Propaganda attempts to force a doctrine on the whole people...

Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea

and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea." Adolf Hitler wrote
these words in his book Mein Kampf (1926), in which he first advocated
the use of propaganda to spread the ideals of National Socialism-among them racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Bolshevism.
"The function of propaganda is to attract supporters, the function of organization to win
members... Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and
makes them ripe for the victory of this idea...." - Adolf Hitler, 1924
At the core of the Holocaust we find modern anti-Semitism, the current version of Jew
Hatred - that same phenomenon which appeared throughout the centuries, perhaps
finding its most blatant manifestation with the medieval Church. The modern German
anti-Semitism was based on racial ideology which stated that the Jews were subhuman (untermensch)while the Aryan race was ultimately superior. The Jew was
systematically portrayed as a low-life, as untouchable rot (faulniserscheinung),and as the
main cause of Germany's difficulties.
Germany had major problems resulting from World War I. Although no warfare had
occurred on German soil, the Emperor had fled, and the Weimar Republic was only
established after years of severe political instability, with localised Bolshevist
experiments and street terror in the cities. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 brought the
relinquishment of land on almost all fronts, especially to France (Alsace-Lorraine, Saar)
and Poland (Danzig corridor); the reduction of the German army to a home militia; and
reparation payments beyond the prevalent economic capabilities. The rocketing inflation
of 1922 and 1923 caused further economic instability, which became even worse with the
advent of the Great Depression of 1929. By 1932, unemployment in Germany peaked,
and it was in this economic and political climate that Adolf Hitler established the
Nationalist-Socialist Party (with "Mein Kampf" as its manifesto). With Hitler's rise to
power in 1933 the national policy of organized persecution of the Jews began."
The Nazi ideal of a community of the people tapped into German traditions that lauded
social harmony over conflict and in addition valued hard work, clean
living, and law and order. For the Nazis, this idealized community
could never see the light of day unless it was based on racial purity. To
this end, the new regime set out to mobilize the nation around certain
missions, including the elimination of recognizable social types (and
stereotypes) who disturbed the peace or who did not conform to well-established German
values, but also those who did not fit into the white Aryan race.
The Nazi version of the struggle between us and them, between the community of
the people and the enemies of the community, was not just hostile, but vehement and
full of language that dripped with war and images drawn from the Darwinian struggle for
survival. In the kind of total-war rhetoric the Nazis used, it followed that mercy and

compassion toward all enemies was portrayed as a vice, while intolerance and fanaticism
were transformed into virtues.
Once social enemies were targeted, the police, the judges, and any number of civil
servants were quick to take the initiative and swing into action, even trying to outdo one
another in their fealty to the cause of making the new order. The authorities in state and
society below, in the cultural realm, medicine, welfare, the penal system, and so on,
showed they were pleased that Hitler allowed them the flexibility and freedom to
implement measures that many of them had only dared to contemplate in earlier years.
No single target of Nazi propaganda took higher priority than Germany's young. By
1937, 97% of all teachers belonged to the National Socialist Teachers' Union. Every
member of this union had to submit an ancestry table in triplicate with
official documentary proof. Courses and textbooks in Nazi schools reflected the aims of
Hitler. Of the topics that teachers were required to treat, the most important was racial
theory and, by extension, the Jewish problem. In `The National Socialist Essence of
Education, a German educator wrote that mathematics was "Aryan spiritual property;
an expression of the Nordic fighting spirit, of the Nordic struggle for the supremacy of the
world.
One example of this propaganda is the publication known as Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous
Mushroom) which appeared in Germany in 1938 and leaves little question regarding the
intended Nazi solution to the "Jewish problem." The book begins innocently enough by
describing afavourite German pastime, picking wild mushrooms in the woods. A young
boy, Franz, accompanies his mother on a walk in a beautiful, wooded area and helps her
gather mushrooms. After carefully describing and showing Franz several varieties of both
edible and poisonous mushrooms, his mother compares the good mushrooms to good
people and the harmful mushrooms to bad people. The most dangerous people are, of
course, the Jews.
Franz proudly announces that he has learned in school that the Jews are bad people. His
mother continues her comparison of Jews to mushrooms by emphasizing that, just as
poisonous mushrooms are difficult to distinguish from edible ones, it is difficult to
differentiate Jews from Non-Jews because Jews can assume many forms. Franz's mother
repeatedly alludes to the terrible destructive force of the Jews. One Jew can destroy an
entire people because the Jew is the Devil in human form. The Jew poses a deadly threat
not only to the survival of the German people but to the survival of the world! It is
Germany's obligation to warn the rest of the world about this terrible toadstool and
thereby save humanity from destruction. Thus begins one of the most insidious
storybooks ever composed for children.
A further aspect of the insidious nature of Nazi propaganda was the work of
director Leni Riefenstahl, in particular the documentary films Triumph des
Willens (Triumph of the Will), a record of the Reich Party Congress of
1934, and the two-part chronicle of the Berlin Olympic Games of 1936, Fest der

Vlker and Fest der Schnheit, usually referred to as Olympia Part I and II.
Although undoubtedly technically brilliant, indeed revolutionary in many respects, they
unquestionably propagated Nazi ideals. Riefenstahl always claimed that she was merely a
film-maker, a recorder of events, but there is no doubting the message that these films
carried.
The Eternal Jew is a 1940 anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda film. Its title in German is `Der
ewige Jude, which is ambiguous and could be translated as The Wandering Jew". It was
directed by Fritz Hippler at the insistence of German Minister of Propaganda Joseph
Goebbels, though the writing is credited to Eberhard Taubert. The film consists of feature
and documentary footage combined with new materials filmed shortly after the Nazi
occupation of Poland, which then had a Jewish population of about 3.3 million (roughly
10 percent of the total population)
The film was made in the style of a documentary, the central thesis being the immutable
racial personality traits that characterize the Jew as a wandering cultural
parasite. Throughout the film, these traits are contrasted to the Nazi
state ideal: While Aryan men find satisfaction in physical labour and
the creation of value, Jews only find pleasure in money and
a hedonistic lifestyle. While members of the Aryan race have a need
for aesthetic living, rich Jews live in bug-infested and dirty homes, even
though they could afford better. While western man has an
appreciation of northern culture and imagery, Jews only find satisfaction
in the grotesque and decadent. Many things that run contrary to Nazi
doctrine are associated with Jewish influence, such as modern art, culturalrelativism,
anarchic and socialist movements, as well as sexual liberation.
Jud S was one of a trio of anti-Semitic films released early in the war. It received the
full support of the entire propaganda system. Here, for example, is a full
pageadvertisement for the film taken from the Nazi Luftwaffe magazine.
The advertisementclaims that 8,000,000 people had seen the film, which was released in
late September 1940.
Julius Streicher & Der Strmer. The course of Streicher's incitement and propaganda
may be traced more or less in chronological order by referring to short extracts from"Der
Strmer." The extracts which follow were selected at random. They were chosenwith a
view to showing the various methods that Streicher employed to incite the German
people against the Jewish race, but his newspapers are crowded with them, week after
week, day after day. It is impossible to pick up any copy without finding the same kind of
invective and incitement in the headlines and in the articles.
In a speech which Streicher made in 1922 in Nrnberg, after abusing the Jews
in his first sentences, he is reported as going on to say:
We know that Germany will be free when the Jew has been
excluded from the life of the German people."

Julius Streicher

In another speech in 1924 he stated: "I beg you and particularly those of you who carry
the cross throughout the land to become somewhat more serious when I speak of the
enemy of the German people, namely, the Jew. Not out of irresponsibility or for fun do I
fight against the Jewish enemy, but because I bear within me the knowledge that the
whole misfortune was brought to Germany by the Jews alone.
I ask you once more, what is at stake today? The Jew seeks domination not only among
the German people but among all peoples. The communists pave the way for him. Do you
not know that the God of the Old Testament orders the Jews to consume and enslave the
peoples of the earth?
"The government allows the Jew to do as he pleases. The people expect action to be
taken. You may think about Adolf Hitler as you please, but one thing you must admit. He
possessed the courage to attempt to free the German people from the Jew by a national
revolution. That was action indeed."
In a further speech in April 1925, Streicher declared: "You must realize that the Jew
wants our people to perish. That is why you must join us and leave those who have
brought you nothing but war, inflation, and discord. For thousands of years the Jew has
been destroying the nations. Let us make a new beginning today so that we can annihilate
the Jews."
This appears to be the earliest expression of one of the conspirators' primary objectives -the annihilation of the Jewish race. Fourteen years later it became the official policy of
the Nazi Government.