Nazi Propaganda Analysis

Fascism attained a mass following in Germany because of the psychological tactics employed by the Nazi party. In the interwar period, Germany was a nation humiliated and impoverished due to its defeat in World War I and the harsh conditions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Along with the worldwide depression and the looming threat of communism, Germany was a breeding ground for extremist political parties such as the Nazi party. Hitler promised to stop reparation payments, to give all Germans jobs and food, and to make them proud to be German again (Smith, 2008). The Nazi Party used several psychological tactics to indoctrinate the German people to its ideology. These included the clever use of propaganda, the oratory skills of Hitler, the education and Hitler Youth systems along with the Nazi police force: the …show more content…
No one who has not lived for years in a totalitarian land can possibly conceive how difficult it is to escape the consequences…of a regime’s calculated and incessant propaganda (Shirer, 1960).” This source is highly reliable and therefore very useful, because Shirer spent time in Nazi Germany and therefore witnessed first-hand some of the effects of Nazi propaganda. Shirer is testimony to the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda as he still had “daily access” to foreign radio broadcasts and newspapers, but still felt the influence of the propaganda. Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda, was extremely skilled in the art of manipulating every possible entity to fit with the ideology of Nazism and logically assumed that if the people believed what they were told, opposition to Nazi rule would be very small. In 1936 whilst in Germany, The U.S Ambassador wrote “And here the resources of a marvellously organised Ministry of Propaganda has been of