Censorship and Control

• Radio propaganda:

  • loud speakers
  • short-range ==> no BBC
  • in 2 days, 100 00 units were sold
  • Volksempfanger ==> peoples receiver, 1937-1939 it was 76 RM, which was relatively cheap
  • 70% owned a radio in 1939
  • Jews and communists removed
  • Radio wardens ==> co-ordinated radio listening in public
  • 1939 => 2/3 of radio time was music
• The Press propaganda:

  • 4700 papers in 1933 => when Hitler took over Socialist and Communist papers stopped
  • controlled 2/3 of press due to the Nazi publishing house, Eher Verlag, bough majority of papers
  • October 1933 ==> Editor's Law ==> racially pure journalists
  • couldn't target specific groups from April 1935
  • 10% decline in newspaper circulation before 1939
• The Berlin Olympics:

  • first games to be broadcast on TV
  • spread Nazism without upsetting people ==> removed anti-jewish posters
  • 42 million RM spent on creating the 130 hectare sports complex
  • 110 000 spectators
  • Leni Riefenstahl ==> 4 hour film called Olympia
  • Top of the Table with 89 medals
  • Jesse Owens undermined Nazi Ideologies
• Nazi Ritual:

  • Heil Hitler salute
  • Horst Wessel anthem
  • militaristic uniforms
  • public festivals
• Public Festivals:

  30th January = The Seizure of power

  24th February = Party foundation day

  16th March = Heroes Remembrance Day

  20th April = Hitler's Birthday

  1st May = National Labour day

  2nd Sunday in may = Mothering Sunday

  21st June = Summer Solstice

  2nd Sunday of July = German Culture

  September = Nuremberg party rally

  October = Harvest festival

  9th November = The Munich Putsch

  Winter Solstice = Pagan festival instead of Christmas
• Joseph Goebbels:

  • had a humble beginning but was born disabled
  • committed anti-semite
  • propaganda chief
  • central figure of the regime
  • had many love affairs
  • maintained civilian morale during the allied bombing by visiting the cities ==> unlike Hitler
• Literature:

  • over 2500 of Germany's writers left their homeland during the years 1933-45
  • many German writers were against the new cultural atmosphere in Germany
  • Erich Maria Remarque (wrote All Quiet on the Western Front) -> pacifist fled Germany
  • no noteable books during the reich
  • productions mainly kept with classics like Goethe
• Cinema:

  • Jewish film studios handed over to the hands of nationalist sympathisers
  • Goebbels recognised the importance of expanding film - for propaganda and entertainment purposes
  • out of the 1097 films made from 1933 to 1945, only 96 were requested by the Propaganda ministry
  • Olympia, The Eternal Jew, The Adventures of Baron von Munchhausen