to gauge the success of Nazi propaganda in the creation and maintenance of the Nazi state is somewhat difficult, as German society during 1933-1939 was so heavily influenced by terror and coercion that reported opinion did not necessarily reflect the true sentiment of the public. Nevertheless, it would be naïve to disregard the significant role that Nazi propaganda played in ensuring that the German public were unified in their support of the government. The most crucial objective of Nazi propaganda in the creation of the Nazi state was to create a new heightened national awareness. This was done through the creation of the Volksgemeinschaft (People’s Community), an institution that established cohesive community values. In order...
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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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...When thinking about nazi portrayal in films today there is an immediate connection to terror, violence, fear and world domination led by a ruthless inhuman leader and his vast army of followers as deceptively represented. We also now know that through incredibly well though and complex film aesthetics the Nazis manage to trick if not even hypnotize their nation into their leader's plans of hyper segregation, world domination and power generated by fear and intimidation. The german cineast Wim Wenders even stated that "never before and in no other country have images and language been abused so unscrupulously as here, never before and nowhere else have they been debased so deeply as vehicles to transmit lies". (Rentschler, 1996 pg 1). it is then clear to us that the national socialist cinema is today considered one, if not the biggest atrocity in cinemas history. But if such is so obvious today, how was it possible for such movies to appeal to such vast number of people ? The most obvious one would be the incredible shocking and emotionally charged portrayal of the families which lived in great poverty and led immensely degrading lives due to the economic and political situation at the time. After having been defeated in the World War 1, a socialist revolution took place which led to the creation of the Weimar republic. They were also forced to pay an incredible amount of money due to damages and saw parts of its territory being distributed away between other nations....
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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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...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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...It is most evident as the scene entering the tenth minute of the film, through the cinematographic techniques, mise-en-scene, and editing, the Hunger Games creates a parallel between the nation of Panem and Nazi Germany, enhancing the movie’s connection between propaganda and genocide. At the beginning of this scene, the people of District Twelve are being rounded up for the annual reaping. As part of the cinematography, the scene initiates with an aerial shot, focusing on the people of the district being rounded up. The camera then shifts from an aerial shot to a ground-level handheld camera in motion. The camera follows the emotions/facial expressions of the people in the district. Through their emotions, the sense of lifelessness remains, but it also transforms, creating a sense of sadness, anxiety/unease, and fear. The frantic movements of the camera, and the cuts in editing, swiftly shifting focus from...
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...Part 1 - Weimar Germany 1918-1929 1) The Treaty of Versailles ▪ Kaiser abdicates November 9th 1918, Armistice (cease-fire) signed November 11th ▪ Treaty of Versailles signed June 1919 ▪ It is a DIKTAT – something forced on to Germany. Allies say that they will carry on the war if Germans do not sign. ▪ For many Germans the defeat in WW1, national humiliation, the Treaty of Versailles, the Weimar constitution & democracy are all linked – helps explain why democracy is weak in Germany ▪ Terms of the Treaty – ▪ Germany has to pay REPARATIONS (fixed in 1921 as £6600 million) ▪ Germany loses all its COLONIES (overseas parts of their empire) ▪ German army limited to 100,000 men with no air force & a small navy with only 6 battleships and no submarines ▪ 13% of Germany is now transferred to neighbouring countries as the map is redrawn ▪ Germany loses land to France (Alsace-Lorraine), Belgium, Poland (Posen & West Prussia) & Denmark ▪ 15% of German coal mines are lost in map changes ▪ Many Germans blame the defeat in the war on “the stab in the back” (DOLCHSTOSS) – i.e. the Socialists / Communists / Jews betrayed Germany & the army was never defeated. This myth makes it harder to accept the Treaty ▪ Treaty weakened democracy in Germany and the German economy ▪ Friedrich Ebert appointed Chancellor in October 1918 2) The Weimar Constitution ▪ A National Assembly was elected to write this new constitution ▪ It met in Weimar because Berlin was...
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...Nazi Propaganda: Selling Social Policy How was Hitler able to use social policy and propaganda to manifest support for the National Socialist Party Hitler’s radical antisemitism? by James C HIST2** Professor: Judith S****** The name Adolf Hitler, will be forever synonymous with one of the most oppressive and destructive eras in human history. Often regarded as the worst anthropological disaster in history, World War 2 was responsible for the deaths of millions of soldiers and civilians alike who. This would mark “...the first [war] in which civilian populations became systematic, strategic targets.” (Merriman page1049) Driven by his intolerance or perhaps hatred, towards the Jewish people Hitler was able to turn a largely personal vendetta against Jews, into an issue of public policy, and ultimately one of the largest genocides ever documented[1]. How did one mans ideas, Hitler’s anti-semitism, evolve from the hurtful words of Mein Kampf to anti-Jewish laws in Nazi Germany and ultimately the biggest recorded savagery in the History of mankind? Although the blood of over 6million Jews stains his hands, Hitler was not alone in his actions; he required support. This essay examines various theories regarding the conception of Hitler’s antisemitic values and asks how Hitler was able to use social policy and propaganda to manifest support for his would be genocidal Nazi regime. Central to comprehending policy decisions made by Hitler, is an understanding of his...
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...Propaganda in Nazi Germany The Nazi party emerged in the late 20s and early 30s, led by a charismatic right wing leader, Hitler led the Nazis to power as the Nazis offered many ideals that were attractive to the German people who were ready to accept any help after the disaster the Treaty of Versailles and Weimar Republic brought onto them. By 1932 the Nazis had around 200 seats in the Reichstag (parliament) and their power kept on growing until Hitler was appointed as Chancellor of German in 1933 giving him and the Nazis virtually complete control over Germany as Germany became a single party state, meaning that the Nazis had no opposing parties that could challenge their power. The Nazi’s strong grip over Germany was a product of their vigorous and effective use of propaganda that was able to alter the opinions of the German public and eliminating any potential threat to their power. Hitler was very concerned with propaganda; he made sure every citizens was exposed to it from children to the workers. He even hired individuals to take care of these matters such as Joseph Goebbels who was Minister for “enlightenment” and propaganda, Goebbels was a fanatic of Hitler believing he was the “savior” of Germany, the book describes Goebbels saying “Goebbels constantly kept his finger on the pulse of public opinion and decided what the German public should and should not hear” though the book might not be very reliable as it is a western book who may hold very exaggerated views on...
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