History of Hitler’s Nazi Propaganda Essay

A country can benefit from analyzing its past. By doing so, a country can be able to analyze how their past leaders or events have shaped their present lives. Similarly, through this analysis a country can be able to correct historical injustices.

In the Book Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler asserts that he was able to develop interest at propagandist activity after analyzing past political events in his country (Hitler & Ralph 57). He states that through his analysis he realized how Socialist-Marxist adopted and applied propaganda with amazing proficiencies. In history, the Nazis under the leadership of Adolf Hitler are believed to have been the masters of propaganda.

Before the holocaust, the Nazis made use of the available media, cinema, and radio to create and propagate propaganda aimed at undermining the minority communities in Germany. The effectiveness of Nazis propaganda largely depended on the methodologies implemented by Hitler and Joseph Gobbles. This paper seeks to highlight how Hitler used stories of German past and propaganda to manipulate the Germans into believing they were a superior race.

Hitler’s propaganda together with wartime ideologies are the chief revelatory means of understanding why holocaust transpired. Between the years 1919 to 1939, Hitler launched several defamatory messages against the Jews communities (Hitler & Ralph 12). In one of his speeches before the onset of the Second World War, Hitler promised to eliminate all the Jews in Europe. Through propaganda, Hitler linked most of the German’s past misfortunes with the presence of Jews in Europe.

During the same period, Hitler mentioned of International Jewry. International Jewry referred to a political subject that was unfriendly to Germany. According to Hitler, the German’s defeat in the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, German’s post war inflation, and the economic crisis of the year 1929 were accredited to International Jewry. By analyzing and highlighting these past events to the public, Hitler laid way for the war and the holocaust.

Through propaganda, he was able to brainwash many Germans into believing that he was actually reacting to the plans, injustices, and threats of others against the Germans (Hitler & Ralph 50). Notably, Hitler’s propaganda against the minority communities such as the Jews, Africans, Bolsheviks, the paralytic, and other people considered undesirable by the Nazis were used to manipulate how German masses perceived these individuals.

Through propaganda, the Jews were illustrated as greedy, ugly, filthy individuals who had sided with the Germans’ enemies. The Nazis propaganda activists were very proficient in their art. They were able to identify disagreeably prejudices against the Jews communities. Through these initiatives, these activists were able to able to apply selection bias to bring out numerous cascading biases against the Jews. By taking advantage of these prejudices, the Nazis were able to represent unpleasant Jewish images in the Aryan Germans’ minds.

As such, through propaganda the Aryans were able to see repulsiveness in the Jewish community despite the fact that these repulsiveness never existed. All these propagandas together with Nazis’ depiction of Aryans as non-Jewish, manipulated the Germans into believing they were a superior race. As a result, the Nazis were able to associate their past successful events to the Germans and all the letdowns to the minority populations in Germany.

Over time, this propaganda enhanced an environment, which discarded any proof opposing the notion that Aryans were more superior to other races (Hitler & Ralph 64). Astonishingly, the Germans without query accepted Nazis’ propaganda against the Jewish as inferior compared to Aryans even in some cases where the propaganda contradicted logics. In some instances, Hitler employed elites who duped the Germans public into believing that human civilization originated from the Aryans going against archeological facts (Pringle 3).

To enhance superiority in the Aryan community, Hitler’s team adopted the US Verses Them theme. Through this campaign, posters portraying perfect Aryan mothers and children were printed and contrasted with other posters portraying emaciated Bolshevik family. This portrait was so effective that they were later used in justifying the enactment of laws that prohibited Jewish communities and other minority communities from mixing with Aryan communities.

Through similar tactics, the Nazis were able to combine Bolsheviks and Jews’ images in single portraits to formulate a notion that the Jews were to blame for communism. When Germans’ opponents such as England and the USA were portrayed, the Nazis ensured that Jewish artistic elements were attached to these portraits to enhance the feeling that Jewish were responsible for Germans misfortunes.

It is surprising to note that several Germans accepted Hitler’s ideas without queries to the point that they ignored the fact that millions of people had disappeared because of persecution. Several factors contributed to this situation where Hitler’s ideas were unchallenged. Before Hitler took over the country’s leadership in the year 1933, the country was faced with several economic challenges. In the year 1919, Germany signed Treaty of Versailles.

Through this treaty, the country lost much of its iron ore reserve plunging the country into economic crisis. Before Hitler took over, Germany’s unemployment had increased to 6 million. With no hope, people believed in Hitler’s propaganda and associated their misfortunes with the Jewish communities. When Hitler became the Country’s chancellor in the year 1933, he formulated and implemented tough economic policies that saw a reduction of unemployment rate by 95% in the year 1939.

With this economic miracle, Aryan Germans were made to believe that Hitler was the answer to their solutions hence accepted his propaganda without questions. Similarly, through media censorship Hitler’s propaganda managed to brainwash the Aryans into believing that they were a superior race. During the early 20th century, radio and film were the only form of media technologies available.

The Nazis censored these forms of media and determined what were to be broadcasted. As such, they were able to broadcast anti-Semitic messages to its population. Over time, the masses were brainwashed and were made to believe in Hitler’s propaganda. In schools, Nazis dispersed Hitler’s articles and books to German children for learning purpose. Through this, the youth were indoctrinated. These initiatives brainwashed the youths’ minds into believing that Hitler was great and that the Germans were superior to other races.

In conclusion, Hitler’s propaganda was successful in spearheading racial purity and anti-Semitic campaigns. The success of this propaganda was eminent in the way Germans perceived and treated other races. By censoring the media, use of intimidation, and political arrests, Hitler ensured that his propaganda was accepted by the masses without questions.

When he entered into power, Hitler shut down several newspaper presses to ensure that his leadership style and propaganda was unchallenged through the media. Equally, German’s economical and social conditions before Hitler took over the country’s power made them vulnerable to his propaganda. Therefore, Hitler having been aware of these conditions took advantage of the Germans desperation and made them to believe in his propaganda.

Works Cited

Hitler, Adolf, and Ralph Manheim. Mein Kampf,. Boston : Houghton Mifflin company, 1943. Print.

Pringle, Heather. “Hitler’s Willing Archaeologists.” Archaeology Magazine Mar. – Apr. 2006: 2-7. Print.