Holocaust History

Lesson 3: Legalizing Murder

Propaganda

As seen at the end of the last section, Nazi the 'rightness' of killing was included in school textbooks. Propaganda was an important part of the Nazi machinery. It was central to the attempt to demonize Jews, Sinti and Roma, and all others who did not fit the narrow definition of an "Aryan."

Once they succeeded in ending democracy and turning Germany into a one-party dictatorship, the Nazis orchestrated a massive propaganda campaign to win the loyalty and cooperation of Germans. The Nazi Propaganda Ministry, directed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, took control of all forms of communication in Germany: newspapers, magazines, books, public meetings, and rallies, art, music, movies, and radio. Viewpoints in any way threatening to Nazi beliefs or to the regime were censored or eliminated from all media.

During the spring of 1933, Nazi student organizations, professors, and librarians made up long lists of books they thought should not be read by Germans. Then, on the night of May 10, 1933, Nazis raided libraries and bookstores across Germany. They marched by torchlight in nighttime parades, sang chants, and threw books into huge bonfires. On that night more than 25,000 books were burned. Some were works of Jewish writers, including Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. Most of the books were by non-Jewish writers, including such famous Americans as Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Sinclair Lewis, whose ideas the Nazis viewed as different from their own and therefore not to be read.

The Nazi censors also burned the books of Helen Keller, who had overcome her deafness and blindness to become a respected writer; told of the book burnings, she responded: "Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas."

Schools also played an important role in spreading Nazi ideas. While some books were removed from classrooms by censors, other textbooks, newly written, were brought in to teach students blind obedience to the party, love for Hitler, and Anti-Semitism. After-school meetings of the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls trained children to be faithful to the Nazi party. In school and out, young people celebrated such occasions as Adolf Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of his taking power.

Many examples are available at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Multimedia Learning Center Online Pay special attention to the books produced specifically for children.

Of course Anti-Semitic propaganda did not begin with the Nazis. It was under the Third Reich that this form of institutionalized hatred was given government status and sanction.

As you look at the examples of propaganda via the Wiesenthal Center note the overwhelming use of sketches, cartoons, and pulp fiction style art. What was the purpose of this? Why not use photographs so that the Germans could "recognize the enemy"?

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