Arguments:

- Antisemitism
- Hitler’s messianic image
- glowing image of national unity
- propagate selective issue salience and cover up atrocities and mass murders

Roberts, Jeremy. Joseph Goebbels: Nazi Propaganda Minister. Saddleback, 2000.

- “Goebbels also distorted the truth and lied. He used his power to shut down or scare
newspapers that opposed Nazis. He restricted the Jewish press. He could have a reporter he
didn't like fired. His power intimidated many people. He made sure that films and articles
favoring the Nazis appeared. He also made sure that the public received a lot of anti-Semitic
material in newspaper articles, films, and radio shows.”
- “Many Germans wanted to be persuaded that Hitler would solve their problems. They
wanted Germany to be great. They wanted a great leader to save the country. Some
Germans hated Jews.”
- “He used logical arguments to convince people the Nazis were the answer to the country's
problems. He used Jews as scapegoats, appealing to people's hatred. And he staged mass
demonstrations to stir up patriotism and make Germans feel good—not just about Hitler,
but about themselves.”
- “Whatever the truth, Hitler did use the disaster to ask for "emergency" powers that made
him a dictator. The fire convinced many people—not just Nazis—that these powers were
justified. Goebbels helped justify the power grab, making sure that people heard about the
Communists' plans. Once Hitler had "emergency" control, he never gave it up.”
- In 1935, he helped work for a series of anti-Jewish laws known as the Nuremberg Laws.
These severely limited Jewish life in Germany. The longer he was in office, the more his
hatred of Jews seems to have grown.
- Again and again he repeated the Nazi slogan: "Germany Awake!"

Hoffmann, Hilmar. The Triumph of Propaganda: Film and National Socialism, 1933-1945.
Providence, RI: Berghahn Books, 1996. (PN 1995.9 .N36 H6413 1996)

- A Nazi election announcement dating from 1932 describedHiÜer not only as "^he last hope"
.Q£.those "who have lost everything—house and home, savings, livelihood, the strength to
work," but also, with nationalist and religious overtones, as the "shining beacon of all those
who dream of a future for Germaiv);" "who believe in Germany's resurrection."
- the Nazis put every available medium and means of communication at the service of their
propaganda machine.
- Bela Balazs points to another aspect of film's Reasons for the Rise of Hitler 71 effectiveness
as a tool of propaganda: "The way in which a director arranges a shot reflects his attitude
toward a subject—his affection, his hatred, his pathos, or his mockery. Hence the
propagandistic power of the film medium. For the director does not have to prove his point
of view; he leaves it up to us to absorb it visually. "
 - The first task of propaganda is to win people for subsequent organization; the first task of
organization is to win men for the continuation of propaganda. The second task of
propaganda is the disruption of th existing state of affairs and the permeation of this state of
affairs with the new doctrine, while the second task of organization must be the struggle for
power, thus to achieve the final success of the doctrine.
- They claimed that under Hitler the kind of devastating inflation that took place from 1922 to
1923 would not recur. Using every means of propaganda at his disposal. Hitler
communicated to people the hope that under his rule fascism would become totalist and
thus better able to solve all of society's problems. [Fascist] totalism, he said, would prove to
be a good and beneficial solution—^not to mention the correct one.
- The Nazis pronüsed to set an example and undertake punitive expeditions against the
"initiators" of the ever-present crises in people's personal lives, i.e., against Bolsheviks,
Marxists, and capitalists— the three collective enemies of the people—and, above all,
against the Jews, again and again, against the Jews. Anti-Semitism became the centerpiece
of National Socialist propaganda, and the Nazis used any occasion to stir the flames of
hatred against the Jews.
- The Nazis were determined to generate a new national self-confidence in which every
individual would share. The national humiliation of Versailles would be erased; the all-
corrupting influence of the Jews eliminated, along with the initiators of corruption
themselves; the class warfare stirred up by capitalists and communists would end; the
working class, threatened by a decline in its social status, and the notoriously disgruntled
lower middle class would be absorbed into a new egalitarian German national-racial
community {Volksgemeinschaft).
- Only after the simplest ideas are repeated thousands of times will the masses finally
remember them.
- Ministry announcement: Or you can transform the nation through a revolution of the spirit,
and instead of destroying your enemy, win him over.
- Scientifically untenable claims and elitist ideas regarding "racial purity," and "Aryan blood"
were put forward to highlight the Nazis' negative image of Jews and to warn the Germans of
the mortal national danger posed by "subhumans."
- Immediately after Hitler became chancellor, Goebbels banned Fritz Lang's film Das
Testament des Dr. Mabuse (The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse, 1 9 3 2 / 3 3 ) , an eerie allegory of
the strife-torn political conditions in contemporary Weimar Germany.

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-holocaust-and-human-behavior/power-
propaganda:

- Propaganda—"information that is intended to persuade an audience to accept a particular

idea or cause, often by using biased material or by stirring up emotions”—was one of the
most powerful tools the Nazis used to consolidate their power and cultivate an “Aryan
national community” in the mid-1930s.
- Whether or not propaganda was truthful or tasteful was irrelevant to the Nazis. Goebbels
wrote in his diary, "No one can say your propaganda is too rough, too mean; these are not
criteria by which it may be characterized. It ought not be decent nor ought it be gentle or
soft or humble; it ought to lead to success." Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that to achieve its
purpose, 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. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will
piddle away."
 - In addition to people, the Nazis also began to attack ideas. On March 13, 1933, Hitler
established the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and put Joseph
Goebbels in charge. The ministry set out to coordinate every form of expression in
Germany—from music to radio programs to textbooks, artwork, newspapers, and even
sermons—crafting language and imagery carefully to praise Nazi policies and Hitler himself
and to demonize those who the Nazis considered enemies.
- Nazis used laws to define who belonged to the “national community” and then separate
those who did not belong.

https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-nazi-rise-to-power/the-nazi-rise-to-power/:

- These messages varied from ‘Bread and Work’, aimed at the working class and the fear of
unemployment, to a ‘Mother and Child’ poster portraying the Nazi ideals regarding
woman. Jews and Communists also featured heavily in the Nazi propaganda as enemies of
the German people.
- The Depression associated economic failure and a decline in living standards with the
Weimar democracy. When combined with the resulting political instability, it left people
feeling disillusioned with the Weimar Republic’s democracy and looking for change.
- The Nazis’ also took several more steps to reduce their political opposition ‘legally’. On the 2
May 1933 trade unions were banned. Just two months later, on 14 July 1933 the Nazis used
the Enabling Act to ban all political parties except the Nazi Party.
- Censorship was heightened, and any person publishing actively anti-Nazi
material was threatened or imprisoned. By 1935, over 1,600 newspapers had
been closed.
- Following the purge, the Nazi’s sculpted the media coverage to portray the event as a
preventative measure against a revolutionary, violent, and uncontrollable force, rather than
a series of political murders.

Silverstein, Brett. “Toward a Science of Propaganda.” Political Psychology, vol. 8, no. 1, 1987, pp.
49–59. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3790986.

Every modern social system uses what Ellul calls the "propaganda of integra- tion" to promote
acceptance and support among its citizens for that system.

Welch, David. “Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft: Constructing a People's

Community.” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 39, no. 2, 2004, pp. 213–238. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/3180722.:

- Propaganda presented an image of society that had successfully manu- factured a 'national
community' by transcending social and class divisiveness through a new ethnic unity based
on 'true' German values.
- Propaganda is as much about confirming rather than converting public opinion. Propaganda,
if it is to be effective must, in a sense, preach to those who are already partially converted.
- The menace of violence, was, to some extent, counter-balanced by the positive image of
nazi society presented in the mass media on an unprecedented scale.
- A society that was still suffering from a deep sense of national humiliation, and weakened by
inflation, economic depression and mass unemployment, was perhaps not surprisingly
attracted to a National Socialist revival that proclaimed that it could integrate disparate
elements under the banner of national rebirth for Germany.
- The four major themes that recur in nazi propaganda during this period reflect the roots and
antecedents of volkisch thought: 1) appeal to national unity based upon the principle: 'The
community before the individual' (Volksgemeinschaft); 2) the need for racial purity; 3) a
hatred of enemies which increasingly centred on Jews and Bolsheviks, and 4) charismatic
leadership (Fiihrerprinzip).
- In order to manufacture a consensus where one did not previously exist, the nazi
propaganda machine would constantly urge the population to put 'the community before
the individual' (Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz) and to place their faith in slogans like 'One
People! One Reich! One Fiihrer!’
- Posters and photographs showed happy Volksgenossen ('comrades of the people', a term
the nazis invented to replace 'citizen') - both blue- and white- collar workers - sharing an
Eintopf (one-pot meal) in a public display of solidarity.
- By creating a new series of public rituals to celebrate important days in the nazi calendar,
'national comrades' (Volksgenossen) were expected to attend parades and speeches and
show their enthusiasm by hanging out flags.