Section C: controlling and influencing attitudes 

 

Joseph Goebbels and the Ministry of Propaganda  

  1. In 1933, Goebbels was made Minister of People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda.  

  1. This meant he was in charge of coordinating the running of the media, sport, culture and the arts, and ensuring Nazi ideas were promoted through propaganda campaigns and alternative views were censored. 

  1. This coordination of the arts was part of the control of German life and ideas into line with Nazi ideology known as ‘Gleichschaltung’  

 

Nazi use of the media 

  1. Newspapers were expected to only provide views promoted by the Ministry of Propaganda or they would be closed down. 1,600 newspapers were closed down in 1935 alone. 

  1. Journalists were told what they could not publish in daily briefings by the Ministry and sometimes given instructions what they should write about.  

  1. All radio stations came under Nazi control and were used for frequent speeches to be broadcast by Hitler and other Nazi leaders. 

  1. Cheap radio sets were mass produced to ensure these speeches reached as wide an audience as possible. By 1939, 70% of Germans owned their own radio. All of them had a limited range so that foreign stations could not be picked up. 

  1. There were also speakers placed in the streets, cafes, factories and schools to ensure speeches were heard even when people were not at home. 

 

Nazi use of rallies and sport 

  1. Huge rallies were organised by Goebbels to promote a sense of German unity and show off the new strength of Germany and the Nazi party.  

  1. An annual meeting was held at a huge open air parade ground in Nuremberg, and Goebbels ensured the 1934 rally was filmed by Leni Riefenstahl in the infamous film ‘Triumph of the Will’.      

  1. A statue of a giant eagle, with a 100 foot wingspan dominated the Nuremberg stadium, which had 130 searchlights around it to light it up at night and space for 200,000 supporters. 

  1. Sports stadiums were similarly covered in Nazi symbols, most famously the Olympic stadium built in Berlin to accommodate 110,000 spectators and Nazi sporting success at the 1936 Olympics, where Germany won 33 gold medals. This was hailed as proving Nazi ideals on ‘racial purity’. 

  1. Visiting teams from abroad, including the England football team in 1938, were expected to show respect to the Nazi state by making the Nazi salute during the German national anthem. 

        

 Nazi control of Culture and the Arts 

  1. Goebbels set up the Reich Chamber of Culture in September 1933.  

  1. Its role was to ensure all areas of the arts were consistent with Nazi ideals such as loyalty, discipline and self-sacrifice and that any art not falling into line would be branded ‘degenerate’ and banned. 

In art:  

  1. All painters and sculptors had to be an approved member of the Reich Chamber of Visual Arts.  

  1. 42,000 artists were accepted but by 1936, over 12,000 paintings and sculptures had been removed from art galleries for not fitting Nazi ideas, including the work of Picasso and Van Gogh.  

In architecture: 

  1. The Nazis disliked ‘modernist’ and ‘futurist’ architecture. They built on a massive scale to give the impression of power and use classical ideas from Ancient Greece and Rome.  

  1. Hitler’s favourite architect was Albert Speer, who designed the Nuremberg parade grounds and Government buildings such as the Chancellery in Berlin. 

In music:  

  1. Using censorship, the Nazis banned Jazz for being the work of black people and Mendelssohn for being Jewish as they were seen as inferior peoples. 

  1. Using propaganda, Beethoven, Bach and traditional German folk music was encouraged, while Richard Wagner and his operas about Germany’s past were Hitler’s favourite. 

In literature:  

  1. Writers in Germany had to have their work approved by the Chamber of Culture.  

  1. 2,500 writers had their work banned.  

  1. In May 1933, there was public book-burning ceremony in Berlin in which students burned 20,000 books by Jewish, Communist and anti-Nazi authors including Einstein and Freud. 

In film:  

  1. All film makers needed to have their films approved by Goebbels and the Nazis produced 1,300 of their own films.  

  1. Many were purely entertainment, but some like ‘Hitlerjunge Quex’ idealised Nazis fighting against Communists.  

  1. All films had government newsreels preceding them. 

  1. There was even a propaganda cartoon for children, Hansi the Canary, representing Hitler, fighting against evil crows, representing the Jewish people.