Title: Making of the Modern World
1Making of the Modern World
Lecture Fascism and Modern Propaganda
2Propaganda
- a specific type of message presentation, aimed at
serving an agenda. - Even if the message conveys true information, it
may be partisan and fail to paint a complete
picture. - Appeal to the emotions.
- Mobilizing and influencing perceptions, behaviour
and actions.
3Propaganda is absolutely necessary, even if it
is only a means to an end. Otherwise, the idea
could never take over the state. I must be able
to get what I think important across to many
people. The task of a gifted propagandist is to
take that which many have thought and put it in a
way that reaches everyone from the educated to
the common man. Joseph Goebbels, Knowledge and
Propaganda (1928)
4We do not want to be a movement of a few straw
brains, but rather a movement that can conquer
the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular,
not intellectually pleasing. I do not enter the
meeting hall to discover intellectual truths, but
to persuade others of what I think to be right. I
learn methods there that I can use to reach
others with what I have found to be right.
Joseph Goebbels, Knowledge and Propaganda (1928)
The task of propaganda is not to discover a
theory or to develop a programme, but rather to
translate that theory and programme into the
language of the people, to make them
comprehensible to the broad masses of the people.
Joseph Goebbels, Will and Way (1931)
5Fascist propaganda before 1933
6Hypodermic model small doses have incremental
drip-drip effect The receptivity of the great
masses is very limited, their intelligence is
small, and their power of forgetting is enormous.
In consequence all effective propaganda must be
limited to a very few points and must harp on
these in slogans until the last member of the
public understands what you want him to
understand by your slogan.' Hitler (Mein Kampf,
1925)
7Nazi propaganda poster (1931-1932)
8Propagandas limitations
- Least effective among those with
counter-experience (older generation) or
counter-ideology (Marxists or Christians) - Most effective when receivers defences are down
(passive media, e.g. film TV) versus active
media (newspapers, books)
9Propaganda and the State
10Key themes of NS-Propaganda
- Anti-Semitism
- Militarism
- Nationalism
- Supremacy of the Aryan race
- Economic recovery and welfare measures
- Cult of the Führer
- Traditional German Volks culture
- The Mass Spectacle
11Anti-Semitic propaganda
Key themes of German propaganda
Where something is rotten, the Jew is the
cause. Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer (1931)
Propaganda can reinforce existing prejudices
12The headline reads (1934) Jewish Murder Plan
against Gentile Humanity Revealed.
13Key themes of German propaganda Economic recovery
and welfare measures
No one shall go hungry! No one shall be cold!"
14Key themes of German propaganda The Cult of the
leader
1935 portrait by Heinrich Knirr.
15 Radio (home front)
- Cheap, mass produced medium wave radio
- Goebbels described radio as the spiritual weapon
of the totalitarian state - All news broadcasts came through the Nazi Office
of Propaganda - By 1939 Germany largest radio audience in world
- Group-listening to Fuehrer speeches
- Gendered scheduling for predominantly female
listeners - High proportion of musical entertainment
All Germany hears the Fuehrer with the Peoples
Receiver
16If one wants the spoken and heard word of the
radio to realise a common will, it cannot be done
only through transmitters and receivers instead,
a real human connection between sender and
receiver must be established. The radio warden
is the living bridge between the two, and in a
larger sense, also the grouping of radio
listeners that occurs in radio listener
organizations. On the one hand, radio is in a
certain sense the ideal propaganda instrument
because it brings the human voice to every ear.
On the other hand, it is totally ineffective if
these technical qualities are not supplemented by
human organisational means. One of the most
important ways of doing this is to bring many
radio listeners together for community listening,
which National Socialism has developed to a major
degree... Eugen Hadamovsky, "Die lebende
Brücke Vom Wesen der Funkwartarbeit," in Dein
Rundfunk (Munich Zentralverlag der NSDAP, 1934),
pp. 22-26.
17Radio, the double-edged sword
- Germany Calling throughout WW2, infamously by
William Joyce, aka Lord Haw-Haw - BBC overseas service counter-broadcast by end of
war perhaps half of all Germans listened in to
Allied broadcasting for real news - Cf. German triumphalism early in war (then
Wagnerian self-sacrifice towards end), with
British limited self-criticism - Attraction of dance music jazz for younger
generation NS forced to sanction sanitised jazz,
despite official condemnation as degenerate
music
18Cinema Film
19Historians interpretations
- Siegfried Kracauer, 1943 German audiences
brainwashed by propaganda - David S. Hull, 1969 cinema a free space
relatively devoid of overt propaganda (Hollywood
rivalry, commercial pressures) - David Welch, 1983 analyses more obviously
political films of Third Reich (self-sacrifice,
anti-Semitism) - Linda Schulte-Sasse, 1996 psychoanalytic model
cinema creates illusion of wholeness,
reconciling individual desire as part of mass
will - Eric Rentschler, Ministry of Illusion, 1996
highlights entertainment films of Third Reich - Erica Carter, Dietrichs Ghosts, 2005 star
system cultivates an anti-modernist aesthetic of
sublime beauty Zarah Leander is not the same
sort of star as Marlene Dietrich
20Dietrich vs. Leander
21Propaganda as entertainment?
- Disagreed with Hitler on propaganda strategy
- Need to sugarcoat bitter pill of propaganda
with entertainment - It may be a good thing to possess power that
rests on arms. But it is better and more
gratifying to win and hold the heart of the
people. (1934) - Our historic mission is to transform the very
spirit itself to the extent that people and
things are brought into a new relationship with
one another.
Joseph Goebbels, 1897-1945, Nazi Minister of
Propaganda
22Youth Dynamism
- Biopic based on life of Herbert Norkus, martyr
to communists - Emphasis on flags uniforms
- Official viewing for youth groups
Hitler Youth Quex (Steinhoff, 1933)
23Wartime sacrifice
- Cameraderie self-sacrifice of air squadron
- Heavy use of singing
- The ultimate purpose of all National Socialist
films is to show the test of an individual within
the community for the individuals fate only
has meaning when it can be placed at the service
of the community, whereupon it becomes part of a
people and nation. Goebbels
Stukas (Ritter, 1941)
24Anti-Semitism
- Historical biopic of 1738 hanging of Jewish
manipulative financier after raping Aryan woman - Echoes Nuremberg race laws of 1935
- Highlights perceived danger of assimilated Jews
Jew Suess (Harlan, 1940)
25Wunschkonzert (1940)
- Centres on radio request show, uniting four
corners of Reich - Goebbels personally worked on script
26Marika Rökk, 1913-2004
- Hungarian-born, athletic dancer
- Cf. Ginger Rogers Eleanor Powell in Busby
Berkeley dance musicals - Escapism of highly ornate, Agfacolor films such
as The Woman of My Dreams (1944)
The Woman of My Dreams (Jacoby, 1944)
27The Fascist Historical Film
- Identification of current regime and leaders with
illustrious predecessors (Roman Empire Frederick
the Great) - Biopics favoured great men
- Scipio the African (Gallone, 1937) When you see
the battlefield at Zama and a soldier says,
Troops, we have conquered Cannae! I thought
about our Duce who said, Lets conquer Adua!
And a few months later he said, Weve conquered
Adua! (youth interviewed in Bianco e nero
magazine)
28Leni Riefenstahl, 1902-2003
- Star of pre-Nazi mountaineering epics
- Asked by Hitler to film 1934 Nuremberg rally
(Triumph of the Will, 1935) - Use of elaborate staging, moving cameras, night
shots - Long footage of marching past political
speeches put off audiences - Always denied political content of her
documentaries
29Triumph of the Will (Riefenstahl, 1935)
Opening sequence September 4, 1934. 20 years
after the outbreak of World War I, 16 years after
German woe and sorrow began, 19 months after the
beginning of Germanys rebirth, Adolf Hitler flew
again to Nuremberg to review the columns of his
faithful admirers.
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34- Juxtaposition of leader and masses
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36How successful was Nazi propaganda?
- Difficult to find out
- How the people responded
- The impact of social, political, economic and
religious context for attitudes - The effect of Nazi repression on attitudes and
behaviour in comparison with propaganda - So different opinions in historiography
37 How successful was Nazi propaganda?
- Mason (Nazism, Fascism, and the Working Class
1995), sceptical of effect of Nazi propaganda on
all social groups (working class) - Welch (Third Reich. Politics and Propaganda
1993), argues Nazi propaganda was successful in
reinforcing overall support for Hitler, but not
its policies e.g. anti-Semitism and some
propaganda was arguably counter-productive, e.g.
anti-Church propaganda and it was a relative
failure in its role of indoctrinating Germans
with Nazi world view - Geary (Hitler and Nazism 1993) and Evans (The
Third Reich in Power 2005) believe Nazi
propaganda was most successful when it played on
traditional German prejudices, e.g. nationalism,
fear of Bolshevism, etc. but when it opposed
traditional loyalties, it was far less successful
38Appendix Historians and Film methodologies
- Film as film watch the films, dont just read
about them take notes watch again! - Note dialogue, but also camera movements for
mise-en-scène (pan, tilt, point-of-view shots) - Note the cutting techniques (are juxtapositions
significant?) - Is a linear narrative being told (classical
Hollywood) or is the screen a painterly canvas
(European arthouse)?
39Production Histories
- Who was the director? (auteur theory)
- How many people made the film (Hollywood
production-line techniques involved hundreds) - Who financed the film (private companies, banks,
state?) - Who censored the film (what was omitted?)
- Did new technologies (mobile cameras, sound,
deep-focus film stock) alter filmic possibilities?
40Reception Histories
- How did the audience respond (what were the box
office sales readers letters to press fan mail
to stars?) - How did reviewers rate a film? (do you have a
decent range of papers?) - Were certain sociological groups more likely to
be viewers (women families teenagers) - How did competing technologies (TV in 1950s)
change film audiences? - Reception theory can we know the psychological
response of an audience then compared with your
viewing now?
41Intertextuality
- Is the film based on a book which you should
consider too? - How did the stars off-screen persona interact
with his/her fictional persona? (my character
wouldnt do that) - How are directors quoting from one anothers
work? (e.g. is the end of Star Wars, 1977 a
reference to Triumph of the Will, 1935?)
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