PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES OF
GERMAN FASCISM(1)
Anonymous
"WHAT is truly vicious," observed The New York Times in an editorial, September 1, 1937, "is not propaganda but a monopoly of it." This monopoly is seen most clearly in totalitarian states where all channels of communication are controlled by the government. The extent to which the propaganda machinery of a country has been brought under the control of one organization or a group of related organizations is a useful measure of the degree to which absolutism dominates it, of the extent to which democracy has been eliminated.
In democratic countries this monopoly aspect of propaganda is held in check by rivalries between competing organizations. Political, economic, educational, and religious spokesmen are able to and actually do disseminate rival propagandas. This gives those at whom the rival propagandas are directed some freedom of choice among the alternatives offered them.
The ability of individuals and organizations in democracies to enter their special viewpoints into the rivalry of propagandas is restricted chiefly by economic considerations.(2) In buying radio time and newspaper space, in the outright purchase of radio stations and newspapers, in securing the expert services of professional propagandists and public relations counselors, individuals and groups with large financial resources have an advantage over those with small resources. Producers of goods, for instance, have greater propaganda power than either consumers or labor.(3)
The power of propaganda increases as its control becomes more centralized, as the trend to monopoly increases. In democratic countries this takes place when competing propagandists resolve their differences and agree upon one propaganda. This maneuver can be seen in amalgamations or agreements within political, economic, educational, and religious groups. As various groups come to collaborate in terms of common interests, their propaganda programs tend to coincide and to increase in power. This process is stimulated by the centralization of the control of the economic structure of a country. A tendency toward a monopoly of wealth is accompanied by a corresponding tendency toward a monopoly of propaganda.
Contrasted with the relative freedom for the dissemination of propaganda in democracies is the complete or nearly complete elimination of this freedom in totalitarian countries. Fascist Germany illustrates how propaganda is used both to bring a dictator into power and to aid him in maintaining that power. In Germany the propaganda which helped convince the people of the efficiency of the National Socialist(4) solution for the country's political and economic problems was reinforced by an army of storm troops that weakened opposition through terrorism. Such methods made difficult and dangerous the promulgation of competing propagandas. The power of the Nazi propaganda was increased further by the financial support of certain business men and by the political intrigues of Colonel Franz von Papen and other officials of the Weimar Republic.
With the establishment of the National Socialist régime its monopoly of propaganda was rapidly achieved. Suppression of opposition was thorough. Every source of public information and nearly every instrument capable of affecting public opinion came under its control. Although some of the church groups were difficult to dominate, in general the National Socialist propaganda drive went forward with a thoroughness which exceeded that of World War propaganda.(5)
To understand how this monopoly of propaganda was effected, it is necessary to review the conditions under which German Fascism was established.
In Germany, as elsewhere, Fascism is the outcome of economic and political instability. It is an undemocratic means for dealing with the mass unemployment of city workers, the economic distress of the middle classes, the impoverishment of farmers, and the efforts of these groups for economic reforms. So long as democratic realities continue to exist, with freedom of speech, press, and assembly, such efforts for reform can obtain a public hearing, and various programs to relieve and prevent distress stand a chance of enactment into law. Thus, representative democracy provides a means for reconciling conflicts through the expression of opinions and propagandas for different solutions, from which an enlightened public can make its choice. In Germany this means of mitigating the abuses of the economic system was feared by influential politicians, industrialists, financiers, and great landowners. After the worldwide depression of the late 1920's these individuals and groups felt that they could maintain their status only through the abolition of representative democratic government. Their opportunity came in Adolf Hitler, master propagandist.
Had there been no depression and no unemployment in Germany, there doubtless would have been no Nazi party in control of Germany today. But the depression was more than another business crisis. It brought back vividly the hardships of the inflation period, the distress at the end of the war. It caused millions of Germans to lose faith in the ability of the Weimar Republic to prevent such recurring disasters. This major crisis was utilized by Hitler to convince growing numbers of Germans, particularly in the middle classes, that the Republic offered no future, no work, no promise, no hope for themselves or for their children. The social strain created by this condition made possible an audience highly susceptible to the propaganda of demagogues and cliques of demagogues.
Sometimes a demagogue is sincere in his propaganda; usually he is confused. Typically, a demagogic clique is corrupt in whole or in part. The corrupt elements are usually successful in proportion to their astuteness and unscrupulousness. They will agitate for a fee; they will exact for their services all that the traffic will bear; they will serve or pretend to serve many interests. The extent to which Hitler and his Nazi clique were sincere, astute, or unscrupulous may never be fully known. At the critical moment the NSDAP did receive the secret financial backing of a small group of Germans who wanted a government which would abolish freedom of speech, press, and assembly; which would eliminate labor unions; and which would deal effectively with expressed opposition. Such a government was established in Germany in 1933 under the leadership of Adolf Hitler.(6)
Germany's defeat in the World War and her humiliation in the Treaty of Versailles had become less significant in the reconstruction period of the Weimar Republic; but at the end of the Twenties the world depression struck the German people another crushing blow and brought unemployment and impoverishment to increasing millions. Anger and unrest filled the land. In such a period it was natural in Germany, as anywhere, that a large section of the population would lend a favorable ear to anyone who offered himself as a savior. The Socialists and Communists attributed the depression and its consequences to the inherent weaknesses of a system of production for private profit. This they sought to replace by a system of public ownership. Their program made a rational appeal; as propaganda, however, it was much less elective than the emotionally charged propaganda of the Nazis.
The program and, more particularly, the actions of the National Socialist party have reflected the frustrations and despairs of the German workers, farmers, and middle class. Hitler's life actually epitomized and dramatized the experiences of the German people. Until his final overwhelming political victory, Hitler had known only failure. He ranted to be an artist and failed; an architect, and became a house painter; he went into the war with all possible enthusiasm and returned from it a physical wreck with no hope and no future in the country which had lost. Some excuse, some outlet, had to be found.
The middle class, one of the most politically important sections of the population, had been neglected. After the war this class in particular suffered from Germany's failure, defeat, and humiliation. It suffered from the failure of the Weimar Republic to cope effectively with the economic crisis. It distrusted communism. It feared violent charge, but it wanted such change as would give a sense of security. Then came Adolf Hitler, a leader, who promised the people all that they wanted. Most Germans felt that conditions were too bad even to question how all that he offered could be achieved. The few who did raise their voices in protest or doubt were silenced by argument, by force, or by honest conviction that this new scheme, this new hope, must be tried. Everything was promised to everyone: socialism to the laborer and to the more liberal Kleinbürger; partition of the great estates to the peasant; dissolution of trusts and economic security to the middle class citizen; salvation from communism to the upper bourgeois; and to every one elimination of the Jews, rearmament of the Reich, and "national liberation." This was the appeal of the "National Socialist German Labor, Party." A mass following was the result. Power, however, could come only by persuading the industrialists, the financiers, and the feudal military caste to support the Nazi movement. Hitler united them, organized them, and won their support with his promises that they should not fear his labor-winning social program. It was understood that they could retain control behind the scenes if Hitler were left free to manage the political show.
It is difficult to estimate the support or strength of the industrialists. As in most countries many business leaders contributed to all the major parties. Despite its socialism, the growing following of the NSDAP made it a useful tool to crush Marxism, democracy, and the German labor movement. The list of industrialists and aristocratic contributors expanded rapidly between 1925 and 1933, especially after 1930. The most powerful figure(7) was the Ruhr magnate, Chairman Fritz Thyssen of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke A.G. The importance of this financial backing, however, should not be overemphasized. So far as present records show, these men did not determine the policies of the party. Those had been decided, before their support was elicited. "Socialism" was a Glittering Generality privately admitted by the party leaders. They had no plan and no intention of changing the existing economic system. Capitalism was all they knew and all they wanted. But once in power, political control dominated economic control. "Capitalism," as free enterprise, became a Glittering Generality. Virgil Jordan,(8) president of the National Industrial Conference Board, Inc., writes:. . . The National-Socialist regime has established a rigid system of planned economy. The aim of the government is to conduct the operation of the economic system in the interest of general welfare, as the government conceives it. All private interests may be sacrificed to the national interest. No difference of opinion is allowed as to what constitutes the national interest. That question is decided by the leader of the National-Socialist Party, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, in consultation with party members and with the representatives of industry and trade. Economic planning was found to be impossible without putting labor and industry in a strait-jacket. The government determines the tasks that private industry must fulfill in order to promote national welfare and, through the exercise of dictatorial political power, it tries to create the conditions under which those tasks can be accomplished. . . .
By fixing wage rates, hours of work, prices, profits, and interest rates; by controlling imports and subsidizing exports; by regulating expansion of plant and equipment, the supply and distribution of raw materials, and new security issues; and by spending billions of marks on public works and rearmament—the National-Socialist régime has been successful in providing the available working force of the country with regular employment at a rate of wages sufficient to provide the basic necessities of life, but which does not permit an appreciable increase in the standard of living. . . . Once the government embarked on the program of rearmament and economic self-sufficiency, the freedom of enterprise had to be sacrificed.(9)To win their way to power the National Socialists used all the techniques of propaganda, all the avenues for its dissemination which modern science and invention have made possible, and all the old appeals and shibboleths. Professor Schuman(10) gives a vivid picture of one of the thousands of carefully planned great mass meetings: the waiting, the expectancy, the late hour when people's resistance is low, the decorations, the company of storm troopers drilling, the dramatic torchlight parade, the bands, the singing, finally the hush, a crash of drums and trumpets, the slow solemn entrance of a well disciplined procession to stirring martial music or perhaps Richard Wagner's "Entry of the G-ds into Valhalla"; at the end a special bodyguard, the uniformed party leaders, and then, "the centre of all eyes, Der Führer—in his tan raincoat, hatless, smiling, and affably greeting those to right and left. A man of the people! Germany's Savior!" "Heil! Heil!" and the third "HEIL!" swells into a great ovation. Speeches, spotlights, cheers, waving of arms. The audience responds at the end with an overwhelming chorus, "Heil! Heil! Heil! Hitler!" The bands blare forth, and the multitude chants the "Horst Wessel Lied."
Vernon McKenzie,(11) director of the School of Journalism of the University of Washington, reports such a meeting in September, 1932, when he sat on the platform within ten feet of the Führer.
A Canadian friend who has heard Hitler speak many times expresses succinctly the power of the Leader's eloquence or demagogy, whatever you may call it."I could listen to Hitler talk for an hour on one side of a subject," he says, "and then if he turned around and for the next hour directly contradicted everything he had previously said, I would follow him and believe him. That is what I think of Hitler's persuasive powers! If he can get me that way, how much more can he get the German audiences?
"This evening Hitler . . . swayed that audience as I have never seen any audience swayed before or since. He did not mention Hindenburg by name, but one of his perorations went something like this:
" 'Certain parties are contending for the right to guide the destinies of the German people. Certain leaders . . . one of them is eighty-six; the other is forty-three. Which do you think is likely to survive to guide the destinies of our race?'
". . . He could play with that audience just as he wished. As I looked down at the sea of faces from the platform, the 30,000 in the auditorium seemed to be subjects of mass hypnotism."The evidence of Mr. McKenzie's Canadian friend is borne out by comments of American newspaper correspondents who point out that Hitler's addresses are often unintelligible. Large numbers of his listeners apparently listen with their emotions. When their tension becomes high, they intercept the speech by emotional outbursts at seemingly inappropriate times. Here we see the force of language with or without meaning as a molder of public opinion. Only intelligent citizens skilled in analysis of propaganda and immunized against the wiles of the orator were unaffected by Hitler. Among such doubtless were editors, writers, teachers, clergymen, and others who later were to be killed, imprisoned, or forced to acquiesce in silence to a régime they disapproved.
Hitler, the master propagandist, knew that propaganda, to be effective, must be keyed to the desires, hopes, hatreds, loves, fears, and prejudices of the people; he knew that most human beings crave a scapegoat to take the blame of disaster and to bolster their own pride. The Jews were made the scapegoat. He blamed them not only for the existing unemployment and impoverishment but also for the loss of the war and the Treaty of Versailles. But the anti-Jewish propaganda had even greater value to Nazism than the mere creation of a scapegoat. Through the Jews Hitler was able to strike at anyone, Jew or non-Jew, opposed to Nazism, and to discredit any plan which aimed at the peaceful rehabilitation of Germany. Hitler's objective was to create in the minds of Germans an ugly image of "Jew." The word "Jew" was deliberately made synonymous with everything the Germans resented and hated or could be led to resent and hate. Once that was done, Nazi agitators revived or manufactured for circulation notorious forgeries, which branded all those persons as Jews who did or said anything not in accord with Nazi ideas. To attack the Dawes Plan, for example, it became necessary to label Dawes as a Jew and so, according to Der Stürmer, Dawes was portrayed to its readers as a full-blooded Jew, originally named Davidson. The banking house of J. P. Morgan, which acted as a house of issue for a German government loan opposed by Hitler, was promptly branded a Jewish banking house and the Morgan name given as an abridgment of the more Jewish-sounding Morgenstern. Similarly the entire French nation, whom the Nazis consider to be Germany's natural enemy, was described as a nation of Jews, The Germans, Hitler said, were the world's greatest race, supreme in the arts of peace and unconquerable in war unless betrayed by the Jews. Thus, he was able to give to the National Socialist program the driving power of strong nationalism, coupled with the emotional appeal of racial superiority, intensified by hatred of the despised Jews. At the same time he inveighed against the great bankers, industrialists, and landowners as vigorously as did the Communists and Socialists. He proclaimed himself the savior of the farmers, the small business men, and the workers. As early as 1920 Hitler's newly created National Socialist party made promises identical with those of the Socialists and Communists. The NSDAP platform adopted in Munich, February 24, 1920, included these demands: abolition of unearned incomes, nationalization of all trusts, abolition of interest on land loans, the enactment of a law for confiscation without compensation of land for public purposes. In May, 1926, the party decided that this program was never, to be changed. Two years later, April, 1928, Adolf Hitler signed a statement which in effect held invalid the phrase ".confiscation without compensation." Since the National Socialists hold to the view of private property, he claimed, it was "self-evident" that this phrase referred "only to the creation of legal means whereby land which was acquired in illegal ways or which is not being administered to the best interests of the nation's welfare might be expropriated if necessary. This is directed primarily against Jewish land-speculation companies."(12) The official name of the party is a perfect example of the Glittering Generalities device—Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterfartei (National Socialist German Workers Party). In Germany the great pro-Nazi program of public housing and public works and the higher living standards achieved through labor unions had given the word "socialist" favorable connotations. Hitler took full advantage of these connotations, though later his actual program drove socialists into concentration camps and abolished labor unions.
But spellbinding, emotional meetings were not the only Nazi techniques of propaganda which helped bring the party to power. With its mysterious swastika, its parades, its officers, its "Third Reich," its esoteric "wisdom," its solidarity achieved by familiar symbols and uniforms, the party was and is actually a secret society. It is elaborately organized with a women's auxiliary, children's groups, youth divisions—a place for every one. Subtle suggestions run the gamut of emotions: prestige, love, fear, security, pride, hate. Hitler himself is said to have invented the Hakenreuz flag and much of the elaborate military insignia of the brown-uniformed Sturm-Abteilung, or storm troops organized on strictly military lines to combat other parties, and of the black-uniformed Schutzstaffel, originally the personal bodyguard of Hitler, now a small army of full-time, well paid mercenaries.
Promises, circuses, societies, banners, slogans, hate, fear, hope, pride—all swept the unsatisfied, discouraged Germans into the crowd on the band wagon behind the swastika. Since the advent of the National Socialists the power of the agencies of propaganda has been intensified and coordinated so that all avenues of communication—press, school, radio, motion picture, and even the church—must carry but one propaganda to the public mind, must express one will, one voice, one opinion. Hence the Hitler régime has, in common with other fascist countries, established a system wherein authority flows from the top down; and from the people comes blind, instant, unquestioning obedience. In the pages that follow, the propaganda which aided the National Socialists in winning support, which helps them keep the support of a majority of the people today, is analyzed under the seven common propaganda devices suggested in the November letter of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis.
Name Calling
"Name Calling" is a device to make us form a judgment without examining the evidence on which it should be based. Here the propagandist appeals to our hate and fear.
In as much as the first task of the National Socialists was to destroy simultaneously all trade unions as well as all liberal democratic institutions, it was necessary to make the people believe that these were devilish inventions, cleverly designed by malicious persons to ruin the German people. This they sought to accomplish by asserting with endless repetition that these institutions were similar in structure and mood to those of communism. They then painted communism in terms so lurid as to horrify even the skeptical. With people convinced that communism (often used by the Nazis as synonymous with the Weimar Republic) had been forced on them by a "degenerate" and "malicious" cabal of "alien enemies" to create their misery, they could then rally all good Germans around the Führer, who promised to protect his people by waging relentless war on these "enemies of Germany." This picture was widely accepted and was supported by a complete mythology in which the Jews, communism, and liberalism or democracy were held to be the major evil influences from which the National Socialists saved Germany.
Prominent in this campaign is Julius Streicher's newspaper Der Stürmer, which, in addition to its regular anti-Semitism, has recently published A Story Book for Young and Old Alike, in which Jews are pilloried and "Aryan" Germans warned against them. The seventeen "folk tales" are illustrated by grotesque caricatures of alleged Semitic types with the title "A Poisonous Mushroom."(13) Koppel S. Pinson,(14) editor of the American edition of Professor Lichtenberger's The Third Reich, quotes from the Berliner Tageblatt's account of a speech by Dr. Goebbels, Minister of People's Enlightenment and Propaganda, on Tempelhof Field in Berlin, June 30, I935:"Does one believe that we have buttons instead of eyes not to see how certain counter movements in the capital city are once again attempting to spread out? (Applause) And how the bourgeois intellectuals once again are ready to give them brotherly aid with that stupid and inane phrase that the Jew is also a human being. True he is, but what kind of a human being! A flea is also an animal, yet not a very pleasing animal. We do not want the Jew any more! He has no place any longer in the German community!"
"Liberals" are classified as weak, insipid, vacillating, temporizing, and unprincipled. To be a "liberal" or to believe in the "stupid doctrine of equality" fostered by "Jewish-invented democracy" is to be a lily-livered "red." "Jewish democracy" is opposed to the "true democracy," which Hitler claims to have established.
Nazi propagandists supercharge words with feeling and emotion in order to give them greater force in Name Calling. The same supercharging is applied to the "virtue words" which they employ in the Glittering Generalities device. Many of these words derive their virtue from the immense reservoir of honesty, decency, good workmanship, good will, fine imagination, and rich emotionalism of the German people. Others are given significant new meanings.
Glittering Generalities
"Glittering Generalities" is a device by which the propagandist identifies his program with virtue by use of "virtue words." Here he appeals to our emotions of love, generosity, and brotherhood.
Much that is to the interest of those who control the regime is praised in terms of the "community good" and "comradeliness." To the same end there is considerable talk about subjecting all "narrow" and "selfish" interests to the "welfare of the community." Such words as "labor" and "sacrifice" are given additional "virtue" by ceremonials and dramatic awards.(15) As was previously indicated, the virtue that the word "socialist" had come to connote in Germany was the reason for its inclusion in the official name of the National Socialist party. Many Germans who believed in socialism were thus led to vote for a party whose leadership was committed to destroy socialism.
The most sweeping generality is that conveyed by the word Volk (folk or people). The Volk, after purging itself of Jewish blood, is to return to the true Germanic tradition of the Middle Ages. To lend authority to this theory a "biological mythology" has had to be invented, and is now proclaimed by professors appointed to university chairs for that purpose. Thus, we see the Card Stacking and Testimonial devices used to strengthen an application of the Glittering Generalities device. The régime utilizes the word "science" to sanction practices, policies, beliefs, and races which it wants approved. By "science" it obtains approval for the destruction of all opposition and of all "Marxist liberal culture."
Other generalities are effective in appealing to special groups. The farmers have been heartened to endure the poor return from their toil by a whole magnificat, written on the theme of Blut und Boden (blood and soil). They are told that they are of the "glorious peasant state," and each householder is given the honored title of Bauer. (The translation of this word, "peasant" or "farmer," does not convey the same connotation which the original does to National Socialist Germany, where the meaning is more that of a "creative builder.") The title is secured to the Bauer if he can prove freedom from Jewish blood after January 1, 1800. "Bauer honor" ties him to the land and prevents him from changing his occupation or residence. By way of compensation he has the "honor" of having his name placed on an "Estate Roll," which entitles him to use special insignia—something like a coat of arms.
The flattery, the insignia, and the verbal consolations offered to workers on the land have their parallels in those offered to industrial laborers. Nazi propagandists praise the "dignity of labor" and organize festivals in its honor. Labor, they assert, is filled with a new spirit; and to guard this spirit is the task, or mission, of Die Treuhänder der Arbeit (the trustees of labor). These "trustees" are government officials in the organizations controlled by the National Socialist party. It is their duty to see that labor disputes do not arise, or, having arisen, are settled as totalitarian expediency may determine.
Particularly important in any totalitarian state is the Gleichschaltung or coördination of all the activities of the people. The German Labor Front, administered from the Central Office in Berlin by Dr. Robert Ley, staff leader of the political organization of the party, has fourteen sections. These, according to the National Industrial Conference Board,(16) "deal with practically every aspect of economic and social life of German labor." The Department of Kraft durch Freude or "Strength through Joy"(17) is designed to employ all of the laborer's leisure activities and to see that in these his "spirit" is coördinated with the "common" good. This makes it possible to check the way he spends his leisure hours and to prevent his developing and expressing opposition to the régime.
As pointed out above, by using such Glittering Generalities as "national honor" and "public interest" the National Socialists sought to justify the Gleichschaltung of industry described thus by the National Industrial Conference Board:(18)The state can dismiss the owner of an enterprise from the position of leadership, if his behavior offends against social honor. For the same reason, it can deprive an employee of the position which he occupies. The state can prohibit investment of capital in certain industries if their growth is not desirable and if capital is more urgently needed in some other branch of the national economy. The state can determine the amount of profits that can be paid out and control the employment of the amount retained as surplus. The state determines the amount of raw materials placed at the disposal of the various industries and individual enterprises. In the final analysis, the state fixes prices, wages, rates of interest, and the volume and distribution of credit.
Glittering Generalities are given additional power through the deliberate exploitation and perversion of humane feelings and impulses. This technique, much used by the warring nations in the World War, has made it possible for German Fascists to make the German people serve ends which, in the absence of force or fraud, would not have been respected or tolerated. Examples of such perversion utilize the Transfer device.
Transfer
"Transfer" is a device by which the propagandist carries over the authority, sanction, and prestige of something we respect and revere to something he would have us accept.
Something approaching deification of Chancellor Hitler is an outstanding example of this device. Nazi propagandists seek to establish him as a quasi-divinity and to transfer to him the religious feelings of the German people; then to transfer from him the "divine" sanction of the policies, practices, beliefs, and hatreds which he espouses. Some party spokesmen and supporters refer to Hitler in terms like those applied to Ch--st. However, the pressure exerted to force the acceptance of the Führer as, a modern savior has been resisted by those church leaders who have recognized in the Nazi movement a conflict with Christianity, a conflict admitted by the more outspoken National Socialists. Despite this opposition Nazi leaders have had great success, in capturing religious feeling and in establishing Hitler as a divinity embodying the traditions of the old German folklore. The Evangelical Church Letter(19) submitted to Chancellor Hitler, in June, 1936, makes these observations:
In this connection we must make known to the Führer and Chancellor our uneasiness over the fact that he is often revered in form that is due to G-d alone. It is only a few years ago that the Führer himself disapproved of his picture being placed on Evangelical altars. His judgment is taken to be the standard unrestrainedly today not only in political decisions, but also in regard to morality and justice in our people, and he himself is vested with the dignity of the national priest, and even of the mediator between G-d and the people.
(N.B.: Dr. Goebbels on April 19, 1936: "When the Führer addressed his last appeal to the people of March 28, it was as if a profound agitation went through the whole nation; one felt that Germany was transformed into one single House of G-d, in which its intercessor stood before the throne of the Almighty to bear witness. . . . It seemed to us that this cry to heaven of a people for freedom and peace could not die away unheard. That was religion in its profoundest and most mystical sense. A nation then acknowledged G-d through its spokesman, and laid its destiny and its life with full confidence in His hand." See also Göring's speeches.)Pope Pius XI(20) in his encyclical on Germany, March 14, 1937, stressed the same point when he wrote:
Beware, Venerable Brethren, of the growing abuse in speech and writing, of using the thrice holy name of G-d as a meaningless label for a more or less capricious form of human search and longing.
When members of the Roman Catholic Church and of the Protestant churches are not sufficiently influenced by the attempt to transfer their allegiance from the church beliefs which they have held to the beliefs "coordinated" with those of the state, more direct means of persuasion are used. Of these the Pope(21) wrote:
Among the spokesmen there are many who, by reason of their official position, seek to create the impression that leaving the Church, and the disloyalty to Christ the King which it entails, is a particularly convincing and meritorious form of profession of loyalty to the present State. With cloaked and with manifest methods of coercion, by intimidation, by holding out the prospect of economic, professional, civic and other advantages, the loyalty of Catholics and especially of certain classes of Catholic officials to their faith is put under a pressure that is as unlawful as it is unworthy of human beings. All Our fatherly sympathy and deepest condolence We offer to those who pay so high a price for their fidelity to Christ and the Church.
Baldur von Schirach, Nazi youth leader, wrote for the youth of Germany this prayer:(22)
"Adolf Hitler, we believe in Thee. Without Thee we would be alone. Through Thee we are a people. Thou hast given us the great experience of our youth, comradeship. Thou hast laid upon us the task, the duty, and the responsibility. Thou hast given us Thy Name [Hitler Jugend ], the most beloved Name that Germany has ever possessed. We speak it with reverence, we bear it with faith and loyalty. Thou canst depend upon us, Adolf Hitler, Leader and Standard-Bearer. The Youth is Thy Name. Thy Name is the Youth. Thou and the young millions can never be sundered."
Effective in transferring the sanction of the Almighty to his program are Hitler's public prayers. For example, in his address to the Reichstag, February 20, 1938,(23) in which the Nazi aggression against Austria, Czechoslovakia and other nations was forecast, Hitler used this device to give his acts divine approval in advance. He closed that address with these words:
At this hour I should only like to pray the Lord G-d also in years to come to bestow his blessing upon our work, our acts, our insight and our resolution to preserve us from overbearing as well as cowardly subservience, guiding us on the right path which His providence mapped out for the German people and that He always will give us the courage to do what is right and never waver or shrink before any violence or any danger. Long live Germany and the German nation.
That the attempt to give divine sanction to Hitler and the Nazis has been successful is attested by a petition presented to the Chancellor by the chaplains of the armed forces in the autumn of 1937.(24) From it these excerpts are taken:
The one half believes enthusiastically everything that is officially announced; the other half holds that it is all a lie. . . . The repeated promises that the rights of the church would be recognized and that full liberty would be given to it to regulate its own affairs have not been forgotten. . . . The State and the party combat today not only the churches, let alone merely political activities of the churches. They combat Christianity. This fact is repeatedly denied. It is true nevertheless. . . . In the training camps of the party it is repeatedly explained that National Socialism has three enemies: Judaism, Masonry and Christianity. Public acceptance of Christianity is regarded, when a new position is to be filled, as a tie that unfits the candidate for service to the State or the party. . . . Of the 18,000 Protestant pastors in Germany approximately 1,300 have been in prison or under police arrest since 1934. That the pastor should be arrested has become a routine affair for Protestant parishes. . . . The type of men who have become famous by combating Christianity and who employ all their power to defile other men's holy things will display when matters become really serious their moral worthlessness. A keen observer can already see the signs. Bolshevism will easily find followers among some of those who today shout "Heil Hitler!"
The prestige and authority of G-d are used to sanction the National Socialist party, its foreign policy of military expansion,(25) and its domestic policy of bending to its will labor, agriculture, business, and all ideals, including those of Christianity.
Attempts are made to divert the attention of the industrial worker from the declining purchasing power of his labor and from the facts of his exploitation by transferring the feelings aroused in his breast by songs, processions, and rituals to a sense of pride in the "dignity of labor."(26) The prestige, sanction, and authority of previous traditions of labor solidarity are transferred to the politically controlled labor organizations of the National Socialists, who have taken over the ritual and symbolism built up by the pro-Nazi labor unions and by the Social Democrats. May Day has been made the "Day of National Labor." All the "virtue" of the German Volk is transferred to labor. Workers are "honored" and "ennobled" with the "spiritual values" of the German Volk. This virtue is symbolized by the swastika, which here is the "symbol of German creative power."(27)
Love of the home and motherhood are similarly exploited to encourage women to accept the form of living which the National Socialist program requires of them. Children are made responsive to military ideals by transferring to these ideals the child's love of adventure. The peasant's love of the land is stimulated and transferred to an acceptance of his place in the present regime by such pronouncements as this:(28)The peasant, sticking to his soil, tilling all the time, knows what it means to own the ground. There is a higher value besides the one registered in the Hall of Records. Men of the big cities, the heaps of stones, of the fountain pen, of the ledger, of the sewing needle . . . do not know any more what Mother Earth should mean to them.
For children the Transfer device most frequently employed is the symbol of the Nazi hero—especially in his rôle of soldier. Manliness is identified with the glory of the party and is used as a means of encouraging in German boys an attitude of superiority toward women and a belief in the doctrines of militarism and anti-Semitism. Words and symbols appertaining to war have been endowed with a glorious sense to make war appear heroic and thrilling. Little children know and give the Hitler salute. Toy soldiers, tanks, machine guns, and simplified battle instructions abound everywhere—symbols to transfer sanction to the later use of real tanks and machine guns. During special "children's evenings" boys and girls read books like Horst Wants to Be a Soldier, A Child Goes to War, The Battle of Tannenberg, and Two Lads in the Navy.(29) Problems in some arithmetic books deal with such questions as the quantity of gas bombs that would be necessary, if dropped from an altitude of ten thousand feet, to destroy a town of five thousand inhabitants.
Testimonial
The "Testimonial" is a device to make us accept anything from a patent medicine or a cigarette to a program of national policy.
From the fact that "the Führer knows the goal and knows the direction," it follows that his is the supreme testimonial. No authority and no judgment which does not follow from or accord with his can be right. No specialist knows better than he, no recommendation can be better than his. He can deny even the authority of science. Only the conclusions of "German science" as approved by the Führer may be accepted. When the conclusions of science do not accord with his wishes, as m genetics, anew science has to be invented (Card Stacking); its prestige then has to be established by his testimonial.(30) So also with the arts. Only that art which is approved by the Führer and his subordinates as German art may be accepted by the German people.(31) So also does he decree how men and women shall live their lives. The kind of life which has the Führer's approval is that which is surrendered to the state. In this Hitler is the arbiter; his approval is the supreme testimonial.
By the same leadership principle the attempted deification of Hitler is used to justify all actions at the top of the National Socialist pyramid. Delegation of power down through the party hierarchy is made to justify the actions of every "leader." There are no elections in the democratic sense of the word and no free discussions. "Leaders" hold office indefinitely and at the discretion of their immediate superiors.
Plain Folks
"Plain Folks" is a device used by politicians, labor leaders, business men, and even by ministers and educators to win our confidence by appearing to be people like ourselves—"just plain folks among the neighbors."
At the same time that the Führer is canonized, an attempt is made to transform him into a "man of the people." In this, the propagandists are greatly assisted by his habits; for he affects ordinary clothes, wears no medals other than his simple Iron Cross, eats plain food and that sparingly, and leads a quiet, secluded life. He is pictured as a man of the people meeting plain Folks in their ordinary walks of life, enjoying with them their simple work and pleasures. But as previously indicated, Hitler wields an almost hypnotic power over an audience as he rushes excitedly through a speech. The simplest peasant and the most untutored servant girl feel that he is talking directly to them. As he speaks, they seem to relive with him his terrible war experiences and his poverty-stricken post-war days. Just as one of the most powerful appeals of the figure of Christ for the poor of all ages is his lowly origin and his expressions of sympathy for humble people, so the National Socialists attempt to capitalize on Hitler's early career. J-s-s, a carpenter, is the Messiah of the Christian world; Hitler, a house painter, is the savior of Germany. However, to judge by what Hitler has written in his book, Mein Kampf, he appears to have little sympathy but much contempt for the broad masses. Miriam Beard(32) says:
He [Hitler] will not be squeamish about his methods: "Whenever people fight for their existence all questions of humanity or esthetics fall away to nothing." Mercy is a vain illusion, he informs us on page 267 of the original, cut from the translation, "in a world . . . in which Force is forever mistress over the weak" and in which "Nature does not know" it.
The real sting is taken from his [Hitler's] remarks on labor. His intention to "free economic life from the influences of the mass" is omitted.In this case, as in that of the other propaganda devices discussed in this paper, the element of misrepresentation of fact is considerable, although it is not always predominant. The device which plays the most important part in National Socialist propaganda is, therefore, "stacking the cards" for or against beliefs or facts which the National Socialists wish either to encourage or to suppress.
Card Stacking
"Card Stacking" is a device in which the propagandist employs all the arts of deception to win our support for himself, his group, nation, race, policy, practice, belief, or ideal. He stacks the cards against the truth. He uses under-emphasis and over-emphasis to dodge issues and evade facts.
The misrepresentation of facts works in two ways. On the one hand there is a rigorously enforced censorship, backed by an elaborate spy system and the constant threat of concentration camps. By this means the régime can suppress facts, prevent discussion and expression of discontent and opposition. This largely accounts for the fact that many visitors on returning from Germany report that they heard no expression of discontent. On the other hand the régime has freedom to give publicity to falsehoods. Hitler(33) approves such publicity in Mein Kampf (deleted from the English translation) which he writes:
"Propaganda . . . does not have to seek objectively for the truth so far as it favors an opponent . . . but exclusively has to serve our interests." It must adopt every device of slander that ingenuity can suggest: "whenever our propaganda permits for a single moment the shimmer of an appearance of right on the other side, it has laid a foundation for doubt in the right of our cause . . . especially among a people that so suffers from objectivity-mania as the German!"
The Reichstag fire(34) on February 27, 1933, one week before the last free election in the Weimar Republic, affords an example of effective Card Stacking. The records of the trial following the fire establish clearly that the firing was planned and executed with finesse, that Communists were immediately accused of the act, that preparations had been made for the arrest of Communists before the fire-calls had been sounded, and that the evidence submitted by the National Socialists against the accused Communists did not stand in court. But none of the significant facts behind the fire was submitted, although foreign observers were convinced that both the National Socialists and the court knew what they were. The falsity of the charge that the Communists burned the Reichstag buildings was never told the German people.
Similar Card Stacking techniques were utilized at the Olympic Games in Berlin and at the fifth centenary anniversary of Heidelberg University. In connection with the latter the celebrations were taken out of the hands of the regular university authorities. The foreign scholars who attended witnessed a series of National Socialist political speeches, storm troop parades, and demonstrations intended to show the German people that the scientific and educational world approved of the Nazi system. Nothing was said of the fact that the leading universities of the world, including three of the oldest— Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge—declined to attend. Nor was any publicity given to the letters sent by these universities, in which they declined the invitations and deplored the loss of academic freedom in the country which gave Lehrfreiheit to the world.
The spirit of the Reichstag trial and the Heidelberg celebration is reflected in the announcements of foreign policy from Wilhelmstrassc. Treaties and pronouncements are often regarded as instruments useful to placate, appease, or even deceive other governments. After categorical denials of German interference in Spain, official recognition was given Franco, and Hitler made the statement that German troops were in Spain not only to "protect" her from "communism" but also to keep open for Germany access to ores and other raw materials.
In line with this policy is the destruction of books and papers which contain what the Japanese call "dangerous thoughts." Public and private libraries, book stores, offices, and reference files are searched for "red," "communist," "Jewish" literature—literature which includes the works of Helen Keller, Emile Zola, Marcel Proust, H. G. Wells, Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Arnold Zweig, Albert Einstein, Jacob Wassermann, along with Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Such books feed great fires in public squares throughout the country. Quotations from some of these works are taken out of their context and presented to the public as examples of how these authors have been "poisoning the community" with "filth" and "lies."
Even long accepted classics are not immune. In a letter(35) to the Neue Tagebuch (Prague, Czechoslovakia, April 24, 1937) Dr. Emil Ludwig recounted his abortive attempt to purchase a copy of the only complete edition of Goethe's Conversations edited by Baron von Biedermann. The reply which his Zurich bookstore received from Leipzig read, "Biedermann Gespräche mit Goethe destroyed." When he learned that the Third Reich was preparing a new and purged "Selection" of this famous German classic, Dr. Ludwig wrote: "Here are a few examples why Goethe's Conversations need to be purged for use in present-day Germany."They are Prussians, my friend, so beware! Prussians always claim to know everything better than anyone else."—To Grüner, 1822.
"Patriotism depraves history. Jews, Greeks, and Romans depraved their own history and the history of other peoples by not telling it impartially. The Germans do it, too, with their own history and that of other nations."—To Riemer, 1817.
"He was infuriated by Wurm's efforts to make the Jews an object of ridicule on the stage, and he said, 'It is despicable to pillory a nation which possesses such, remarkable talents in art and science. As long as I am in charge of the theatre, this type of play will never be produced.' " —Biedermann Edition, Vol. II, p. 385.Miriam Beard(36) has shown how the English edition of Mein Kampf was purged of remarks which might offend foreigners. Eliminated are the more vitriolic attacks on France and democratic institutions, many of the eulogies of the Germans as a "master race," the more scurrilous references to Jews and to the "stupid masses," and the more blatant advocacy of militarism, force, violence, and war. Hitler says, for example in words deleted from the translation,(37) that he adopted Feder's anti-usury cry for its drawing power, with no intention of keeping his promise, since a great politician "has to bother himself less with means than with the goal."
An analysis of parallel news reports in German and foreign papers offers examples of the effective use of Card Stacking by a controlled press. For instance, during the trial of Pastor Niemoeller the only news carried by the German papers was a brief attack upon him as one who advocated a policy of love to Jews and traitors and preached from the Old Testament. His release by the court was announced but his rearrest by the secret police was not. Convictions of Roman Catholics for "immoral practices" were published; acquittals were "played down." Although the Minister for Church Affairs, Herr Hans Kerrl, announced that more than 8,000 Catholic religious leaders were or had been under arrest, he did not publish the fact that only about forty-nine had been convicted of immoral actions. Similarly, many crimes of individual Jews are publicized, but no publicity is given to ways in which German Jews have served their country. No intimation, for example, is made of the fact that 12,000 Jews died for Germany in the World War; or that, despite official discouragement, approximately the same proportion of Jews as of Gentiles served in the German army and navy.(38)
In addition to influencing the German people in the direction desired by the dictator, the falsehoods inherent in Card Stacking arouse hatreds which. have the effect of rallying the people against the supposed enemy or peril.
Band Wagon
The "Band Wagon" is a device to make us follow the crowd, to accept the propagandist's program en masse. Here his theme is: "Everybody's doing it." His techniques range from those of medicine show to dramatic spectacle.
One of the great unifying principles adopted by the National Socialists is that of hate. Among the passages deleted from the English version of Mein Kampf, Hitler has written:(39)
"Hate is more lasting than dislike, and the thrusting power for the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times come less from scientific recognition than from a fanaticism that fills the souls of the masses and in a forward-driving hysteria" (vorwärtsjagenden Hysterie).
In accordance with this principle Jews, communists, liberals, and democrats, became objects of hatred and scapegoats which could be made to suffer for the people's distress. Unity is further encouraged by patriotic demonstrations, Typical in these are gigantic crowds of people, massed ranks of uniformed troops, bands playing patriotic and martial airs, voices declaiming from a hundred mechanical mouths, ecstatic marchers carrying flickering torches, their resinous smoke blending into the darkness, flags and swastikas everywhere. This is the National Socialist equivalent of "bread and circuses." To bring all Germans upon the National Socialist band wagon, the party propagandists play continuously upon the common fears, hatreds, prejudices, aspirations and traditions. All propaganda devices culminate in this one. Not to get on the German fascist band wagon is the gravest heresy, tantamount to treason. This largely accounts for reports of nearly 100 percent "Yes" votes m all Nazi plebiscites.
To What End All This Propaganda?
Prophecies are hazardous. We do not know the future of German Fascism. When Hitler wrote his book, Mein Kampf, he stated as objectives so many goals which since have been attained that the book often is called the blueprint of German Fascism. Hitler has written: "A State which . . . devotedly fosters its best racial elements is bound one day to become Master of the Earth (Herr der Erde)."(40)
Preparation for war is today the major activity of the National Socialists. Hitler's program for expansion is as impressive as the Berlin-to-Bagdad objective of the former Kaiser. If expansion can be obtained without fighting, as in the case of Austria, by mere threat of military attack with acquiescence, support or approval of politicians, statesmen, and groups in other states, there will be no war—simply the peaceful yielding to German Fascist occupation or domination. Lands so occupied or dominated probably would experience almost immediately five major phenomena characteristic of Fascism in Germany itself:1. The destruction of labor unions.
2. The destruction of "free enterprise" to bring business under the absolute control of the Führer.
3. The destruction of "free enterprise" in agriculture.
4. The destruction or silencing of members of the intellectual class—editors, professors, teachers, clergymen and others who by reason of native gifts, training, education, and experience are among the best equipped to analyze and appraise the policies and acts of the Führer and the hierarchy of Nazi officials.
5. A monopoly of propaganda, accompanied by coercion, to keep all the people subservient to the authoritarian will.Preceding such occupation or domination one may expect subversive or open propaganda to make the people receptive to Fascism. This will have the support of those groups and individuals, including high public officials, who expect advantages from German Fascism. In this connection, however, a word of warning: We must guard against assuming that German Fascism or any other variety of Fascism arises from propaganda alone. German Fascism came into being not primarily because of Hitler's masterful skill as a propagandist but because conditions of unemployment, impoverishment, despair, anger, and resentment were such in Germany that any person or group offering salvation in terms sufficiently appealing could have influenced profoundly the political and economic decisions of the German people. Hitler was sufficiently appealing. With the financial support of certain individuals and the intrigues and incompetencies of men like von Papen and Hindenburg, Fascism became a reality.
It was a combination of economic breakdown, governmental weakness, and propaganda which made pro-Nazi Germany ready for Fascism. A similar combination could bring Fascism elsewhere.
Propaganda has no meaning and hence no effectiveness except in terms of life conditions of people—their needs, fears, hatreds, loves, aspirations, prejudices, and traditions. These affect propaganda as much as propaganda affects people.(41) National Socialist propaganda was based on the hatreds, fears, aspirations, and traditions of the German people. That explains its success— that, together with the fact that most of the German people and doubtless many of the Nazi propagandists themselves were unable to analyze, evaluate, and appraise the Nazi propaganda and its possible consequences. Whether Hitler or his fellow Nazis were sincere or insincere, racketeers or honest men, is not a matter of prime importance. What is of importance is that they won to their cause honest, earnest men and women who in their turn became zealous and effective propagandists for National Socialism. These men and women knew well the despairs and aspirations of millions of Germans. Their sincerity, strengthened by those aspirations, made them powerful propagandists for German Fascism. Such a one was Pastor Martin Niemoeller who, after his war service, came back to a Fatherland torn by class strife and proletarian revolt. With the same zeal that led him to fight for his country as a captain of a German submarine, Niemoeller joined the National Socialists in 1924 to fight for a better Germany. Into his work with and for the National Socialist Party he put his patriotism, sincerity, and fervor. There must have been thousands like Pastor Niemoeller, honest earnest men whom people knew, trusted, and followed. Some of them, like Niemoeller, came to see that National Socialism (German Fascism) actually was destructive of the Germany of their hopes and aspirations; therefore, they broke with the Nazis at the risk of liberty and life. Others, not yet so disillusioned, continue to accept and promulgate German Fascism with sincerity and fervor. These are the really effective propagandists. Great and small, they are leaders of opinion in their communities. Because they are honest and respected, their influence is great. If, like Pastor Niemoeller, they come to see in German Fascism the destruction of the Germany of their aspirations, the more courageous of them may fight as zealously against Fascism as once they fought for it. The process of such disillusionment may be slow or negligible because the régime has a monopoly of propaganda.
Meanwhile, German Fascist propaganda may be expected increasingly to penetrate other lands: in some countries, such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Roumania,as preparation for Anschiuss; elsewhere as a means of obtaining open or tacit approval of such German Fascist expansion. Card Stacking must be used constantly by the National Socialists to prevent Germans and the rest of the world from knowing significant facts about German Fascism. In this connection note the proposal by Dr. Otto Dietrich,(42) Reich Press Chief, for press non-aggression pacts, providing for governmental control of printed and spoken words in all nations negotiating such treaties with Germany. Dean Carl W. Ackerman,(43) of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, recently voiced the implications under Dr. Dietrich's proposal:Every member of the Congress of the United States, of every state legislature, all mayors and members of city or town councils, all leaders of religious, educational, labor and business groups, all public speakers and writers, would have to submit any proposed public reference to Germany, or to German officials . . . to an official censor in Washington before it could be spoken or printed.
Once the German Fascists obtain power over another nation, we may expect that pressure will be exerted, as in the case of Austria, to bring the press and all channels of communication under totalitarian control, and to silence all critics. In order to save their lives and positions some editors, writers, clergymen, teachers, business men, farmers, and others who might be adversely critical will yield to pressure. By so doing they will become part of the totalitarian propaganda system—will lend themselves to its purposes either by silence or by outspoken approval. Particularly strong will be the pressure to silence teachers and clergymen. Courageous educators will be removed(44) from their teaching posts and forthright clergymen and priests from their pulpits. For one Pastor Niemoeller, imprisoned for his opposition, there will be others like Bishop Muller ready to accept position and prestige as reward. For one Cardinal Faulhaber, who in Munich at great personal risk refused to accept the German Fascist concept, there will be others like Cardinal Innitzer of Austria, who urged all Austrian Roman Catholics to accept the Nazi régime.(45) Some church leaders and some churches may yield to the régime or compromise differences in formal agreements. We may then expect them to join the National Socialists in their crusade against Judaism, communism, liberalism, and democracy. If this happens, we may expect to see an increasing use of the Transfer Device whereby such church groups give their sanction and authority to justify the expanding program of the German Fascists and their allies.
SUGGESTED READINGS
The foregoing analysis of National Socialist propaganda can do little more than suggest the techniques used in bringing about and maintaining German Fascism. For those who wish detailed accounts to make clearer the day-to-day developments in the European situation, caused by the National Socialist program of expansion, the following books are suggested:
Adolf Hitler's autobiography, Mein Kampf (Munich: Verlag Franz Eher Nachfolger, 1933), was begun when he was thirty-five while imprisoned in the fortress of Landsberg am Lech following the abortive Putsch of November, 1923. It contains his program and political theories. An English edition, considerably abridged, translated by E. T. S. Dugdale, has been published under the title of My Battle (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1937. Pp. viii + 297. $2.50).
Robert A. Brady's The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism (New York: The Viking Press, 1937. Pp. xix + 420. $3.00) gives a vivid picture of conditions in Germany under the National Socialists.
Frederick L. Schuman's The Nazi Dictatorship (2nd ed., revised; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1936. Pp. xiii + 516. $3.50) presents a clear account of the early history and propaganda of the Nazis.
Henri Lichtenberger's The Third Reich, translated from the French and edited by Koppel S. Pinson (New York: The Greystone Press, 1937. Pp. xi + 392. $3.00) reviews objectively the functioning of National Socialism. The appendix, containing material not readily available, and the excellent bibliography are particularly valuable.
Stephen H. Roberts' The House that Hitler Built (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1938. Pp. xii + 380. $3.00) is a dispassionate judgment of the Hitler régime. The author, an Australian, devotes much attention to the army.
Vaso Trivanovitch's Economic Development of Germany under National Socialism (New York: National Industrial Conference Board, Inc., 1937. Pp. xvii + 141. $3.50) contains valuable material on such subjects as the organization and the economic position of labor and industry, foreign trade, and public finance.
Five Years of Hitler (New York: American Council on Public Affairs, 1938. Pp. 46. 15c) sets forth in headline form an account of what has happened in National Socialist Germany. The editor is M. B. Schnapper; the contributors are Frederick L. Schuman, Henry Smith Leiper, Robert A. Brady, Alice Hamilton, Charles A. Beard, and H. C. Engelbrecht.
Calvin B. Hoover's Dictators and Democracies (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937. Pp. xi + 110. $1.50), while not devoted solely to National Socialism, is an interpretation of developments in Germany, Italy, and Soviet Russia as illustrations of totalitarian states.
Mildred S. Wertheimer's Germany Under Hitler (New York: Foreign Policy Association and World Peace Foundation, 1935. Pp. 48. 25c) gives a brief, concise account of the rise of Hitler to power and of his first two years as Chancellor of the German Reich.
The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, and Christian Science Monitor have carried particularly significant day-by-day accounts which reveal all of the common propaganda devices used by the German Fascists. These newspapers should be followed for contemporary evaluation of Nazi propaganda.
The American Observer, a weekly review of social thought and action (Civic Education Service, 744 Jackson Place, Washington, D. C., $2.00 a year), is convenient for those who lack the time to follow the day-by-day accounts in the better daily newspapers.
Vienna: March, 1938—A footnote for Historians is "a verbatim record of the Austrian crisis, exactly as it came to CBS listeners." Free single copies may be secured by addressing the Columbia Broadcasting System, 485 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y.
1 From Propaganda Analysis. By permission of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, 130 Morningside Drive, New York City.
2 See A. M. Lee, "Freedom of the Press: Service of a Catch Phrase," in Studies in the Science of Society, G. P. Murdock, editor (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1937), pp. 355-75.
3 See A. M. Lee, The Daily Newspaper in America (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937), chapters on "Advertising" (esp. pp. 370-3) and "Labor" (esp. pp. 152-63).
4 The official name of the political party which brought Fascism to Germany is the Nalionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party). For brevity's sake it is commonly referred to as the National Socialist party or by its initials, NSDAP. A short abbreviation much used in America is Nazi. As shown later, it is not actually a "socialist" or a "workers' " party.
5 See H. D. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the World War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927).
6 In spite of, or partly because of, the terrorism which accompanied Nazi propaganda, and because of a slight economic upturn in the autumn of 1932, public opinion began to react against Hitler. This was shown by a sharp decline in votes polled by the National Socialist party in the Reichstag election of November 6, 1932. Because the democratic realities of the Weimar Republic still permitted considerable free play of public opinion, a few of Hitler's most influential supporters decided at this juncture to urge his appointment as Chancellor. See Frederick L. Schuman, The Nazi Dictatorship (2nd ed., revised; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1936), chapter on "Victory by Default," for details of the victory of the National Socialists and of President von Hindenburg's appointment of Hitler as Chancellor on January 30, 1933.
7 See John T. Flynn, "The Steel Master Behind Hitler's Drive for Power," The New York World-Telegram, March 16, 1938 (NEA Service, Inc.). "He [Thyssen] is the man who made Hitler's regime possible and mobilizes big business in Germany behind him now."
8 Economic Development of Germany under National Socialism (New York: National Industrial Conference Board, Inc., 1937), pp. ix-xi.
9 See also the articles by Otto D. Tolischus, Berlin correspondent of The New York Times, for September 2-7, 1937.
10 Op. cit., pp. 91 ff.
11 Through Turbulent Years (New York: Robert M. McBride and Company, 1938), pp. 37-8.
12 Quoted by Henri Lichtenberger, The Third Reich (New York: The Greystone Press, 1937) p. 302.
13 New York Herald Tribune, April 4,1938.
14 Lichtenberger, op, cit., p. 153.
15 This is one of the many examples of how two or more of the common propaganda devices can be used in combination. Here the Glittering Generalities device is combined with the Band Wagon and Transfer devices.
16 Op. cit., p. 20.
17 See Robert A. Brady, The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism (New York: The Viking Press, 1937), pp. 149-157.
18 Op. cit., p. 32. See also Calvin B. Hoover, Dictators and Democracies (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1937), Essay on "Dictatorship and Property."
19 International Conciliation, (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, No. 324), November, 1936, p. 567.
20 Reprinted in Lichtenberger, op. cit., p. 348.
21 Ibid., p. 353.
22 Brady, op. cit., pp. 196-7.
23 The New York Herald Tribune, February 21, 1938.
24 The New York Times, November 28, 1937.
25 Note Hitler's reference in his speech at Linz, Upper Austria (The New York Times, March 13, 1938), to the taking of Austria as a "divine commission" and this quotation from his Vienna speech (ibid., April 10, 1938): "I believe it was G-d's will to send this Austrian boy to the Reich and to permit him to return as a mature man to reunite the two great sections of the German people.
"Within three days the Lord struck the former rulers of this country. Everything that has happened must have been pre-ordained by Divine Will."26 Albert Förster, in Kalender der deutschen Arbeit (Berlin: Verlag der deutschen Arbeitsfront, 1934), p. 195.
27 Rolf Dreves, in Kalender, op. cit., p. 57.
28 Kurt Biging, in Kalender, op. cit., p. 138.
29 cf. Ralph Thurston, "Under the Nazi Christmas Tree," The New Republic, December 25, 1935, pp. 193-4. See also Schuman, op. cit., pp. 370-374.
30 See Brady, op. cit., "The New Nazi Sciences" pp. 46-52
31 See Olin Downes in The New York Times, April 3, 1938. ". . . It remains a fact that an absolute dictatorship of the sort now practiced in such extensive areas of the world overseas [Germany, Italy, and Russia] is nothing but destructive to creative thought in any field."
32 "Hitler Unexpurgated: Deletions from 'Mein Kampf,' " in Nazism: An Assault on Civilization, Pierre van Paassen, editor (New York: Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1934), pp. 268, 272.
33 Quoted by Beard, op, cit., p. 269.
34 See Schuman, op. cit., "The Sign from Heaven," pp. 201-212.
35 Translated by Marvin Lowenthal in a letter to The New York Times, July 12, 1937.
36 Op. cit., pp. 257-279.
37 Ibid., p. 268.
38 For a summary of statistics relating to the number and positions of Jews in Germany, see Schuman, op. cit., pp. 316-8; and Mildred Wertheimer, "The Jews in the Third Reich," Foreign Policy Association Reports, IX (1933), pp. 174-184. According to German census figures in 1925, professing Judaists constituted 0.9 per cent of the total population of 62,410,619.
39 Beard, op. cit., p. 267.
40 Quoted by Beard, op. cit., p. 258.
41 See William Graham Sumner, Folkways, chap. i.
42 See The New York Times, March 8, 1938.
43 Reported in The New York Herald Tribune, March 21, 1938.
44 See The New York Times, March 28, 1938, for an account of Edward Y. Hartshorne's study of the effect of the Nazi dictatorship on German education, in which he shows that of the 1,684 professors who have been dismissed by the National Socialists almost 900 were released for being Jewish, Catholic, or "politically unreliable" and more than 700 others were dismissed for no known cause.
45 Cf. The New York Times, March 29, 1938, and The New York Sun, March 28, 1938.
