Hitler's use of propaganda.

He had been impressed by wartime propaganda. In his view, Austrian propagandists had made the mistake during the war of trying to make the enemy look ridiculous, the result of which was that as soon as the Austrian soldiers were resisted by the enemy in battle they felt deceived by their leaders and were no longer inclined to trust in propaganda. In contrast, the British and Americans had been right to portray the Germans as Huns and barbarians because their soldiers would then be prepared for the horrors of battle. Hitler was also impressed by the way that Allied propaganda conceived entirely for the masses and tirelessly repeated. At the beginning, Hitler commented, Allied propaganda had 'seemed insane in the cheek of its claims, later became unpleasant and was finally believed'.

His complimentary comments on the effectiveness of Allied propaganda and criticism of the Central Powers' propaganda is a form of propaganda, since it is part of his purpose in Mein Kampf to demonstrate that the courageous German army did not lose the war, but was betrayed by people back home.

According to him, effective propaganda is : Aimed at the masses, and at the emotions (not the intellect). Set at the intellectual level of the most limited in the audience, and designed so that the bigger the audience, the lower its intellectual level

“The intellectual capacity of the broad masses is very limited, but their forgetfulness is not. Besides, their understanding is small. As a result of these three facts every effective propaganda has to be limited to only few points and to repeat these slogans until every person understands them. As soon as this basic principle is understood, the effect will disappear, as the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered to them.”

C) Evaluation of Sources                                                Nº of Words:385                         

One of the sources to be evaluated is Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, by the British historian Alan Bullock. In this work, Bullock compares and contrasts Hitler’s and Stalin’s rules in every aspect. The book was published in 1998, more than 40 years after the events had taken place. This means that the author had many different sources to work on as well as hindsight. Bullock has devoted most of his career to investigating dictators, such as Hitler and Stalin. Therefore, he is an expert on the subject.

However, Bullock opposes dictatorial regimes, so his work reflects that bias. He has concentrated on pointing out the most negative aspects of both rules, and that can be seen as his purpose when writing his work. If one takes into consideration the fact that Bullock was professor for several years ( Oxford and St. Catherine’s College, among others), it is also possible that this book was written with didactical aims.

Nevertheless, he has attempted to be objective by using a variety of sources to complement his own view. This allows the reader the reader to draw his own conclusions.

The other source used was Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf . This book was written by Hitler in 1923, when he was in prison following the failure of the Munich Putsch in 1923 ( Hitler’s attempt to seize power). This book is definitely not reliable. It is biased, as it is in favour of none other than Hitler, as he was the one who wrote it. It has limitations, as it was written in the middle of Hitler’s career to power, and this was when he more than ever needed to gain recognition from all classes. Therefore, it is more than just an expression of his beliefs. The book in itself can be regarded as a piece of propaganda.

On the other hand, what we don’t know is if what is read in Hitler’s Mein Kampf really expresses Hilter’s inner feelings, or if he just chose to write what the people wanted to read so as to gain recognition and support from the masses, given that by the year 1923 Hitler wasn’t yet such an important figure and had a lot of opposition to deal with.

D) Analysis                                                                             Nº of Words: 650

        After World War One, and in the beginning of the 1920’s, Germany was going through her worst economic crisis ever since her unification in 1870. In the early years of the Weimar Republic, several attempts to seize power took place, both from right (Freikorps) and left-wing         (Spartacists) groups. One of the many parties created during this period was the Deutsche Arbeit Partei (DAP), while its most important member ever joined the party in September as propaganda chief: Adolf Hitler, who soon started climbing positions in the party owing to his abilities as orator. By the year 1923 he was already known all over the country as one of  the leaders of the right wing opposition to Gustav Stresseman. Hitler saw the time had come for him to seize power, and  on November 8, with 600 armed storm troopers, he marched on a beer hall in Munich, at which Gustav von Kahr, head of the provincial Bavarian government, was addressing a public meeting. Hitler, declared the formation of a new national government. Following a brief struggle with the Munich police on November 9, Hitler and his associates fled, and the so-called “Beer Hall putsch” failed. Hitler and Ludendorff were subsequently arrested. The latter went unpunished, but Hitler was tried and received a five-year prison sentence, and the party was outlawed.

While in prison, Hitler dictated the first volume of Mein Kampf . This work contained many of his basic ideas. Hitler believed that history was the record of struggles among races. He held that the superior Aryan race, centered in Germany, would be the final victor and would rule the world. But to win this struggle, Germany would have to be ruled by a dictator and would have to be racially aware. Racial awareness would come through a process of mobilizing the masses with propaganda that appealed to their feelings, not their reason, and aroused their hatred for all other allegedly inferior races, especially Jews.

Another of Hitler’s major ideas was the concept of Lebensraum (living space). He denounced as hopelessly stupid those German political parties and movements that wanted to reverse the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and reclaim what Germany had then lost. Instead, Hitler argued that Germany needed large amounts of territory in which to expand, a need that he would meet by conquering territory and expelling or killing the local populations. Such measures naturally required wars, but not for political or economic objectives. Hitler’s wars would be fought to win vast stretches of land on which German settlers would raise large families. Eventually the population would have grown sufficiently to provide more soldiers and to conquer more land. What would happen when the German settlers met on the other side of the globe was not explained

Hitler was released from prison in little less than a year. The National Socialist Party was then in a state of virtual dissolution, in large part because improvement in the country's economic conditions had created an atmosphere more favorable to moderate political organizations. During the following years, with the aid of a small number of loyal associates, Hitler slowly rebuilt the party. In 1926 he established himself as the Führer (leader) of the party and organized the armed and black-shirted Schutzstaffeln (protective units), or SS, known as the Elite Guard, to supervise and control the party and its semi-military arm, the SA. Following the onset of the world economic depression in 1929, the flow of foreign capital into Germany ceased, the country's foreign trade declined, the wheels of German industry slowed, unemployment increased greatly, and agricultural prices fell. As the depression deepened, a situation ripe for revolution began to emerge. Fritz Thyssen, head of the Thyssen conglomerate of steelworks and related enterprises, and other capitalists contributed large sums of money to the National Socialist Party. Numerous German capitalists were, however, unalterably opposed to National Socialism. That was the time when opportunity came back for Hitler and propaganda was given a new and impressive drive.

E) Conclusion                                                                Nº of words: 190

After having analysed different sources, and as a consequence of the different points of views, I can conclude the following:

First of all, it would be necessary to briefly summarize what the Mein Kampf states regarding propaganda. According to Hitler, effective propaganda should be that directed to the masses. This means it should be direct, concise ( so as to be memorised by anyone) and easily understood, given the fact that “the masses’ intelligence is very limited”.

Personally, I consider this feature regarding ideal propaganda is reflected in Hitler propaganda between the years 1933-45. Though people were clearly manipulated by him ( for example, when getting men to enlist, promoting his master-race theory or, for instance, the Nuremberg Rallies), I believe that Hitler all along stuck to his main theory of propaganda being directed to the masses. This can be seen mainly when taking into consideration his enormous popularity ( for example, the thousands of persons who went to every public appearance of his). Therefore, I believe that if there is anything good to be seen in Hitler’s rule, that is his ability to use propaganda.

F)List of Sources

• Bullock, Alan . Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives. Fontana Press. London, 1998
• Hitler, Adolf .Mein Kampf. Ed. Levinson. Madrid, 1944

Additional Information

        - Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Simon & Schuster. NY,1990

• Lowe, Norman. Mastering Modern World History. Second Edition. MacMillan. London, 1988

-  Walsh, Ben. Modern World History. John Murray. London, 1999

• The Rise of Fascism in Germany. Downloaded in December 2002. Available at
• National Geographic Magazine, April 1999. Vol. 195, Nº4.

        

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