“As far as Goebbels was concerned, the main purpose of the regime was to capture hearts and minds; the purpose of terror was to deal with those whom the regime had not reached or who had been cast out as an undesirable minority.”
Discuss the validity of this statement.
President Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor of Germany on January 30th 1933, having successfully campaigned to make the Nazis the most popular party. He had been legally elected and chosen to form a government. Hitler was a great orator and through his oratory skills and his ideology of Lebensraum he decided to unify all Germans and continue the superiority of the Aryan race while capturing more territory for the Germans to live in and spread the word of Nazi philosophy through various tools and techniques. To manage his propaganda Hitler appointed Joseph Goebbels his dear friend as the Minister of propaganda and enlightenment of the people in 1933 after Hitler rose to the post of Chancellor.
Goebbels knew that it was necessary to capture the minds and the hearts of the German people if Nazi philosophy was to thrive and revenge to the unfair Treaty of Versailles be taken. Goebbels used all sorts of propaganda techniques such as the films a tool of visual media to capture the minds of the masses, the audio media such as the radio and various other forms such as English literature, arts and theatre to pursue the educated and the aristocrats. Goebbels used radio as the most elaborate instrument to spread Nazi philosophy as he sounded Hitler’s speeches through these radios in factories and other areas where majority of the population gathered. He used print media for most of the propaganda to a certain extent but it took time to get around 2,700 newspapers under the Nazi government. . Goebbels took control of various media such as the print media, visual media which included films, audio media such as radios and loudspeakers through which he controlled the publication and printing of matters so that every piece of work followed the Nazi ideology. Films were used as a great source as propaganda was mainly spread though visual media as it entertained the masses. Festivals were another way to spread propaganda, one large gathering called the Nuremberg Rallies was a highlight where thousands of people gathered on the roads to watch parades and hear speeches.
