What Was the Official Nazi Policy on Art and How Was It Implemented?
In 1924, Adolf Hitler wrote that propaganda's
"task is non to make an objective study of the truth, in and so far every bit it favors the enemy, and so fix it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our ain right, always and unflinchingly."
Communicating the Nazi Message
Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Hitler established a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed past Joseph Goebbels. The Ministry'south aim was to ensure that the Nazi message was successfully communicated through fine art, music, theater, films, books, radio, educational materials, and the press.
In that location were several audiences for Nazi propaganda. Germans were reminded of the struggle against foreign enemies and Jewish subversion. During periods preceding legislation or executive measures against Jews, propaganda campaigns created an atmosphere tolerant of violence against Jews, particularly in 1935 (before the Nuremberg Race Laws of September) and in 1938 (prior to the barrage of antisemitic economic legislation following Kristallnacht ). Propaganda likewise encouraged passivity and credence of the impending measures confronting Jews, as these appeared to draw the Nazi government as stepping in and "restoring social club."
Real and perceived discrimination against ethnic Germans in east European nations which had gained territory at Germany'south expense following World War I, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, was the subject of Nazi propaganda. This propaganda sought to elicit political loyalty and and then-called race consciousness among the ethnic German populations. It also sought to mislead foreign governments—including the European Great Powers—that Nazi Deutschland was making understandable and fair demands for concessions and annexations.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union , Nazi propaganda stressed to both civilians at habitation and to soldiers, police officers, and non-German auxiliaries serving in occupied territory themes linking Soviet Communism to European Jewry, presenting Germany every bit the defender of "Western" culture confronting the "Judeo-Bolshevik threat," and painting an apocalyptic picture of what would happen if the Soviets won the war. This was particularly the case after the catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943. These themes may take been instrumental in inducing Nazi and non-Nazi Germans as well every bit local collaborators to fight on until the very stop.
The Function of Picture
Films in detail played an important part in disseminating racial antisemitism, the superiority of High german military ability, and the intrinsic evil of the enemies as defined past Nazi credo. Nazi films portrayed Jews as "subhuman" creatures infiltrating Aryan society. For example, The Eternal Jew (1940), directed past Fritz Hippler, portrayed Jews equally wandering cultural parasites, consumed by sexual activity and money. Some films, such as The Triumph of the Volition (1935) by Leni Riefenstahl , glorified Hitler and the National Socialist move. 2 other Riefenstahl works, Festival of the Nations and Festival of Dazzler (1938), depicted the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games and promoted national pride in the successes of the Nazi government at the Olympics.
The Role of Newspapers
Newspapers in Frg, above all Der Stürmer (The Assaulter), printed cartoons that used antisemitic caricatures to describe Jews. After the Germans began World War II with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazi regime employed propaganda to impress upon German civilians and soldiers that the Jews were not just subhuman, but besides dangerous enemies of the German Reich. The regime aimed to arm-twist back up, or at least acquiescence, for policies aimed at removing Jews permanently from areas of German settlement.
Covering up Atrocities and Mass Murder
During the implementation of the " Last Solution ," the mass murder of European Jews, SS officials at killing centers compelled the victims of the Holocaust to maintain the charade necessary to deport the Jews from Germany and occupied Europe as smoothly every bit possible. Concentration military camp and killing center officials compelled prisoners, many of whom would soon dice in the gas chambers, to send postcards home stating that they were being treated well and living in good conditions. Hither, the camp authorities used propaganda to comprehend upward atrocities and mass murder.
In June 1944, the German language Security Police permitted an International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Commonwealth). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in Nov 1941 as an musical instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German language Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled past the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians "to the East" for "labor." In grooming for the 1944 visit, the ghetto underwent a "beautification" programme. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a picture using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish "residents" of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the picture was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center.
Mobilizing the Population
The Nazi government used propaganda finer to mobilize the German population to support its wars of conquest until the very finish of the government. Nazi propaganda was likewise essential to motivating those who implemented the mass murder of the European Jews and of other victims of the Nazi authorities. It also served to secure the acquiescence of millions of others—every bit bystanders —to racially targeted persecution and mass murder.
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