WWII Timeline
Nazis – Why vote for them?
PUPS OF WH
Propaganda
Use of technology
Promise to voters
Support of Industrialists = more money
Organisation
Flexibility
Weakness of opposition
Hitler
Hitler’s helpers
Josef Goebbels – editor of Nazi Newspaper
Hermann Goering – 1923 Leader of SA
Rudolf Hess – early days = Hitler’s private secretary, later = party admininstrator
Heinrich Himmler – early posts: Gauleiter (regional party chief), Head of SS
Ernst Rohm – 1921 ran the SA
The Gestapo
Originally Goerings Prussian secret police
June 1936 – Himmler in charge – tapped into telephones etc.
Propaganda Problems
Newspapers – 4700 of them in 1933 and Nazi ones in small circulation
Radios – Hitler and Goebbels believed it to be important but radios = expensive
Films – lots of high quality films – will people accept political ones?
Festivals & Celebrations – marches/rallies/festivals = success
Culture – How to control these works?
Solutions
Newspapers – Take over them and put in trustworthy journalists who knew what to report. Anti-Nazi ones closed and by 1944 there were only 1000 daily newspapers
Films – Encourage more and put in some political films. Only allowed in at the beginning of the film so people had to watch the Nazi newsreels and they had to watch short documentary films
Radio – ‘The People’s Reciever’ – cheap. By 1939 70% had one, 6000 loudspeaker pillars erected
Festival/Celebrations – ‘New’ festivals put in such as Hitler’s Birthday in April
Culture – Goebbels set up the Reich Chamber of Culture – everyone had to be a member to publish things – guidelines set up and books burnt
Women
Gertrude Scholtz-Klink = perfect example
- Had children
- Did as she was told and well behaved and well dressed (no makeup and flat heels)
- Her place was at home
