Sunday, November 20, 2005

Counter Propaganda

Parody of an early 1930's Nazi poster.
Original poster said: 'Tod der Lüge', 'Marxismus', 'Hochfinanz' ('Death to Lies', 'Marxism', 'High Finance'). Reference: German Propaganda Archive.

Hitler didn't get to be Leader by straightforward means

He wasn't voted to the position by the people. To make it to Leader he had to pull more than a few tricks.

He accused his communist opponents of: plotting to overthrow the government, poisoning the nation's milk supplies, and setting fire to the parliament building; and he murdered and imprisoned his opponents. Yet, even with all their tricks, the Nazis still only won 288 seats out of the available 647.

Once in parliament, Hitler proposed an Enabling Act (officially titled: 'Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Country'), which would give him dictatorial powers. He was able to get this Act passed because his communist opponents were all imprisoned or murdered, and he made a deal with the Catholic Church for their vote. Thus he became Leader ('Führer').
(Source: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GER1933.htm

The German people have been admonished for allowing Hitler's rise, but he was also admired by many around the world.

In his 1937 diary, Lord Halifax, sent by Prime Minister Chamberlain, records how he told Hitler: "Although there was much in the Nazi system that profoundly offended British opinion, I was not blind to what he (Hitler) had done for Germany, and to the achievement from his point of view of keeping Communism out of his country."
(Referring to the banning of the Communist Party and imprisoning of its leaders in concentration camps.)

The Church preferred Nazism to the risk of atheist communism.
When Hitler escaped assassination in 1939, a Te Deum was sung and the Pope sent his personal congratulations. Later the Pope was to publicly describe Hitler's opposition to Russia as a "high-minded gallantry in defense of the foundations of Christian culture".
(Source: http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/back/hitler.html)

A brilliant article on the Catholic Church and Nazism.
And
another, eliciting some strong and interesting comments.

Once in power, Hitler put Dr Goebbels in charge of the Ministry for People's Enlightenment and Propaganda, where "Under the brilliant leadership of Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the master of political propaganda, the neglected weapon of German politics became a creative art." (Eugen Hadamovsky, the Reichsendeleiter of German radio)

The press, radio, film and theatre were guided and censored by Goebbel's Ministry, so that Party bias and anti-semitism were fed to the people.

Read here, How Hitler Became a Dictator.

A great Source for Nazi propaganda.
Also, Goebbels' Principles of Propaganda.

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