Background music : National Socialist propaganda and the reinforcement of German virtue

Abstract

This thesis examines the implementation of official propaganda issued by the National Socialist regime during the years following Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933 up through 1945. By analyzing two very different mediums of propaganda used by the National Socialist party, film and advertising in a middle-class German periodical, I compare subtle and overt propaganda methods, as well as the differing approaches the Reich Ministry for Propaganda took when targeting varying audiences. My first chapter is an in depth analysis of the German Film industry under the Third Reich. I looked at three Nazi propaganda films: Triumph des Willens (1934), a film created in order to establish Hitler's role as the leader of the Third Reich, der ewige Jude (1940), a crude, documentary style, anti-Semitic film, and Jud Siij3 (1940), a feature length entertainment film. A comparison of the content of these films and their respective box office results point out the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to propaganda films. In my second chapter I explore women's advertisements in the popular German periodical die Gartenlaube. By looking at the evolving depiction of women in advertisements for products such as Nivea-Creme and Nur Blond (a women's hair product), and the imagery of women on the covers of the magazine, I attempt to show the ways in which the National Socialist party attempted to connect the standards of beauty to political and ideological goals, thereby redefining them. The political and ideological propaganda of the party was the "background music" to everyday life, regardless of whether its German viewers were political supporters of the Nazi Party. I argue that the goal of the Reich Ministry for Propaganda and Public Enlightenment was never to transform or mold the minds of the masses, but to reiterate and reinforce pervasive beliefs and to encourage passive acceptance of, or even just minimize opposition to, Nazi ideology and legislation.