Nav Khanna

Mr. Hawkins
World History-P, Period 1
March 21, 2016

Hitler is notorious for his use of political propaganda. Why do you think he was so
successful at this?

Hitlers use of propaganda was crucial to his whole rise to power. He could not
have done all of this alone. Joseph Goebbels was a Propagandist in Berlin at Hitler's
invitation, Goebbels spoke at party meetings in Munich and at the annual Party
Congress, held in Weimar in 1926. Hitler began to start giving Goebbels more
authority in order for him to help him with his propaganda. Goebbels would go to large
crowds and give huge speeches which would be followed by huge ceremonial marches
and dances and the whole venue would be decorated with party banners. He would only
make his entrance when the crowds emotions would be at its peak. Joseph was an
amazing speaker who not only had practiced and choreographed his speech many
times, but was also a very go improviser and could easily influence the people. He
founded the newspaper Der Angriff (The Attack) as a propaganda vehicle for the
Berlin area. It was a modern-style newspaper which took an aggressive tone. At
first very few people would read this newspaper, but as time continued, paper circulation
increased. This paper was completely against communism and Jews and spoke of them
in a highly negative way. He often ridiculed the Jewish Chief of the Berlin police in his
newspaper and would call him derogatory names such as Isidore. Goebbels used the

death of Horst Wessel in 1930 as a propaganda tool against "Communist

subhumans". After this, many people began to follow him.

Hitlers Nazi Party had the biggest success in propaganda in history at the time.
Never before or after in the history of modern "statecraft," and I use the term
quite loosely, did a country have a better organized military machine promoted
and justified with powerful, coordinated messages directly to the people. Hitler
would have rallies quite often were him and Joseph Goebbels, who was Reich Minister
of Propaganda, would speak. The rallies would seem enjoyable, with music and dances
and would seem like a ceremony. For the people who do not attend these rallies, hitler
came up with a solution to the problem. At Hitler's personal request, a 31-year-old
actress and movie director named Leni Riefenstahl was filming the entire weeklong Rally. They created a documentary that looked amazing to watch. He would
spread his propaganda as more and more people began to see the documentary. In this
picture, it revealed how much of a brilliant speaker he was, and also how well he took
charge of things. Even the children would be exposed to all of this propaganda. A
childrens book was found in Germany, the caption reads "Jews are our misfortune"
and "How the Jew cheats." Germany, 1936. Children then would grow up hating jews
and becoming just like the Nazis. Also, not only were messages embedded in every
form of media, every merchant played the game, some voluntarily, others not.

Nazis were told to put an immediate end to anything that contradicted their movement.
As Minister of Enlightenment, Goebbels had two main tasks: to ensure nobody in
Germany could read or see anything that was hostile or damaging to the Nazi

Party. Goebbels teamed up with the SS and the Gestapo and also Albert Speer. The SS
and the Gestapo would hunt down and eliminate anyone who disagreed, while Speer
and Goebbels would spread positive views of the Nazis. To ensure that everybody
thought in the correct manner, Goebbels set up the Reich Chamber of Commerce
in 1933. This organisation dealt with literature, art, music, radio, film, newspapers
etc. They were in charge of making sure that whatever made it to the public would only
be positive and in no way would make the nazi party look bad. If you wanted to make
anything that would be exposed to the public, you had to be a member of the
organization. Only the Nazi party could decide if you were to be allowed into the
organization. The Nazis then came up with a new policy. You could only read, see
and hear what the Nazis wanted you to read, see and hear. This way no one in the
public ever hear of the actual truth.