Propaganda During The Holocaust
” It is not the purpose of propaganda to create a series of alterations in sentiment…. Its chief function is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time in order that they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on the memory of the crowd.” Adolph Hitler Mein Kampf Ch 6 (1) The Holocaust was not just an event. It was a process that continued for over a decade and involved millions of people. The Holocaust was the destruction of European Jews by the Nazis through an officially sanctioned, government-ordered, systematic plan of mass annihilation powered by the use of propaganda. The definition of propaganda according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary
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is, “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.” One of the major questions many have when investigating the causes of genocide and why average citizens often accept and at time tolerate mass violence and permit their friends and neighbors rights to be taken away. One of the most central ideals in Nazi ideology was that of a continual attack against other races deemed inferior by Adolf, more specifically Jews. The use of unending propaganda was the main weapon used to in the Nazi ideology. The definition of propaganda according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary and for this paper is, “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.” Racial minorities were used as scapegoats with which the Nazis blamed for what was wrong with the country on. In the speeches to the masses at Nazi rallies, they would start off by bringing up all the problems that they have been having, the depression, the Versailles Treaty, and any other hardship that they had experienced, and make the Jews the architect behind their problem. The speakers would focus all their anger on the Jewish people and other minorities.Hate and anger seem to be key points in Nazi ideology. To sustain the kind of anger the Nazis needed to sway the masses over to their side, they needed a common enemy, somebody or something that could be seen every day. Jews were portrayed as extremists and revolutionaries. They were supposedly different from the average moderate Germans, and even more different than the Nazis. People like Hitler, Goebbels, and Julius Streicher played on this ignorance of other people to instill fear and hate of the Jews. In general, people don’t like what they don’t understand. The Nazis exploited this by warping, retarding, and creating supposed grievances that the Jews were responsible. During the rallies, the speakers would rant and rave about how they would exact “vengeance against their eternal enemy, the Jew” (1), and how that “Europe will have defeated this threat only when the last Jew has left our part of the planet” (1). Hitler is quoted to say “The German people will not be destroyed in this war, rather the Jew” (1). The Nazi leaders would spout out so-called scientific evidence that the only way to ensure the survival of the Aryan race is that of racial purity. Over and over through their speeches and pamphlets, they emphasized that: “The decline of a people’s culture is always the result of race mixing and a decline in racial quality. Any change in the racial makeup of a people leads to a change in its nature and its culture. If the race that gave a people its nature is debased by mixing with foreign and inferior races, the people’s culture will perish and can never again be restored to full life.” (1) The Nazis advocated a society where only the Aryan and Nordic races would exist, while driving out all the other “inferior” races to protect the purity of the races, even at the cost of genocide towards the Jews. The Nazis referred back to a so-called German golden age, “before the Jew began to run the world through finance and trickery.” (1) The propaganda did not stop at speeches and pamphlets. Children’s books also spread the Nazi message of hate. The book The Toadstool, is a collection of very short stories where in all of them, the Jews are described as hook-nosed, with shifty eyes, and having the look of a criminal. Their teachers taught these stereotypes in the schools every day. Everyone, from the leaders, down to the children felt the same way about the Jews. Hitler had achieved through his use of propaganda the society he had dreamed of for only 5 or 6 years. As disturbing and sick as his methods were, they were extremely effective. Even during the War and after the Final Solution was put into effect, it was still seen as a racial war to the Germans. They contended that Roosevelt and Churchill were just lackeys of the Jewish businessmen. They stated that the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, was ruled by his wife, who happened to be Jewish. When the Nazis declared war on the United States, they saw it not just a European cleansing of the Jews, but as a worldwide operation “to rid the world of the epidemic of Jewish domination” (1). This of course was the Germans undoing, which came to a head on D-Day. As many as six million Jews died, almost two-thirds of the Jews of Europe. Although the Holocaust took place during World War II, the war was not the cause of the Holocaust. The war played a role in covering up the genocide of the Jewish people. How could this have happened in front of an entire world audience? The answers can be seen by understanding how violence of this magnitude can come out of prejudice based on ignorance, fear, and misunderstanding about minority groups and other groups who are different from us, and the use of propaganda by one of the greatest manipulative speakers of our time, Adolph Hitler. During the Holocaust an estimated six million Jews were killed. Hitler’s hatred towards the Jews was deliberated from Karl Lueger. Karl was a young mayor of Vienna and he blamed the Jews for Australia’s economic problems. There were a number of events that led to the Holocaust: World War I, Civil War, poor economy, failed coup, and the voters giving power to the Nazis. World War I was settled by the Treaty of Versailles which said that Germany was responsible for War repairs and also the treaty included an embarrassing guilt clause. World War I led into the Civil War because Germany was humiliated. After the Civil War the German economy was poor and a few years after it stated to pick back up the economy fell again. In 1923 Hitler attempted what is called the failed coup he and some of his confederates went into a beer hall and attempted to force the triumvirate, three men that governed Bavaria, to join him in a national revolution and the men disagreed. Three days later Hitler was arrested and after a short trial for treason, he was sentenced to five years in prison. During his time in prison he put his plan for the social change on paper. In 1932 an election was held and after a run-off Hindenburg won and Hitler lost. The Nazis held more than one third of the seats in the parliament which was an effective majority. Hitler was named chancellor and Von poppen was named vice chancellor. Once Hitler was in a position of power he used the Nazi majority to call a national state of emergency. Hitler turned Germany into a one party police state and all non-Nazis were forced out of office and individual freedoms were taken away. The government was allowed to tap phones, read mail, and search homes without a warrant. Everyone that opposed this was banned and their leaders jailed. Hitler had brown shirts which were young jobless men walking the streets beating and killing those who opposed the Nazi party. The attacks created fear and caused many governments to remain silent even though they did not support the Nazi party because they were scared of the SA. In 1929, Hitler chose Josef Goebbels as his Minister of Propaganda. Goebbels developed extremely successful campaigns using simple slogans and images repeated over and again in order to win public support for the party. The Nazis spent a lot of money on newspapers, leaflets and poster campaigns. (2)
Once the Nazis came to power Goebbels developed the Nazi’s use of propaganda to even greater effect. He designed large political military ‘rallies’ to build support. These were very organized events with banners and marching bands. Using his own speaking skills as an orator Hitler appealed to the patriotism of the German people. 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, headed 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. (3)
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 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." Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States protested the book burnings, a violation of freedom of speech, in rallies in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis.
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, kids celebrated such occasions as Adolf Hitler 's birthday and the anniversary of his taking power.
In the summer of 1933 Hitler became dictator of Germany and his racist plan would soon be put into action.
Hitler gained support from The Nazi Propaganda Ministry which was headed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Anything that opposed the Nazi party was removed from the media and all forms of communication were controlled by the Nazi government. The Jewish population was about 600,000 in total that was less than 1 percent of the German population. Laws were passed against Jews forcing them out of public life; Jews could not hold civil service jobs or attend school. Jewish businesses were boycotted as of 1935 and the first boycott was held in April, 1933. The Jews were forced to wear the Star of David on all exterior clothing with the word Juden written on it. The star is a six pointed star made of two interlocking triangles. The six points represent Gods rule over the universe in all six directions. The star became a sad symbol of the Holocaust and it will always be a reminder to the Jews. The “Nuremberg Laws” proclaimed the Jews as second class citizens. In November 1938 the Kristallnact took place also known as the night of the broken glass. Jewish buildings were destroyed and Jewish men were killed. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned, 7,000 Jewish businesses were wrecked. This event was planned by Dr. Joseph Goebbels and other Nazis. Thirty thousand more male Jews were arrested the next day for the crime of religious beliefs. More laws were passed making the Jewish children housebound. The Nazis not only targeted the Jews for being their “main problem” but also groups that were racially or genetically inferior to them. Between 1933 and 1935 laws were passed to reduce the number of genetically “inferior” individuals in the gene pool. The groups included the disabled, Jews, African German, Blacks, and gypsies. Almost 15,000 homosexuals were placed in concentration camps and the 20,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned in April 1933. They lost their jobs and were denied
unemployment benefits, social welfare, and pensions. Most of the Jehovah’s Witnesses were put in concentration camps and their children were sent to orphanages and detention centers. Half of the Jewish population of Germany fled to the United States, Palestine, and Latin America. The Jews that remained in Germany were unable to obtain visas to leave, were too poor to leave, or could not obtain sponsorship. Nazis used Einsatzgruppen killing squads. The squads consisted of four groups of between 500 and 900 men that were ordered to kill Jews on the spot. In 1942 it was decided that the death camps would be a faster method of killing so the Einsatzgruppen ended. Approximately 1,500,000 Jews were killed during the Einsatzgruppen. In September 1941 the Nazis began to use gas vans which were trucks that were filled with people that were locked in and they were killed by inhaling carbon monoxide. These vans were used until the completion of the first concentration camp, Dachau in 1933. The concentration camps were a main part of the Holocaust. Jews were transported to the camps by freight cars and some died before reaching their destination. There were concentration camps, forced labor camps, death camps, extermination camps, and transit camps. The camps were used to kill Jews and force them to do hard and unnecessary labor. The men, women, and children were separated into different lines; some were killed and some were spared. Anyone that was unable to work was killed because they were considered useless. Gas chambers were used at the camps to kill Jews, they were sent into a small shower looking building and gassed. The female prisoners were raped at the camps, others were sent to work at coal mines and rubber factories. In 1942 the full plan went into operation and there was no longer a selection process Jews were killed upon arrival. The Nazis were responsible for 2.7 million Jews in the death camps. The Germans hid their true plans by saying that the Jews were being resettled in the East. To cover their tracks the Nazis made the Jews send post cards to reassure their loved ones that they were alive and doing fine. The total number of deaths during the genocide was between 5.2 and 5.8 million. This was over half of the Jewish population. Even during the War and after the Final Solution was put into effect, it was still seen as a racial war to the Germans. They contended that Roosevelt and Churchill were just lackeys of the Jewish businessmen. They stated that the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, was ruled by his wife, who happened to be Jewish. When the Nazis declared war on the United States, they saw it not just a European cleansing of the Jews, but as a worldwide operation “to rid the world of the epidemic of Jewish domination” (1). This of course was the Germans undoing, which came to a head on D-Day. Although there were many facets to Nazi ideology and culture, none were as violent and deceitful as the racial propaganda. It was because of this fundamental hatred towards minorities that the Holocaust was allowed to take place. Hitler believed that propaganda from the allies was the main reason that the Germans lost during World War I and felt that this form of warfare needed to be a primary tool in modern warfare. He spoke of this belief in his book Mein Kampf well before the start of the Second World War Hitler felt that the public needed to be inundated with the ideology of the state at all times and through all mediums. "To do this," he said "everything from child 's story-book to the last newspaper, every theater, every cinema and every advertisement hoarding must be brought into the service of this single mission". This onslaught of propaganda led to the Holocaust by leaving no other option open to the German people than to hate the Jews and blame them for all their troubles. The Holocaust was propaganda at its most wicked and extreme format, successful in its purpose by the Nazi’s and a lesson to be learned for history.
Works Cited
Mein Kempf Adolph Hitler http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks4/the-nazification-of-germany/impact-of-the-nazi-state/how-did-the-nazis-use-propaganda/#.UoFzdIwo4eE http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007677"Racial Propaganda in the Third."
Feig, Konnilyn. Hitler’s Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness. New York, Holmes & Meier, 1979.
Jacobs, Alan. “Auschwitz/Birkenau.” http://www.remember.org/jacobs/index.html. 1996.
Morretta, Theresa. “History of the Holocaust: Timeline.” http://www.remember.org/educate/mtimeline.html Watts, Franklin. "Auschwitz and the Allies." Voices of History 1942-43 .New York, 1943.
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Revised Edition New York (1985)
Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution, Revised Edition, London (1968)
Leni Yahil, The Holocaust, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York (1990)
Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders, HarperCollins, New York (1992) http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/propagandaWegner, G. (2007). ‘A Propagandist of Extermination:’ Johann von Leers and the Anti-Semitic Formation of Children in Nazi Germany. Paedagogica Historica. 43 (3), p299–325.
is, “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.” One of the major questions many have when investigating the causes of genocide and why average citizens often accept and at time tolerate mass violence and permit their friends and neighbors rights to be taken away. One of the most central ideals in Nazi ideology was that of a continual attack against other races deemed inferior by Adolf, more specifically Jews. The use of unending propaganda was the main weapon used to in the Nazi ideology. The definition of propaganda according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary and for this paper is, “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.” Racial minorities were used as scapegoats with which the Nazis blamed for what was wrong with the country on. In the speeches to the masses at Nazi rallies, they would start off by bringing up all the problems that they have been having, the depression, the Versailles Treaty, and any other hardship that they had experienced, and make the Jews the architect behind their problem. The speakers would focus all their anger on the Jewish people and other minorities.Hate and anger seem to be key points in Nazi ideology. To sustain the kind of anger the Nazis needed to sway the masses over to their side, they needed a common enemy, somebody or something that could be seen every day. Jews were portrayed as extremists and revolutionaries. They were supposedly different from the average moderate Germans, and even more different than the Nazis. People like Hitler, Goebbels, and Julius Streicher played on this ignorance of other people to instill fear and hate of the Jews. In general, people don’t like what they don’t understand. The Nazis exploited this by warping, retarding, and creating supposed grievances that the Jews were responsible. During the rallies, the speakers would rant and rave about how they would exact “vengeance against their eternal enemy, the Jew” (1), and how that “Europe will have defeated this threat only when the last Jew has left our part of the planet” (1). Hitler is quoted to say “The German people will not be destroyed in this war, rather the Jew” (1). The Nazi leaders would spout out so-called scientific evidence that the only way to ensure the survival of the Aryan race is that of racial purity. Over and over through their speeches and pamphlets, they emphasized that: “The decline of a people’s culture is always the result of race mixing and a decline in racial quality. Any change in the racial makeup of a people leads to a change in its nature and its culture. If the race that gave a people its nature is debased by mixing with foreign and inferior races, the people’s culture will perish and can never again be restored to full life.” (1) The Nazis advocated a society where only the Aryan and Nordic races would exist, while driving out all the other “inferior” races to protect the purity of the races, even at the cost of genocide towards the Jews. The Nazis referred back to a so-called German golden age, “before the Jew began to run the world through finance and trickery.” (1) The propaganda did not stop at speeches and pamphlets. Children’s books also spread the Nazi message of hate. The book The Toadstool, is a collection of very short stories where in all of them, the Jews are described as hook-nosed, with shifty eyes, and having the look of a criminal. Their teachers taught these stereotypes in the schools every day. Everyone, from the leaders, down to the children felt the same way about the Jews. Hitler had achieved through his use of propaganda the society he had dreamed of for only 5 or 6 years. As disturbing and sick as his methods were, they were extremely effective. Even during the War and after the Final Solution was put into effect, it was still seen as a racial war to the Germans. They contended that Roosevelt and Churchill were just lackeys of the Jewish businessmen. They stated that the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, was ruled by his wife, who happened to be Jewish. When the Nazis declared war on the United States, they saw it not just a European cleansing of the Jews, but as a worldwide operation “to rid the world of the epidemic of Jewish domination” (1). This of course was the Germans undoing, which came to a head on D-Day. As many as six million Jews died, almost two-thirds of the Jews of Europe. Although the Holocaust took place during World War II, the war was not the cause of the Holocaust. The war played a role in covering up the genocide of the Jewish people. How could this have happened in front of an entire world audience? The answers can be seen by understanding how violence of this magnitude can come out of prejudice based on ignorance, fear, and misunderstanding about minority groups and other groups who are different from us, and the use of propaganda by one of the greatest manipulative speakers of our time, Adolph Hitler. During the Holocaust an estimated six million Jews were killed. Hitler’s hatred towards the Jews was deliberated from Karl Lueger. Karl was a young mayor of Vienna and he blamed the Jews for Australia’s economic problems. There were a number of events that led to the Holocaust: World War I, Civil War, poor economy, failed coup, and the voters giving power to the Nazis. World War I was settled by the Treaty of Versailles which said that Germany was responsible for War repairs and also the treaty included an embarrassing guilt clause. World War I led into the Civil War because Germany was humiliated. After the Civil War the German economy was poor and a few years after it stated to pick back up the economy fell again. In 1923 Hitler attempted what is called the failed coup he and some of his confederates went into a beer hall and attempted to force the triumvirate, three men that governed Bavaria, to join him in a national revolution and the men disagreed. Three days later Hitler was arrested and after a short trial for treason, he was sentenced to five years in prison. During his time in prison he put his plan for the social change on paper. In 1932 an election was held and after a run-off Hindenburg won and Hitler lost. The Nazis held more than one third of the seats in the parliament which was an effective majority. Hitler was named chancellor and Von poppen was named vice chancellor. Once Hitler was in a position of power he used the Nazi majority to call a national state of emergency. Hitler turned Germany into a one party police state and all non-Nazis were forced out of office and individual freedoms were taken away. The government was allowed to tap phones, read mail, and search homes without a warrant. Everyone that opposed this was banned and their leaders jailed. Hitler had brown shirts which were young jobless men walking the streets beating and killing those who opposed the Nazi party. The attacks created fear and caused many governments to remain silent even though they did not support the Nazi party because they were scared of the SA. In 1929, Hitler chose Josef Goebbels as his Minister of Propaganda. Goebbels developed extremely successful campaigns using simple slogans and images repeated over and again in order to win public support for the party. The Nazis spent a lot of money on newspapers, leaflets and poster campaigns. (2)
Once the Nazis came to power Goebbels developed the Nazi’s use of propaganda to even greater effect. He designed large political military ‘rallies’ to build support. These were very organized events with banners and marching bands. Using his own speaking skills as an orator Hitler appealed to the patriotism of the German people. 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, headed 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. (3)
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 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." Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States protested the book burnings, a violation of freedom of speech, in rallies in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis.
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, kids celebrated such occasions as Adolf Hitler 's birthday and the anniversary of his taking power.
In the summer of 1933 Hitler became dictator of Germany and his racist plan would soon be put into action.
Hitler gained support from The Nazi Propaganda Ministry which was headed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Anything that opposed the Nazi party was removed from the media and all forms of communication were controlled by the Nazi government. The Jewish population was about 600,000 in total that was less than 1 percent of the German population. Laws were passed against Jews forcing them out of public life; Jews could not hold civil service jobs or attend school. Jewish businesses were boycotted as of 1935 and the first boycott was held in April, 1933. The Jews were forced to wear the Star of David on all exterior clothing with the word Juden written on it. The star is a six pointed star made of two interlocking triangles. The six points represent Gods rule over the universe in all six directions. The star became a sad symbol of the Holocaust and it will always be a reminder to the Jews. The “Nuremberg Laws” proclaimed the Jews as second class citizens. In November 1938 the Kristallnact took place also known as the night of the broken glass. Jewish buildings were destroyed and Jewish men were killed. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned, 7,000 Jewish businesses were wrecked. This event was planned by Dr. Joseph Goebbels and other Nazis. Thirty thousand more male Jews were arrested the next day for the crime of religious beliefs. More laws were passed making the Jewish children housebound. The Nazis not only targeted the Jews for being their “main problem” but also groups that were racially or genetically inferior to them. Between 1933 and 1935 laws were passed to reduce the number of genetically “inferior” individuals in the gene pool. The groups included the disabled, Jews, African German, Blacks, and gypsies. Almost 15,000 homosexuals were placed in concentration camps and the 20,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned in April 1933. They lost their jobs and were denied
unemployment benefits, social welfare, and pensions. Most of the Jehovah’s Witnesses were put in concentration camps and their children were sent to orphanages and detention centers. Half of the Jewish population of Germany fled to the United States, Palestine, and Latin America. The Jews that remained in Germany were unable to obtain visas to leave, were too poor to leave, or could not obtain sponsorship. Nazis used Einsatzgruppen killing squads. The squads consisted of four groups of between 500 and 900 men that were ordered to kill Jews on the spot. In 1942 it was decided that the death camps would be a faster method of killing so the Einsatzgruppen ended. Approximately 1,500,000 Jews were killed during the Einsatzgruppen. In September 1941 the Nazis began to use gas vans which were trucks that were filled with people that were locked in and they were killed by inhaling carbon monoxide. These vans were used until the completion of the first concentration camp, Dachau in 1933. The concentration camps were a main part of the Holocaust. Jews were transported to the camps by freight cars and some died before reaching their destination. There were concentration camps, forced labor camps, death camps, extermination camps, and transit camps. The camps were used to kill Jews and force them to do hard and unnecessary labor. The men, women, and children were separated into different lines; some were killed and some were spared. Anyone that was unable to work was killed because they were considered useless. Gas chambers were used at the camps to kill Jews, they were sent into a small shower looking building and gassed. The female prisoners were raped at the camps, others were sent to work at coal mines and rubber factories. In 1942 the full plan went into operation and there was no longer a selection process Jews were killed upon arrival. The Nazis were responsible for 2.7 million Jews in the death camps. The Germans hid their true plans by saying that the Jews were being resettled in the East. To cover their tracks the Nazis made the Jews send post cards to reassure their loved ones that they were alive and doing fine. The total number of deaths during the genocide was between 5.2 and 5.8 million. This was over half of the Jewish population. Even during the War and after the Final Solution was put into effect, it was still seen as a racial war to the Germans. They contended that Roosevelt and Churchill were just lackeys of the Jewish businessmen. They stated that the Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, was ruled by his wife, who happened to be Jewish. When the Nazis declared war on the United States, they saw it not just a European cleansing of the Jews, but as a worldwide operation “to rid the world of the epidemic of Jewish domination” (1). This of course was the Germans undoing, which came to a head on D-Day. Although there were many facets to Nazi ideology and culture, none were as violent and deceitful as the racial propaganda. It was because of this fundamental hatred towards minorities that the Holocaust was allowed to take place. Hitler believed that propaganda from the allies was the main reason that the Germans lost during World War I and felt that this form of warfare needed to be a primary tool in modern warfare. He spoke of this belief in his book Mein Kampf well before the start of the Second World War Hitler felt that the public needed to be inundated with the ideology of the state at all times and through all mediums. "To do this," he said "everything from child 's story-book to the last newspaper, every theater, every cinema and every advertisement hoarding must be brought into the service of this single mission". This onslaught of propaganda led to the Holocaust by leaving no other option open to the German people than to hate the Jews and blame them for all their troubles. The Holocaust was propaganda at its most wicked and extreme format, successful in its purpose by the Nazi’s and a lesson to be learned for history.
Works Cited
Mein Kempf Adolph Hitler http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks4/the-nazification-of-germany/impact-of-the-nazi-state/how-did-the-nazis-use-propaganda/#.UoFzdIwo4eE http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007677"Racial Propaganda in the Third."
Feig, Konnilyn. Hitler’s Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness. New York, Holmes & Meier, 1979.
Jacobs, Alan. “Auschwitz/Birkenau.” http://www.remember.org/jacobs/index.html. 1996.
Morretta, Theresa. “History of the Holocaust: Timeline.” http://www.remember.org/educate/mtimeline.html Watts, Franklin. "Auschwitz and the Allies." Voices of History 1942-43 .New York, 1943.
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Revised Edition New York (1985)
Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution, Revised Edition, London (1968)
Leni Yahil, The Holocaust, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York (1990)
Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders, HarperCollins, New York (1992) http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/propagandaWegner, G. (2007). ‘A Propagandist of Extermination:’ Johann von Leers and the Anti-Semitic Formation of Children in Nazi Germany. Paedagogica Historica. 43 (3), p299–325.