Nazi propaganda

Propaganda, the coordinated attempt to influence public opinion through the use of media, was skillfully used by the Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's leadership of Germany (1933–1945). Nazi propaganda provided a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of their policies, including the pursuit of total war and the extermination of millions of people in the Holocaust.

The pervasive use of propaganda by the Nazis is largely responsible for the word "propaganda" itself acquiring its present negative connotations.

In opposition (1919-33)
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler devoted two chapters of his 1925/26 work Mein Kampf, itself a propaganda tool, to the study and practice of propaganda. He claimed to have learnt the value of propaganda as a World War I infantryman exposed to very effective British and ineffectual German propaganda. The argument that Germany lost the war largely because of British propaganda efforts, expounded at length in Mein Kampf, reflected then-common German nationalist claims. Although untrue – German propaganda during World War I was mostly more advanced than that of the British – it became the official truth of Nazi Germany thanks to its reception by Hitler.

Mein Kampf contains the blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts. Assessing his audience, Hitler writes in chapter IV:

"Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses.

The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood."

As to the methods to be employed, he explains:

"'Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula.'"

Hitler put these ideas into practice with the reestablishment of the Völkischer Beobachter, a daily newspaper published by the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from February 1925 on, whose circulation reached 26,175 in 1929. It was joined in 1926 by Joseph Goebbels's Der Angriff, another unabashedly and crudely propagandistic paper.

During most of the Nazis' time in opposition, their means of propaganda remained limited. With little access to mass media, the party continued to rely heavily on Hitler and a few others speaking at public meetings until 1929. In April 1930, Hitler appointed Goebbels head of party propaganda. Goebbels, a former journalist and Nazi party officer in Berlin, soon proved his skills. Among his first successes was the organization of riotous demonstrations that succeeded in having the American anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front banned in Germany.

In power (1933-39)
Before World War II, Nazi propaganda strategy stressed several themes. Their goals were to create external enemies (countries that allegedly inflicted the Treaty of Versailles on Germany) and internal enemies (Jews). Hitler and Nazi propagandists played on the anti-Semitism and resentment present in Germany. The Jews were blamed for things such as robbing the German people of their hard work while themselves avoiding physical labour. Hitler blamed Jews for “two great wounds upon humanity: Circumcision of the Body and Conscience of the Soul.” Der Stürmer, a Nazi propaganda newspaper, told Germans that Jews kidnapped small children before Passover because “Jews need the blood of a Christian child, maybe, to mix in with their Matzah.” Posters, films, cartoons, and fliers were seen throughout Germany which attacked the Jewish community, such as the film The Eternal Jew.

Reaching out to ethnic Germans in other countries such as Czechoslovakia, France, Poland, the Soviet Union and the Baltic states was another aim of Nazi party propaganda. In Mein Kampf, Hitler makes a direct remark to those outside of Germany. He states that pain and misery is forced upon ethnic Germans outside of Germany, and that they dream of common fatherland. He finished by stating they needed to fight for one’s nationality. Throughout Mein Kampf, he pushed Germans worldwide to make the struggle for political power and independence their main focus.

Nazi propaganda efforts then focused on creating external enemies. Propagandists strengthened the negative attitude of Germany towards the Treaty of Versailles by territorial claims and ethnocentrism. When the Treaty was signed in 1919 non-propagandists newspapers headlines across the nation spoke German’s feelings, such as “UNACCEPTABLE” which appeared on the front page of the Frankfurter Zeitung in 1919. The Berliner Tageblatt, also in 1919, predicted “Should we accept the conditions, a military furore for revenge will sound in Germany within a few years, a militant nationalism will engulf all.” Hitler, knowing his nation's disgust with the Treaty, used it as leverage to influence his audience. He would repeatedly refer back to the terms of the Treaty as a direct attack on Germany and its people. In one speech delivered on January 30, 1937 he directly states that he is withdrawing the German signature from the document to protest the outrageous proportions of the terms. He claims the Treaty makes Germany out to be inferior and “less” of a country than others only because blame for the war is placed on it. The success of Nazi propagandists and Hitler won the Nazi party control of Germany and eventually led to World War II.

For months prior to the beginning of World War II in 1939, German newspapers and leaders had carried out a national and international propaganda campaign accusing Polish authorities of organizing or tolerating violent ethnic cleansing of ethnic Germans living in Poland. On 22 August, Adolf Hitler told his generals:

The main part of this propaganda campaign was the false flag project, Operation Himmler, which was designed to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which was subsequently used to justify the invasion of Poland.

At war (1939-45)
Until the conclusion of the Battle of Stalingrad on February 4, 1943, German propaganda emphasized the prowess of German arms and the humanity German soldiers had shown to the peoples of occupied territories. Pilots of the Allied bombing fleets were depicted as cowardly murderers, and Americans in particular as gangsters in the style of Al Capone. At the same time, German propaganda sought to alienate Americans and British from each other, and both these Western nations from the Soviets. One of the primary sources for propaganda was the Wehrmachtbericht, a daily radio broadcast that described the military situation on all fronts. Nazi victories let themselves easily to propaganda broadcasts and were at this point difficult to mishandle. Still, failures were not easily handled even at this stage; when the Ark Royal proved to have survived an attack that German propaganda had hyped, considerable embarrassment resulted.

After Stalingrad, the main theme changed to Germany as the sole defender of what they called "Western European culture" against the "Bolshevist hordes". The introduction of the V-1 and V-2 "vengeance weapons" was emphasized to convince Britons of the hopelessness of defeating Germany.

Problems in propaganda arose easily in this stage; expectations of success were raised too high and too quickly, which required explanation if they were not fulfilled, and blunted the effects of success, and the hushing of blunders and failures caused mistrust. The increasing hardship of the war for the German people also called forth more propaganda that the war had been forced on the German people by the refusal of foreign powers to accept their strength and independence. Goebbels called for propaganda to toughen up the German people and not make victory look easy.

On June 23, 1944, the Nazis permitted the Red Cross to visit concentration camp Theresienstadt to dispel rumors about the Final Solution, which was intended to kill every Jew. In reality, Theresienstadt was a transit camp for Jews en route to extermination camps, but in a sophisticated propaganda effort, fake shops and cafés were erected to imply that the Jews lived in relative comfort. The guests enjoyed the performance of a children's opera, Brundibar, written by inmate Hans Krása. The hoax was so successful for the Nazis that they went on to make a propaganda film (Theresienstadt) at Theresienstadt. Shooting of the film began on February 26, 1944. Directed by Kurt Gerron, it was meant to show how well the Jews lived under the "benevolent" protection of the Third Reich. After the shooting, most of the cast, and even the filmmaker himself, were deported to the concentration camp of Auschwitz where they were killed.

Goebbels committed suicide on May 1, 1945, shortly after Hitler had killed himself. Hans Fritzsche, who had been head of the Radio Chamber, was tried and acquitted by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal.

Newspapers
The Völkischer Beobachter ("People's Observer") was the official daily newspaper of the NSDAP since December 1920. It disseminated Nazi ideology in the form of brief hyperboles directed against the weakness of parliamentarism, the evils of Jewry and Bolshevism, the national humiliation of the Versailles Treaty and other such topics. It was joined in 1926 by Der Angriff ("The Attack"), a weekly and later daily paper founded by Joseph Goebbels. It was mainly dedicated to attacks against political opponents and Jews – one of its most striking features were vehemently anti-semitic cartoons by Hans Schweitzer – but also engaged in the glorification of Nazi heroes such as Horst Wessel. The Illustrierter Beobachter was their weekly illustrated paper.

Other Nazi publications included Das Reich, a more moderate and highbrow publication aimed at intellectuals and foreigners; Der Stürmer, the most virulently anti-semitic of all; and Das Schwarze Korps, an SS publication. After Hitler's rise to power in 1933, all of the regular press came under complete Nazi editorial control through the policy of Gleichschaltung, and short-lived propaganda newspapers were also established in the conquered territories during World War II.

Speakers
The Nazi party relied heavily on speakers to make its propaganda presentations, most heavily before they came to power, but also afterwards. Such speakers were particularly important when it was not wanted that the information put across not reach foreigners, who could access the mass media.

They would provide such speakers with information, such as how to spin the problems on the eastern front, or how to discuss the cuts in food rations. The party propaganda headquarters, sent the Redner-Schnellinformation [Speakers’ Express Information] out with guidelines for immediate campaigns, such as anti-Semitic campaigns and what information to present.

Specific groups were targetted with such speakers. Speakers, for instance, would lecture Hitler Youth and the BDM on the need to produce more children.

Posters
Poster art was a mainstay of the Nazi propaganda effort, aimed both at Germany itself and occupied territories.

Films
The Nazis produced many films to promote their views. Themes included the virtues of the Nordic or Aryan type, German military and industrial strength, and the evils of the Nazi enemies. On March 13, 1933, The Third Reich established a Ministry of Propaganda, appointing Joseph Goebbels as its Minister. On September 22, 1933, a Department of Film was incorporated into the Chamber of Culture. The department controlled the licensing of every film prior to its production. Sometimes, the government would select the actors for a film, financing the production partially or totally, and would grant tax breaks to the producers.

Under Goebbels and Hitler, the German film industry became entirely nationalised. The National Socialist Propaganda Directorate, which Goebbels oversaw, had at its disposal nearly all film agencies in Germany by 1936. Occasionally, certain directors such as Wolfgang Liebeneiner were able to bypass Goebbels by providing him with a different version of the film than would be released. Such films include those directed by Helmut Käutner: Romanze in Moll (Romance in a Minor Key, 1943), ''Große Freiheit Nr. 7 (The Great Freedom, No. 7, 1944), and Unter den Brücken (Under the Bridges'', 1945).

Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1934) by film-maker Leni Riefenstahl chronicles the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg. It features footage of uniformed party members (though relatively few German soldiers), who are marching and drilling to classical melodies. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including speeches by Adolf Hitler.

Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew or The Wandering Jew, 1940) was directed by Fritz Hippler at the insistence of Goebbels, though the writing is credited to Eberhard Taubert. The movie is done 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 hedonist lifestyle.

Books
The Nazis and sympathizers published many books. Most of the beliefs that would become associated with the Nazis, such as German nationalism, eugenics and anti-Semitism had been in circulation since the 19th century, and the Nazis seized on this body of existing work in their own publications.

The most notable is Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf detailing his beliefs. The book outlines major ideas that would later culminate in World War II. It is heavily influenced by Gustave Le Bon's 1895 The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, which theorized propaganda as a way to control the seemingly irrational behaviour of crowds. Particularly prominent is the violent anti-Semitism of Hitler and his associates, drawing, among other sources, on the fabricated "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". For example, Hitler claimed that the international language Esperanto was part of a Jewish plot and makes arguments toward the old German nationalist ideas of "Drang nach Osten" and the necessity to gain Lebensraum ("living space") eastwards (especially in Russia).

Other books such as Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Ethnology of German People) by Hans F. K. Günther and Rasse und Seele (Race and Soul) by Dr. Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss attempt to identify and classify the differences between the German, Nordic or Aryan type and other supposedly inferior peoples. These books were used as texts in German schools during the Nazi era.

The pre-existing and popular genre of Schollen-roman, or novel of the soil, also known as blood and soil novels, was given a boost by the acceptibility of its themes to the Nazis and developed a mysticism of unity.

Text books
"Geopolitical atlases" emphasized Nazi schemes, demonstrating the "encirclement" of Germany, depicting how the prolific Slav nations would cause the German people to be overrun, and (in contrast) showing the relative population density of Germany was much higher than that of the Eastern regions (where they would seek Lebensraum).

Math books discussed military applications and used military word problems, physics and chemistry concentrated on military applications, and grammar classes were devoted to propaganda sentences.

Even fairy tales were put to use, with Cinderella being presented as a tale of how the prince's racial instincts lead him to reject the stepmother's alien blood for the racially pure maiden. Nordic sagas were likewise presented as the illustration of Führerprinzip, which was developed with such heroes as Frederick the Great and Bismark.

Biology texts, however, were put the most use in presenting eugenic principles and racial theories; this included explanations of the Nuremberg Laws, which were claimed to allow the German and Jewish peoples to co-exist without the danger of mixing. Despite their many photographs glamorizing the "Nordic" type, the texts also claimed that visual inspection was insufficient, and genealogical analysis was required to determine their types, and report any hereditary problems.

Comics
The Nazi-controlled government in German-occupied France produced the Vica comic book series during World War II as a propaganda tool against the Allied forces. The Vica series, authored by Vincent Krassousky, represented Nazi influence and perspective in French society, and included such titles as Vica contre le service secret anglais, and Vica défie l’Oncle Sam.

Magazines
In and after 1939, the Zeitschriften-Dienst was sent to magazines to provide guidelines on what to write for appropriate topics.

Nazi publications also carried various forms of propaganda. Neues Volk carried racial propaganda. The Frauen Warte was aimed at women, including such topics as the role of women in the Nazi state. It defended anti-intellectualism, urged women to have children, even in wartime, put forth what the Nazis had done for women, discusses bridal schools, urged women to greater efforts in total war. Der Pimpf was aimed at boys and contained both adventure and propaganda. Das deutsche Mädel, in contrast, recommended for girls hiking, tending the wounded, and preparing for care for children.

Signal
Signal was a propaganda magazine published by the Wehrmacht during World War II. It was distributed throughout occupied Europe and neutral countries. "Signal" was published from April 1940 to March 1945, and had the highest sales of any magazine published in Europe during the period 1940 to 1945—circulation peaked at two and one half million in 1943. At various times, it was published in at least twenty languages. There was an English edition distributed in the British Channel Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark—these islands were occupied by the Wehrmacht during World War II.

The promoter of the magazine was the chief of the Wehrmacht propaganda office, Colonel Hasso von Wedel. Its annual budget was 10 million Reichmarks, roughly $2.5 million at the pre-war exchange rate.

The image that Signal hoped to create was that of Nazi Germany and its New Order as the great benefactor of European peoples and of Western civilization in general. Germany and its allies were depicted as the humane liberators of the occupied nations. Some articles displayed color photographs of dramatic battle scenes. The magazine contained little anti-Semitic propaganda, and the Jews were hardly mentioned.

Radio
The radio was an important tool in Nazi propaganda and it has been argued that it was the Nazis who pioneered the use of what was still a relatively new technology as a tool of genocide. Certainly the Nazis recognised the importance of radio in disseminating their message and to that end Goebbels approved a scheme whereby the production and distribution of millions of cheap radio sets was subsidised by the government. By the start of the Second World War over 70% of German households had one of these radios, which were deliberately limited in range in order to prevent them picking up foreign broadcasts. These so-called Volksempfänger featured little beyond propaganda and speeches. Radio broadcasts were also played over loudspeakers in public places and workplaces, where listeners were frequently observed by radio wardens.

As well as domestic broadcasts, the Nazi regime also used radio to deliver its message to both occupied territories and enemy states. One of the main targets was the United Kingdom to where William Joyce broadcast regularly, gaining the nickname 'Lord Haw-Haw' in the process. Joyce first appeared on German radio on 6 September 1939 reading the news in English but soon became noted for his often mischievous propaganda broadcasts. Joyce was executed in 1946 for treason. Although the most notorious, and most regularly heard, of the UK propagandists, Joyce was not the only broadcaster, with others such as Norman Baillie-Stewart, Jersey-born teacher Pearl Vardon, British Union of Fascists members Leonard Banning and Susan Hilton, Barry Payne Jones of the Link and Alexander Fraser Grant, whose show was aimed specifically at Scotland, also broadcasting through the 'New British Broadcasting Service'.

Broadcasts were also made to the United States, notably through Robert Henry Best and 'Axis Sally' Mildred Gillars. Best, a freelance journalist based in Vienna, was initially arrested following the German declaration of war on the US but before long he became a feature on propaganda radio, attacking the influence of the Jews in the US and the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He would later be sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. Gilders, a teacher in Germany, mostly broadcast on similar themes as well as peppering her speech with allegations of infidelity against the wives of servicemen. Her most notorious broadcast was the 'Vision of Invasion' radio play, broadcast immediately prior to D-Day, from the perspective of an American mother who dreamed that her soldier son died violently in Normandy.

France also received broadcasts from Radio-Stuttgart, where Paul Ferdonnet, an anti-Semitic journalist, was the main voice during the Phoney War. Following the occupation Radio Paris and Radio Vichy became the main organs of propaganda, with leading far right figures such as Jacques Doriot, Philippe Henriot and Jean Hérold-Paquis regularly speaking in support of the Nazis. Others who broadcast included Gerald Hewitt, a British citizen who lived most of his life in Paris and had been associated with Action Française. The use of domestic broadcasters intended to galvanise support for occupation was also used in Belgium, where Ward Hermans regularly spoke in support of the Nazis from his base in Bremen, and the Italian Social Republic, to where Giovanni Preziosi broadcast a vehemently anti-Semitic show from his base in Munich. Pro-Nazi broadcasts were even heard in North Africa, where Mohammad Amin al-Husayni helped to insure the spread of Nazi ideas in the Arabic language.

Death
Heroic death was often portrayed in Nazi propaganda as glorious. It was glorified in such films as Flüchtlinge, Hans Westmar, and Kolberg. Wunschkonzert, though chiefly about the homefront, features one character who dies playing the organ in a church in order to guide his comrades, though he knows the enemy forces will also find him.

Even the film Morgenrot, predating the Nazi seizure of power and containing such un-Nazi matters as a woman refusing to rejoice because of the sufferings on the other side, praised such deaths and found favor among Nazi officials for it.

Propaganda about the Volk depicted it as a greater entity to which the individual belonged, and one worth dying for.

Horst Wessel's posthumuous fame stemmed from his "martyr's death" and Goebbel's selection of him to glorify among the many Storm-Troppers who died. While the film Hans Westmar had to be fictionalized to omit details not palatable with the Nazis in power, it was among the first films to depict dying for Hitler as dying for Germany and glorious.

A 1944 Mother's Day Card presented a mystical view that, although there was no afterlife, the dead continued in the life that followed them.

The creation of the Volkssturm had propagandists make full use of themes of death, transcendence, and commemoration to encourage the fight.

Führerprinzip
Many propaganda films developed the importance of the Führerprinzip or leader principle. Flüchtlinge depicted Volga German refugees were saved from persecution by a leader who demands their unquestioning obedience. Der Herrscher altered its source material to depict its hero, Clausen, as the unwavering leader of his munitions firm, who, faced with his children's machinations, disowns them and bestows the firm on the state, confident that a worker will arise capable of continuing his work and, as a true leader, needing no instruction.

In the schools, adolscent boys were presented with Nordic sagas as the illustration of Führerprinzip, which was developed with such heroes as Frederick the Great and Bismark.

Volksgemeinschaft
The Volksgemeinschaft or people's community received a great deal of propaganda support, a principle that the Nazis continually reiterated. Indeed, the Nazi portrayed the events of 1933 as a Volkwerdung, or a people becoming itself. The Volk were not just a people; a mystical soul united them, and propaganda continually portrayed individuals as part of a great whole, worth dying for. This was portrayed as overcoming distinctions of party and social class.

An account, for instance, of a SA brawl depicted its leader as uncouth and therefore a simple, strong, and honest man of the people.

The Volksgemeinschaft was also depicted in films on the home-front during World War II, with the war uniting all levels of society, as in the two most popular films of the Nazi era, Die grosse Liebe and Wunschkonzert. The Request Concert radio show, on which the latter film was based, achieved great popularity by broadcasting music claimed to be requested by men in the armed forces.

Attacks on Great Britain as a plutocracy also emphasized how the German, being able to participiate in his Volk, is freer than the Briton.

Blood and soil
Closely related to the community was the notion of blood and soil, a mystical bond between the German people and Germanic lands. A true Volkish life was rural and agrarian, rather than urban, a theme predating the Nazis but heavily used by them. It was foundational to the concept of Lebensraum. Prior to their ascension to power, Nazis called for a movement back to the rural areas, from the cities (which conflicted with the rearmament and its need for urbanization). "Blood and soil" novels and theater celebrated the farmer's life and human fertility, often mystically linking them.

The charge laid against degenerate art was that it had been cut off from blood and soil. Landscape paintings were featured most heavily in the Greater German Art Exhibitions, to depict the German people's Lebensraum. Peasants were also popular images, promoting a simple life in harmony with nature.

Blud und Boden films likewise stressed the commonality of Germaness and the countryside. Die goldene Stadt has the heroine's running away to the city result in her pregnancy and abandonment; she drowns herself, and her last words beg her father to forgive her for not loving the countryside as he did.

The Rhineland Bastards, children of German mothers and black fathers from French occupying troops, received so much propaganda attention as diluting German blood prior to the Nazi seizure of power that a census finding only 145 seemed an embarrassment.

The annexation of Austria was presented as "enter[ing] German land as representatives of a general German will to unity, to establish brotherhood with the German people and soldiers there."

Anti-American propaganda dealt heavily with a lack of "ethnic unity" in the United States.

Heim ins Reich
Propaganda was also directed to Germans outside the Third Reich, to return as regions, or as individuals from other regions. Hitler hoped to make full use of the "German Diaspora." Folksy Heimatbriefe or "letters from the homeland" were sent to German immigrants to the United States. The reaction to these was on the whole negative, particularly as they picked up.

In the Baltic States, after an agreement with Stalin, who suspected they would be loyal to Nazis, the Nazis set out to encourage the departure of "ethnic Germans" by the use of propaganda. This included using scare tactics about the Soviet Union, and led to tens of thousands leaving. Those who left were not referred to as "refugees", but were rather described as "answering the call of the Fuhrer."

Ethnic chauvinism
A strong emphasis was laid on the superior traits of the German people. This could be in the same work as anti-Semitic propaganda but could also appear alone. Racial policy could, indeed, be laid out without reference to Jews, only with glorification of German blood and race. This was often connected to the blood and soil propaganda. Novels portrayed the Germans as uniquely endowed and possessors of a unique destiny.

The continuity of this race through children was given heavy emphasis. Textbooks discussed how the prolific Slav nations would cause the German people to be overrun. A pamphlet "You and Your People", given to children at fourteen, when they left school, urged on them their unity with the Volk, their ancestry, and the vital importance of their marrying within their own race and having many children. Similarly, "The Educational Principles of the New Germany", an article published in a magazine for women, discussed the importance of youth for the future, and how they must learn of the importance of their people and fatherland. Propaganda presented that great men were one of many siblings, or had many children. Kindersegen, blessed with children, was widely used while desiring no or few children was denounced as stemming from "an asphalt civilization. August 12th was set aside to honor mothers, particularly those with many children.

This, of course, applied only to those who selected proper partners as the parents of their children. In the movie Friesennot, depicting ethnic Germans persecuted in the Soviet Union, a half-Friesan woman is murdered for her association with a Russian man, as her German blood outweighs her Russian blood. Her murder is presented as in accordance with ancient Germanic custom for "race pollution." Even fairy tales were put to use for this purpose, with Cinderella being presented as a tale of how the prince's racial instincts lead him to reject the stepmother's alien blood for the racially pure maiden. This propaganda showed its effects in the marriage advertisements, which decreased money considerations for eugenic ones, with the advertisers representing themselves as and asking for "Nordic" or "Aryan".

The immensely popular "Red Indian" stories by Karl May were permitted despite the heroic treatment of the hero Winnetou and "colored" races; instead, the argument was made that the stories demonstrated the fall of the Red Indians was caused by a lack of racial consciousness, to encourage it in the Germans.

As the theory called only for parents of good blood, propaganda attempts were made to destigmatize illegitimate births, although the Lebensborn homes were presented as places for married women.

In wartime, the Frauen Warte urged women to nevertheless have children to maintain their race. Propaganda urging that SS members leave an "heir" behind, without regards to whether they were married to the mother, raised a furor, but despite backpeddling, produced a surge in illegitimate births. This, of course, still applied only to children of German parents; repeated efforts were made to propagate Volksturm, racial consciousness, to prevent sexual relations between Germans and foreign slave workers.

Eugenics
Although the child was "the most important treasure of the people", this did not apply to all children, even German ones, only those with no hereditary weaknesses.

Propaganda for the Nazi eugenics program began with propaganda for eugenic sterilization. Articles in Neues Volk described the pathetic appearance of the mentally ill and the importance of preventing such births. The film Das Erbe showed conflict in nature in order to legimitate the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring by sterilization.

Biology textbooks were among the most propagandistic in the Third Reich, owing to their content of eugenic principles and racial theories, including explanations of the Nuremberg Laws, which were claimed to allow the German and Jewish peoples to co-exist without the danger of mixing. Despite their many photographs glamorizing the "Nordic" type, the texts also claimed that visual inspection was insufficient, and genealogical analysis was required to determine their types, and report any hereditary problems; this resulted in children being used by racial agencies to obtain information about their families.

Pro-euthanasia
During the euthanasia program, the film Ich klage an was created to depict a woman being mercifully killed by her husband to escape her fatal illness, and his trial afterwards to stage pro-euthanasia arguments. It culminates in the husband's declaration that he is accusing them of cruelty for trying to prevent such deaths.

This situation presented the matter in the most favorable light, far from the solitary, involuntary deaths of those killed by the program under a very broad definition of "incurably ill."

Anti-Intellectualism
The movement was overtly anti-rationalist, favoring appeals to emotion and cultural myths. Both overt statements and propaganda in books favored sincere feeling over thought, because such feelings, stemming from nature, would be simple and direct. In Mein Kampf, Hitler complained off over-education and a lack of instinct and will and in many other passages made his anti-intellectual bent clear. Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls were overtly instructed to aim for character-building rather than education.

A 1937 essay aimed at propagandists "Heart or Reason? What We don't Want from Our Speakers", explicitly complained that speakers should aim for the heart, not the understanding, and many of them failed to try this. This included an unrelentingly optimistic view. Pure reason was attacked as a colorless thing, cut off from blood. Education Minister Rust ordered teachers training colleges to relocate from "too intellectual" university centers to the countryside, where they could be more readily indoctrinated and would also benefit from contact with the pure German peasantry.

An SS paper declared that IQ varied inversely with male infertility, and medical papers declared that the spread of educational pursuits had brought down the birth rate.

This frequently related to the blood and soil doctrines and an organic view of the German people. "Blood and soil" plays, for instance, depicted a woman rejecting her bookish fiance in order to marry an estate owner.

Anti-Communist
Propaganda depicted Communism as an enemy both within Germany and without.

Prior to their seizure of powers, conflicts with Communists, and attempts to win them over, featured frequently in Nazi propaganda. Newspaper articles presented Nazis as innocent victims of Communist assaults. An election flyer aimed at converting Communists. Articles advising Nazi propagandist discussed winning over the workers from the Marxists.

Films such as Hans Westmar and Hitler Youth Quex depicted the deaths of their heroes as martyrs killed by Communism; in both films, the movement appears as an overall threat, with some ruthless villains as leaders, but with some misguided Communists who could be inspired by the heroes -- as, indeed, potential Nazis. Literature, too, depicted heroic German workers who were taken in by international Marxism, but whose Aryan nature revolted on learning more of it.

Before the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in film, Russian Communists were depicted as ruthless murderers. In Flüchtlinge, only a heroic German leader saves Volga Germans from Bolshevik persecution on the Sino-Russian border in Manchuria. Friesennot depicts a village of Volga Germans being ruthlessly persecuted in the Soviet Union.

The first declaration of the Pact presented it as a genuine change, but this was unpalatable to the Nazi faithful and the line was soon watered down even before its violation. News reports were to be neutral on the Russian army and carefully expurgated of "typical Bolshevist phrases." Still, anti-Communist films were withdrawn.

After the invasion of the Soviet Union, propaganda resumed, quickly linking the attack with British forces, which simplified the task of attacking both Communism and "plutocracy" at once. A weekly propaganda poster declared that the soldiers would liberate Europe from Bolshevism. Anti-Communist films were re-issued, and new films such as GPU were issued.

In 1942, a "Soviet Paradise" exhibit was opened to depict the Soviet Union as having been found a place of filth and poverty.

Also in 1942, the Nazi government believed Churchill's fall was possible, which Goebbels chose to spin as England surrendering Europe to Bolshevism. This received continuing plan and was a major element in the Sportpalast speech.

Preparations were made, in anticipiation of victory in Russia, to present this as the triumph over Communism.

In 1943, the defeat at Stalingard led to a serious Anti-Bolshevist campaign in view of the possibility of defeat. The Katyn massacre was exploited in 1943 to drive a wedge between Poland, Western Allies, and the Soviet Union, and reinforce the Nazi propaganda line about the horrors of Bolshevism and American and British subservience to it. Pamphlets were released to whip up fear of Communism.

Anti-Semitic
Anti-Semitic propaganda was often put forth by Nazis, although occasionally decreased for tactical reasons. It drew the anti-Semitic elements of the Stab-in-the-back legend to explain the defeat in World War I and to justify their views as self-defense. Even before they ascended to power, Nazi essays and slogans would call for boycotts of Jews. Even the anti-capitalist propaganda, touching on "interest slavery", would use anti-Semitic elements from the association of Jews with money-lenders.

Early in the Nazi power, the Aryan Paragraph was officially justified with overt anti-Semitism, depicting Jews as have undue representation in the professions. Anti-Jewish measures were presented as defensive. Nazi speakers were instructed to say that Jews were being treated gently. Stock answers to counter-arguments were provided for them. Jews were attacked as the embodiement of capitalism.

In 1941, when Jews were forced to wear the Star of David, Nazi pamphlets instructed people to remember anti-Semitic arguments at the sight of it, particularly Kaufman's Germany Must Perish!. This book was also heavily relied on for the pamphlet "The War Goal of World Plutocracy."

The Holocaust was not a topic even for discussion in ministerial meetings; the one time the question was raised it was dismissed as being of no use in propaganda. Aggressive anti-Semitic propaganda was therefore implemented, including films. The alleged documentary The Eternal Jew purported to show the wretched lives and destruction wrought by Jews, who were lower than vermain, and the historical drama Jud Süß depicted a Jew as gaining power over the Duke by lending him money and using the power to oppress his subjects and enable himself to rape a pure German woman, by having her husband arrested and tortured. Wartime posters frequently described the Jews as responsible for the war, and being behind the Allies. Fervently anti-Semitic pamphlets were published, including alleged citations from Jewish writing, which were generally poor translations, out of context, or invented.

The difficulty of simultaneously maintaining anti-Communist propaganda, and propaganda against Great Britain as a plutocracy also led to increased emphasis on anti-Semitism, describing Jews as being behind both.

Instructions for propaganda speakers in 1943 directed them to claim that anti-Semitism was rising throughout the world, quoting an alleged British sailor as wishing Hitler would kill five million Jews, one of the clearest reference to extermination in Nazi propaganda.

This element could also appear in other propaganda in which it was not the centerpiece. The villains of Hans Westmar were not only Communists but Jews as well.

In Der Stürmer
Der Stürmer always made anti-Semitic material a mainstay, throughout its run before and during Nazi power. Even after Streicher was under house arrest for gross misuse of office, Hitler provided him with resources to continue his propaganda. Salacious accounts of sexual offenses featured in nearly every issue. The Reichstag fire was attributed to a Jewish conspiracy. It supported an early plan to transport all Jews to Madagascar, but later, taking Theodore N. Kaufman with the importance that the Nazis generally attributed to him, urged that Jews intended to exterminate Germany, and urged that only with the destruction of Jews would Germany be safe.

Anti-Polish
For many years, it was forbidden to discuss the German minority in Poland, and this continued through 1939, even while newspapers were asked to press the matter of Danzig, but in 1939, just before the invasion of Poland, a major anti-Polish compaign was launched, asserting such claims as forced labor of ethnic Germans, persecution of them, Polish disorder, Poles provoking border incidents, and aggressive intentions from its government. Newspapers wrote copiously on the issue. In such films as Heimkehr, depicted Polish ethnic Germans as deeply persecuted—often with recognizable Nazi tactics -- and the invasion as necessary to protect them.

Goebbels produced photographs and other evidence for allegations that ethnic Germans had been massacred by Poles. Bloody Sunday was presented in the manner most favorable to Nazi propaganda.

Britain: For and Against
Initially, the aim of Nazi foreign policy was to create an Anglo-German alliance, so before 1938, the Nazi propaganda tended to glorify British institutions, and above all, the British Empire. Typical of the Nazi admiration for the British Empire were an lengthy series of articles in various German newspapers throughout the mid-1930s praising various aspects of British imperial history, with the clear implication that there were positive parallels to be drawn between British empire-building in the past and German empire-building in the future. The esteem, which the British Empire was held, can be gauged by the fact that the lavish adoration heaped upon Britain's empire was not matched by similar coverage of other empires both past and present. An example of this sort of coverage was a long article in the Berliner Illustriete Zeitung newspaper in 1936 extolling the British for "brutally" resolving the Fashoda crisis of 1898 in their favor with no regard for diplomatic niceties. Another example of Nazi anglophilia included a series of widely promoted biographies and historical novels commemorating various prominent "Aryan" figures from British history such as Cromwell, Marlborough, Nelson, Rhodes, Wellington, and Raleigh. A particular theme of praise was offered for British “ruthlessness” in building and defending their empire, which was held as an model for the Germans to follow. Above all, the British were admired as an “Aryan” people who had with typical “ruthlessness” subjected millions of brown- and black skinned people to their rule, and British rule in India was held up as a model for how the Germans would rule Russia, through as the historian Gerwin Strobl pointed out that this parallel between German rule in Russia and British rule in India was only made possible by the Nazis’ ignorance of how the British actually ruled India. Perhaps more importantly for gauging the Nazi regime's pro-British feelings in its early years was the prominence given to Englandkunde (British studies) within German schools and the lavish praise offered to British youth organizations as an model within the Hitler Youth. Up to November 1938, the English were depicted as an Aryan people, but afterward, they were denounced as "the Jew among the Aryan peoples" and as plutocrats, fighting for money. This was sometimes modified with the suggestion that it was the ruling class alone that was the problem. Goebbels denounced it as having a few hundred families rule the world without any moral justification, a phrase which had been taken directly from the French Popular Front despite Nazi opposition to Communism.

The change of emphasis was due to Hitler's changed view of Britain from a potential ally to an enemy that would have be destroyed. This emphasis increased as British resistance went on. Such films as Der Fuchs von Glenarvon and My life for Ireland did not show quite the crude stereotypes as later films such as Ohm Krüger and Carl Peters.

One of the major themes of the anti-British propaganda campaign launched in late 1938 were alleged British human rights abuses in India and above all in dealing with the Arab uprising in the Palestine Mandate which were used to illustrate the "hypocrisy" of British criticism of Germany's treatment of its Jewish minority. In such films as Der Fuchs von Glenarvon and My life for Ireland, they are depicted as brutal oppressors of the Irish. (My Life for Ireland, indeed, inspired fears among Germans of inciting Poles to rebellion. ) Ohm Krüger depicted them as oppressing the Boers. This film depicted the British as seeking gold, symbolic of barreness and evil, in contrast to the Boers who raised crops and animals, reinforced by showing the British as prurient, and having the hero's son be brought to obey Kruger only after his wife has been raped.

Another major theme was the difference between British "plutocracy" and National Socialist Germany. German newspapers and newsreels often pictured photos and footage of British unemployed and slums together with unfavorable commentary about the differences in living standards of the working class of National Socialist Germany vs that of the working class living under British "plutocracy". Germany was represented as an ideal collectivist Volksgemeinschaft (People’s Community) which put the economic “common interest before the individual interest”, which was contrasted with the supposed savage Manchesterchtum (the German term for laissez faire capitalism) and individualist society of Britain where it was alleged that the rich had it all while the poor were left to stave. So successful were the anti-capitalist attacks on Britain that reports to Social Democratic émigré Sopade from within Germany reported that the Nazis had made major gains with those German workers who had voted SPD and KPD during the Weimar Republic. In German propaganda, the British declaration of war on Germany in 1939 was represented as an act by the British “plutocracy” to put an end to German National Socialism, which maintained a generous modern welfare state that cared for the most poorest Germans least British workers living under Manchesterchtum started to demand the same sort of welfare state for themselves.

The Beveridge Report was attacked as a fraud, being worse than what the Germans had achieved even in the nineteenth century and never to be permitted in plutocratic England. The way the plan was to be put off until war was derided, though Goebbels tried to suppress it because Nazi Germany was also deferring social reform until after the war.

A third major theme of anti-British propaganda was the “irrational” anti-German prejudices said to be held by the British establishment and the claim that Britain was an “old" declining country ruled over by a gerontocracy of extremely elderly men full of envy and hatred of the dynamism of “young" rising countries like Germany. As part of the “young” nation message, major emphasis was given to the youth and the large families of the Nazi leaders, which was contrasted unfavourably with the age and small families of the British leaders, with the not so subtle implication that Germans were much more sexually virile than the British.

Finally, attacks were made attacks were made on Britain for the "hypocrisy" for maintaining world-wide empire while seeking to block the Germans from acquiring an empire of their own. The film Carl Peters, for instance, depicted the title character as being driven from German colonies by British administrators and the weak character of the (pre-Nazi) German government, unwilling to do what was needed to keep and hold an empire. In keeping with the attacks on the British empire, the Treaty of Versailles was depicted as a monstrously unjust peace treaty designed by the British to cripple Germany and allow British hegemony in Europe. In keeping with this theme, German propaganda stressed that Britain had to maintain her hegemony over the centuries had manipulated the other European states into war, and Germany, the “guardian of Europe” was now standing up for all the nations of Europe in putting an end to British “causing trouble on the continent".

Total war
Early success led many in Germany to believe that the war could be won with ease. Setbacks caused Goebbels to call for propaganda to toughen up the German people and not make victory look easy. This process culminated in his Sportpalast speech, calling for total war. Attempts were also made to stir the civilian population into taking jobs in war production. An article appearing for Hitler's birthday urged women to greater efforts as birthday present.

The film Kolberg depicted title town in stubborn resistance to the French forces of the Napoleonic wars in order to stir resistance in the German people. Goebbels explicitly ordered the use of the historical events for a film, which he regarded as highly suitable for the circumstances Germany faced. The film itself can be taken as evidence that hope was lost for the German cause. It glorified resistance to the death.

By the end of the war, propaganda took the only possible tack: declaring death better than defeat. Theodore Kaufman's 1941 book Germany Must Perish was treated as significant depiction of American thought. Propagandists depicted the Volkssturm as an outburst of enthusiasm and will to resist.

Historiography
Nazi propaganda is a relatively recent topic of close study. Historians of all persuasions, including Eastern Bloc writers, agree about its remarkable effectiveness. Their assessment of its significance, however – whether it shaped or merely directed and exploited public opinion – is influenced by their approach to wider questions raised by the study of Nazi Germany, such as the question whether the Nazi state was a fully totalitarian dictatorship, as argued by Hannah Arendt, or whether it also depended on a certain societal consensus.

In addition to media archives, an important primary source for the study of the Nazi propaganda effort are the reports on civilian morale and public opinion that the Sicherheitsdienst and later the RMVP compiled from 1939 on. Another are the Deutschland-Berichte, reports gathered by underground agents of the Sopade that particularly dealt with German popular opinion.