Was Nazi propaganda used mainly to reassure or to frighten? [12 marks]

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Was propaganda used mainly to reassure, or to frighten?

We can evaluate whether propaganda was used mainly to reassure or to frighten the German public by looking individually at each medium of propaganda used by the Nazis.

Newspapers were used mostly to reassure the German people by informing them of the successes of the German army abroad, their rallies and the powerful speeches of the Nazi leaders. It also reassured them by neglecting to include news of Nazi losses, even as they became more frequent towards the end of the war. However, one could argue newspapers frightened Jews through some of their clearly anti-Semitic articles.

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Film, like newspapers, was used mostly to reassure the majority of the population whilst deliberately scaring Jews. The Nazis’ intention to reassure can be seen through the lack of overtly propagandist films, which was only about one sixth of the films they produced.  The best illustration of the Nazi film industry’s anti-Semitism was the film Der Ewige Jüde, which compared Jews to rats.

At first glance, posters would have appeared to reassure the German people with positive slogans like ‘Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Führer’, encouraging Germans to be proud of their country and the work their leader was appearing ...

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