Propaganda then and now

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Wed, 23 Feb 2005 07:06:05 -0000

Propaganda then and now

 

 

History does repeat!! Things seem eerily similar to those over 70

years ago...

 

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Hitler's Showmen Weave a Magic Spell

New York Times, December 3, 1933

 

No German walks, talks or sleeps without having ben influenced in

some manner by the eloquent little doctor. With a loose orotundity

in speaking and writing disturbed occasionally by invective, the 36

year old fanatic has transposed the German language into a mystic

music which sounds harmonious, and almost religious, to the citizens

of the Third Reich.

 

He has given Germany a new style. Among the Nazi leaders, not

excluding Herr Hitler, he is unquestionably the most intelligent and

resourceful. Although Dr. Goebbels never saw the front or wore a

uniform during the war, no man is so stentorian and successful as he

in convincing German audiences of the desirability of the military

ideal and the virtues of the heroic life.

 

Dr. Goebbels knows the German soul. And he has fed that sould the

food it best digests until the portions have become brobdignagian.

Each successive demonstration is more gigantic than the previous

one. If at present Chancellor Hitler is the Pied Piper leading the

German people away from the bad nations of the earth, Dr. Goebbels

is the stage manager of the show.

 

The basic element of the Socialist propaganda are most clearly

described by Hitler himself in " Mein Kampf " (My Battle). This

autobiography is a testimony to the German Chancellor's

understanding of mob psychology. According to the the doctrice of

the Leader, propaganda is made not for the so-called intelligentsia

but for the mass of people.

 

Scientific instruction alone meets the needs of the former class.

For the majority of people, however, " all propaganda must be popular

and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the receptive

capacity of the most mentally limited person in the group at which

the propaganda is directed. "

 

Hitler's appeal to the German people, then has been based upon these

considerations and certain conclusions which he has drawn from

them. " The receptive capacity of the great mass is only very

limited, its understanding small and its forgetfulness great. "

Consequently, according to the German Chancellor, successful wooing

of the masses consists of concentrating exclusively on a few

primitive points of appeal, by means of catch-words and similar

artifices and the reiteration of these points until the most

ignorant is convinced that the fulfillment of this wants is only

possible through their practical application.

 

In this connection all propaganda must be absolutely one-sided.

Since the thinking of the mass of people is primitive, propaganda

must be simple, emphatic and uncompromising. There must be no

middle ground between the " positive and the negative, love and hate,

justice and injustice, truth and falsehood. "

 

But Hilter and Goebbles have dug deeper into the secrets of

successful propaganda. They know that a great actor may seem

ludicrous on a bare stage. Consequently, they have mastered the

subject of properties, and in arranging their festivals they realize

that the crash of a drum at the proper time and tinsel on the wall

in the appropriate lace may be more effective than pamphlets, books

and speeches.

 

In Berlin, the audience at a Hitler mass meeting begins to arrive

early in the evening and sometimes in the afternoon. The walls of

the huge ball are decorated with banners shrieking familiar

catchwords. On the stage the band is playing Nazi marches and

patriotic songs.

 

Today few Germans can separate the chaff from the wheat. They are

living in a Nazi dream and not in the reality of the world.

 

Yet it is possible that more Germans are happier today than at any

time since the war.

 

From pulpit, public platform and movie screen the Nazis have hurled

invective against Socialists, Communists, Jews, pacifists and the

Treaty of Versailles. The masses have been won with these phrases

and today Social Democrats, Communists, Jews, and pacifists have

been suppressed, terrorized and cast out of the Third Reich.

 

…

 

And the crowds will go home elated and firm in the conviction that

the Third Reich is the consummation of a divine development. For

Hitler has written in his autobiography that through " smart and

continuous application of propaganda a people can be made to believe

that Heaven is Hell and vice versa, that the most miserable

existence is a paradise. "