Abstract
An assessment of NS propaganda in terms of effectiveness depends on a complex process of defining benchmarks — many of which remain essentially relative and perhaps arbitrary. If propaganda assumes a wholly negative connotation (a rather common connotation in the post-1945 period that was not as pronounced during interwar times), indicating a conscious and systematic distortion of truth for reasons of political expediency, then its effectiveness can only be gauged in relation to its ability to convince its target audience that the factual gap between truth and ‘ersatz’ reality does not exist. If, however, propaganda is understood in a more morally and historically neutral context — as a universal factor in political legitimation regardless of regime features — then its primary function is that of a filter, intending to sift through factual information and then construct a message based on that manipulated reality that is either more agreeable to its audience or aims to covert it to the regime’s rationale (and once again a combination of the two processes is common). The distinction appears subtle but not less significant for that matter. Whilst in the former definition propaganda is believed to fabricate reality as a means of safeguarding and strengthening political control, in the latter case consensus and indoctrination, short-term ‘truth’ and long-term (wishful) thinking coalesce in order to produce a discourse that is both formative and informative. Thus, the customary identification of propaganda with falsification is misleading and restrictive as a matrix for the understanding of its historical function. No propaganda machinery produces ‘truth’ or ‘lies’; this is a secondary result of the process of filtering the factual raw material, making choices about the content and form of its message, the timing and frequency of its output, the devices and targets of its product. Propaganda is ‘truth’; perhaps not ‘the whole truth’, in most cases not even ‘nothing but the truth’, but a truth, reshaped through the lens of regime intentions and long-term aspirations.1
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
I Kershaw, ‘How Effective was Nazi Propaganda?’, in D Welch (ed.), Nazi Propaganda: The Power and the Limitations (London: Croom Helm, 1983), 180–205.
Kallis, Pascist Ideology, ch. 2; A Kallis, ‘To expand or not to expand? Territory, generic fascism and the quest for an “ideal fatherland” ‘, Journal of Contemporary History, 38 (2003): 238–60.
R Griffin, ‘Revolution from the right: fascism’, in D Parker (ed.), Revolutions and the Revolutionary Tradition in the West 1560–1991 (London: Routledge, 2000), 185–201.
On the use of the term ‘revolution’ in the context of fascism see Introduction, note 8; and, for an interesting discussion on the subject, R Griffin, ‘Fascism is more than reaction’, Searchlight, 27/4 (1999): 24–6.
D Welch, ‘Manufacturing a Consensus: Nazi Propaganda and the Building of a National Community (Volksgemeinschaft)’, Contemporary European History, 2 (1993)
W Struve, Elites against Democracy: Leadership Ideals in Bourgeois Political Thought in Germany, 1890–1933 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973)
Kallis, Fascist Ideology, ch. 2; M Hauner, ‘A German Racial Revolution?’, Journal of Contemporary History, 19 (1984): 671–90.
For example, J P Faye, Langages totalitaires. Critique de la raison/l’économie narrative (Paris: Hermann, 1972), 407 ff
J B Thompson, Studies in the Theory of Ideology (London: Polity, 1984), 211–27, for an analysis of this dualism between party and leader.
Kallis, Fascist Ideology, ch. 3; cf. R Eatwell, ‘On defining the “Fascist minimum”: the centrality of ideology’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 1 (1996), 303–19; Noel O’Sullivan, Fascism (London: Dent 1983), 134 ff.
Noel O’Sullivan, Fascism (London: Dent 1983), 134 ff.
J Nyomarkay, Charisma and Factionalism in the Nazi Party (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1967), esp. ch. 6
K Hildebrand, ‘Monokratie oder Polykratie?’, in G Hirschfeld, L Kettenacker (eds), Der ‘Führerstaat’. Mythos und Realität. Studien zur Struktur und Politik des Dritten Reiches (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981), 73–96
K D Bracher, ‘The Role of Hitler: Perspectives of Interpretation’, in W Laqueur (ed.), Fascism: A Reader’s Guide (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979), 211–55. See also, later ch. 6.
W Wette, ‘Ideologien, Propaganda und Innenpolitik als Voraussetzungen der Kriegspolitik des Dritten Reiches’, DRZW, Vol. 1: Kriegsbeginn und Kriegsziele (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1979), 603–64.
J Goebbels, ‘Unser Hitler’, April 1939, in his Die Zeit ohne Beispiel (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1941).
L Birken, Hitler as Philosophe. Remnants of the Enlightenment in National Socialism (Westport, CT/London: Praeger, 1995), ch. 5
H D Andrews, ‘Hitler and Bismarck: a history’, German Studies Review, 14 (1991): 511–32.
F Didier, Europa arbeitet in Deutschland. Sauckel mobilisiert die Leistungsreserven (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1943), 4.
See in general R Griffin, ‘Europe for the Europeans: the fascist vision for the new Europe’, Humanities Research Centre Occasional Papers, 1 (1994).
F A Six, ‘Das Reich und die Grundlegung Europas’, F A Six (ed.), Jahrbuch der Weltpolitik 1942 (Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1942), 13–36.
In general, see J K Hönsch, ‘Nationalsozialistische Europapläne im zweiten Weltkrieg’, in R G Plaschka, H Haselsteiner, A M Drabek, B Zaar (eds), Mitteleuropa-Konzeptionen in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1995), 307–25.
A Kallis, ‘Race, “value” and the hierarchy of human life: ideological and structural determinants of national socialist policy-making’, Journal of Genocide Research, 7 (2005): 5–30.
See, for example, A Rosenberg, Der völkische Staatsgedanke: Überlieferung und Neugeburt (Munich: Deutschvölkische Buchhandlung, 1924)
cf. A Rosenberg, Neugeburt Europas als werdende Geschichte (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1939).
A Rosenberg, Deutsche und europäische Geistesfteiheit [Rede auf einer Weltanschauliche Feierstunde der NSDAP in Prag 16.1.1944] (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1944).
F Steive, ‘Deutschland und Europa im Laufe der Geschichte’, in Europa. Handbuch der politischen, wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Entwicklung des neuen Europa, ed. by Deutsches Institut für Außenpolitische Forschung (Leipzig: Helingsche Verlagsanstalt, 1943), 19–27; cf. BA: R 55/524, 197; R 55/525, 33.
K R Ganzer, ‘Das Reich als Europäische Ordnungsmacht’ (1941), in S Hagen, U P Ina (eds), Europäische Geschichte. Quellen und Materialien (Munich: Bayrischer Schulbuch Verlag, 1994), 383–5
K Mergerle, ‘Eine bessere Weltordnung’, in Berlin Rom Tokio. Monatsschrift für die Vertiefung der kulturellen Beziehungen der Völker des weltpolitischen Dreiecks, 7 (1939): 2–4.
W Daitz, ‘Die Erneuerung des Reiches und die Wiedergeburt Europas aus dem Lebensgesetz der europäischen Völkerfamilie’ (1942), in W Daitz, Der Weg zur Volkswirtschaft, Großraumwirtschaft und Großraumpolitik (Dresden: Zentralforschungsinstitut für Nationale Wirtschaftsordnung und Großraumwirtschaft, 1943), III, 77–94.
W Daitz, ‘Die Grundlagen europäischer Marktordnung’ (1941), in Daitz, Der Weg zur Volkswirtschaft, Großraumwirtschaft und Großraumpolitik, III, 123–7
W Daitz, ‘Großraumwirtschaft’ (1938), in Der Weg zur Volkswirtschaft, Großraumwirtschaft und Großraumpolitik, II, 24–30.
For Rosenberg’s plans for ‘foodstuff self-sufficiency’, see later, ch. 5. For plans for commercial and financial reorganisation see, amongst others, W Funk, ‘Der wirtschaftliche Aufbau Europas’, in Europa. Handbuch der politischen, Wirtschaftlichen und Kulturellen Entwicklung des heuen Europa, edited by Deutsches Institut für Außenpolitische Forschung (Leipzig: Helingsche Verlag Sanstalt, 1943), 87–93;
A S Milward, The German Economy at War (London: The Athalone Press, 1965), 192–4; 018;The Reichsmark Bloc and the International Economy’
in H W Koch (ed.), Aspects of the Third Reich (New York: St. Martin’s, 1985), 331–59.
J Goebbels, ‘Das kommende Europa’, Speech to Czech artists and journalists, 11.9.1940, in his Die Zeit ohne Beispiel, 314–23.
R Ley, Internationaler Völkerbrei oder Vereinigte Nationalstaaten Europas? (Berlin: Verlag der DAF, 1943).
O Dietrich, ‘Rede zur europäischen Verantwortung der Presse’ (1942), in Europa -Handbuch, 258–9.
Von Schirach B, Speech at the European Youth Congress in Vienna (1942), in W Lipgens (ed.), Documents on the history of European integration, Vol. I: Continental plans for European Union 1939–1945 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1985), 102–3.
Hitler, Address to the Reichstag, 30.1.1939, in N H Baynes (ed.), The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, Vol. I (London: Oxford University Press, 1942), 737–41; cf. Hitler’s 28.4.1939 Address to the Reichstag, in Baynes, The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 774 ff.
G Allardyce, ‘What Fascism is not: thoughts on the deflation of a concept’, American Historical Review, 84 (1979): 367–88.
M Mann, Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), chs 1–2.
Birken, Hitler as Philosophe, chs 6–7; E Nolte, Das Europäische Bürgerkrieg, 1917–1945. Nationalsozialismus und Bolschevismus (Berlin: Propyläen, 1987)
G Eley, ‘What produces Fascism: pre-industrial traditions or the crisis of the capitalist state’, Politics and Society, 12 (1983): 76–82.
A J P Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1961), 69 f; Kallis, Fascist Ideology, ch. 6.
N Chamberlain, Radio Address to the British People, 3.9.1939, in D Dutton, Neville Chamberlain (London: Arnold; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 139 ff.
For example J Goebbels, ‘Wirtschaft und Krieg, Rede zur Eröffnung der Leipziger Frühjahrsmesse’, 3.3.1940, in his Die Zeit ohne Beispiel, 274–5.
Goebbels, ‘England und seine Plutokraten’, 5.1.1941, in his Die Zeit ohne Beispiel, 359 ff. See also W L Shirer, Berlin Diary. The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934–1941 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1942), 23.9.1940, 400–3.
W Meyer zu Uptrup, Kampf gegen die ‘jüdische Weltverschwörung’; Propaganda und Antisemitismus der Nationalsozialisten 1919 bis 1945 (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 2003).
D J Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (London: Abacus 1997), esp. 77–90.
During the first half of 1939, derogatory references to the USA abounded in Nazi propaganda: see, for example, Hitler’s long response to F D Roosevelt’s message delivered on 28 April 1939, in M Domarus, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, Vol. II: Untergang (1939–1945) (Würzburg: Schmidt, 1963), 975 ff; Goebbels, ‘Wer will den Krieg?’, 1.4.1939, in his Die Zeit ohne Beispiel, 90 ff.
WA Williams, ‘The legend of isolationism in the 1920s’, in Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York: Dell, 1962), 104–59
M Jonas, Isolationism in America, 1935–1941 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966)
J Doenecke, ‘Power, markets and ideology: the isolationist response to Roosevelt policy, 1940–1941’, in L P Liggio and J J Martin (eds), Watershed of Empire: Essays on New Deal Foreign Policy (Colorado Springs: Ralph Myles, 1976), 132–61
T E Mahl, Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939–1944 (Washington: Brassey’s, 1998); J W Baird, The Mythical World of Nazi War Propaganda, 1939–1945 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974), 170–2.
J W Baird, The Mythical World of Nazi War Propaganda, 1939–1945 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974), 170–2.
R W Steele, Propaganda in an Open Society. The Roosevelt Administration and the Media, 1933–1941 (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985), 171 ff.
Boelcke, The Secret Conferences of Dr Goebbels, 25.4.1941, 152–3.
Boelcke, The Secret Conferences of Dr Goebbels, 13.10.1941, 185.
Boelcke, The Secret Conferences of Dr Goebbels, 24.3.1941, 128.
Goebbels, ‘Der Frömmste unter uns allen’, 23.3.1941, in Die Zeit ohne Beispiel, 435–9.
Boelcke, The Secret Conferences of Dr Goebbels, 24.3.1941, 128.
Goebbels, ‘Das alte Lied’, 8.4.1941, in Die Zeit ohne Beispiel, 456 f.
A Rosenberg, ‘Wird Eli Eli über Horst Wessel siegen?’, VB, 17.7.1938, 3.
R Ley, Roosevelt verrät Amerika (Berlin: Verlag der Deutschen Arbeitsfront, 1942), passim.
P H Merkl, Political Violence under the Swastika. 581 Early Nazis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), esp. 169, 487 ff, 522.
E Kris, H Speier, German Radio Propaganda: Report on Home Broadcasts during the War (London/New York/Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1944), 213 ff.
J Streicher, ‘Bolschewismus und Synogoge’, Der Stürmer, no. 36, September 1941, 1.
Hitler, Speech at the Berlin Sportpalast, 3.10.1941, in Domarus, Hitler, II, 1761; the second quote taken from E Kris, H Speier, German Radio Propaganda: Report on Home Broadcasts During the War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1944), 357–8.
Boberach, Meldungen aus dem Reich. Auswahl aus den geheimen Lageberichten des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS, No. 309 (17.8.1942), 251–4.
BA, R 55/602, 13, 19 (opinion reports, 12.6/26.6.1942). On the image of Russia and the Russians amongst the Germans see T Stenzel, Das Rußlandbild des ‘kleinen Mannes’. Gesellschaftliche Prägung und Fremdwahrnehmung in Feldpostbriefen aus dem Ostfeldzug (1941–1944/45) [Osteuropa Institut München (Mitteilungen, No. 27, 1998)], 41 ff
Hillgruber, ‘Das Rußlandbild der führenden deutschen Militärs vor Beginn des Angriffs auf die Sowjetunion’, in Hillgrüber (ed.), Die Zerstörung Europas. Beiträge zur Weltkriegsepoche, 1914 bis 1945 (Berlin: Propyläen, 1988), 256–72.
Yad Vashem Archives, TR-3/1156 (Memorandum, Josef Israel Loewenherz — Head of Jewish Community in Vienna, 1.6.1942). On the event see Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent, 178; W Benz, W H Pehle (eds), Lexikon des deutschen Widerstandes, 1933–1945 (Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag, 1994), 225–7.
A Hitler, Speech to the Reichstag, 30.1.1939, in Baynes (ed.), Fhe Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 738–41.
This of course was not overlooked by public opinion. The difference between the ‘colossus with clay feet’ of 1941 and the significantly more apprehensive ‘colossus’ of 1943 was noted by the population, as SD reports clearly show. See Boberach, Meldungen aus dem Reich. Auswahl aus den geheimen Lageberichten des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS, 7.2.1944, 398.
J Goebbels, ‘Überwundene Winterkrise. Rede im Berliner Sportpalast’, Der steile Aufstieg (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1944), 287–306.
H-A Jacobsen (ed.), Generaloberst Halder: Kriegstagebuch (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1962), 46–8; and for a translation of the relevant excerpt, J Noakes, G Pridham (eds), Nazism 1919–1945, Vol. 3: Foreign Policy, War and Racial Extermination (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2001), 790–1.
and for a translation of the relevant excerpt, J Noakes, G Pridham (eds), Nazism 1919–1945, Vol. 3: Foreign Policy, War and Racial Extermination (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2001), 790–1.
Boberach, Meldungen aus dem Reich. Auswahl aus dm geheimen Lageberichten des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS, 6.10.1941, 169–71.
J Goebbels, ‘Überwundene Winterkrise’, 5.6.1943, in his Der steile Aufstieg, 301–2.
A Hitler, Address to the Reichstag, 11.12.1941, in Domarus, Hitler, II, 1794–811.
Boberach, Meldungen aus dem Reich. Auswahl aus den geheimen Lageberichten des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS, 15.12.1941, 184–5.
Boelcke, The Secret Conferences of Dr Goebbels, 16.12.1941, 194–5.
Boelcke, The Secret Conferences of Dr Goebbels, 14.2.1942, 211–12.
H Boog, ‘Strategischer Luftkrieg in Europa und Reichsluftverteidigung 1943–1944’, DRZW, Vol. 7: Das Deutsche Reich in der Defensive. Strategischer Luftkrieg in Europa, Krieg im Westen und in Ostasien 1943–1944/45 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2001), 3–15.
For example, Goebbels, ‘Schwarze Wolken über England’, 25.4.1942, in his Das Eherne Herz, 299–300.
Boelcke, The Secret Conferences of Dr Goebbels, 28.1.1943, 324–5.
Hitler, Speech of 8.11.1943 in Munich, in Domarus, Hitler, II, 1935–7.
Goebbels, ‘Nun, Volk steh auf, und Sturm brich los!’, in his Der steile Aufstieg, 167–204 [‘Total War’ speech (18.3.1943)].
Goebbels, ‘Das höhere Gesetz’ Das Reich, 24.9.1944.
Boelcke, The Secret Conferences of Dr Goebbels, 12.2.1943, 439–41.
J Goebbels, ‘Widerstand um jeden Preis’, Das Reich, 22.4.1945, 2.
A Hitler, Radio Address to the German Volk, 24.2.1945, in Domarus, Hitler, II, 2203–6.
J Goebbels, ‘Widerstand um jeden Preis’, Das Reich, 22.4.1945.
J Goebbels, ‘Unser Hitler’, VB, 20.4.1945, 1.
Copyright information
© 2005 Aristotle A. Kallis
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kallis, A.A. (2005). The Discourses of NS Propaganda: Long-Term Emplotment and Short-Term Justification. In: Nazi Propaganda and the Second World War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511101_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511101_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-54681-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-51110-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)