# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Man Behind Hitler | Article

USHMM, Courtesy of National Archives

On May 10, 1933, university students in 34 university towns across Germany burned over 25,000 books. The works of Jewish authors like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud went up in flames alongside blacklisted American authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Helen Keller, while students gave the Nazi salute. In Berlin 40,000 people gathered to hear German Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels give a speech in Berlin's Opera Square. He declared "the era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end. ... The future German man will not just be a man of books, but a man of character. It is to this end that we want to educate you. ... And thus you do well in this midnight hour to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past." Radio stations broadcast the Berlin speeches, songs, and ceremonial incantations to countless German listeners. Widespread newspaper coverage called the "Action against the Un-German Spirit" a success. The Nazi war on "un-German" individual expression had begun.

Destroying Ideas
As early as two weeks before, American organizations like the American Jewish Congress knew of the planned book burnings and launched protests. With her books slated for the bonfires, Helen Keller confronted German students in an open letter: "History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas. Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and the ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them. You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds." Similarly, novelist Sherwood Anderson, best-selling author Faith Baldwin, scriptwriter Erwin Cobb, and Nobel laureate Sinclair Lewis declared their solidarity with the banned writers and publicly protested the book burnings. Many writers called to mind the prophetic observation by 19th century German writer Heinrich Heine that "where one burns books, one will soon burn people."

A Sign of the Ultimate Goal
After the bonfires, 100,000 people marched in New York City to protest Nazi policies. Similar demonstrations occurred in Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis. While German newspapers triumphantly reported that Germany was purging itself of Jews and others considered politically or artistically suspect, the American media responded with shock. Newsweek called it "a holocaust of books;" Time a "bibliocaust." Yet the indignation was more rhetoric than true outrage. New York Herald Tribune columnist Walter Lippmann was one of the few journalists reporting on the Nazis who took the book burnings as an ominous sign of the Nazis' ultimate goal. "These acts symbolize the moral and intellectual character of the Nazi regime," he wrote. "For these bonfires are not the work of schoolboys or mobs but of the present German Government ... The ominous symbolism of [this act and] these bonfires is that there is a government in Germany which means to teach its people that their salvation lies in violence."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Book Burnings in Germany, 1933 | American Experience | PBS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Man Behind Hitler | Article On May 10, 1933, university students in 34 university towns across Germany burned over 25,000 books. The works of Jewish authors like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud went up in flames alongside blacklisted American authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Helen Keller, while students gave the Nazi salute.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Book burning is the ritual destruction by fire of books or other written materials. The Nazi burning of books in May 1933 is perhaps the most famous in history. Learn more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Background

Soon after Adolf Hitler took power in Germany in 1933, observers in the United States and other western democracies debated on whether or not to boycott the 1936 Olympic Games. While Hitler saw the Olympics as a chance to demonstrate the superiority of what he considered the "master race," observers from outside Germany questioned the morality of supporting Olympic Games hosted by the Nazi regime. This led to debates on whether or not to participate in this international sporting event. For African Americans, this debate had an added dimension. They already faced racism at home and now they had to decide whether to represent the United States in a country dominated by a racist dictatorship.

Discrimination at Home

In the 1930s, Black people suffered discrimination in most areas of American life. "Jim Crow" laws, designed to keep Black people powerless and segregated, barred African Americans from many jobs and from entering public places such as restaurants, hotels, and other facilities. In the South especially, Black people lived in fear of racially motivated violence. This discrimination extended to a number of institutions. For example, the United States military was still segregated during World War II. Racial discrimination was also prevalent in sports. Opportunities for Black athletes were limited at both the college and professional levels.

The Boycott Debate and African American Athletes

Movements in the United States and other countries to boycott the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany began already in 1933.

During the boycott debate, African American athletes faced pressure to take a moral stand against Nazism. Having successfully trained to become Olympians, some African American athletes resented being asked to protest the discrimination against Jewish athletes in Germany while America had its own pervasive and segregationist Jim Crow laws.

Thus, African American athletes were in a unique position when it came to the boycott debate. On the one hand, the Olympic Games provided an opportunity for Black American athletes to demonstrate their talents and chip away at racial stereotypes at home and abroad. On the other, there were concerns for how Black Olympians would be treated upon their arrival for the Games in Nazi Germany. These concerns, however, were quickly alleviated. In June 1933, under pressure from the International Olympic Committee, the German Olympic Committee pledged that Germany would abide by the Olympic Charter. This charter banned all discrimination in sport.

With concerns about the safety of Black athletes in Nazi Germany thus allayed, many African American newspapers opposed boycotting the 1936 Olympic Games. Black journalists criticized supporters of the Olympic boycott for their hypocrisy: how could they talk so much about discrimination against athletes in foreign lands but not address the problem of discrimination against athletes at home? They also pointed out that all the Black Olympians came from northern universities that served mostly white students. They said that this showed the inferiority of training equipment and facilities at traditionally Black colleges, where most African American students were educated in the 1930s.

Writers for such papers as the Philadelphia Tribune and the Chicago Defender argued that victories by Black athletes would undermine racism and the emphasis on "Aryan" supremacy at the core of Nazi racial views. They also hoped that such victories would foster a new sense of Black pride at home. The Chicago Defender reported, on December 14, 1935, that African American track stars Eulace Peacock, Jesse Owens, and Ralph Metcalfe favored participating in the Olympics because they felt that their victories would serve to repudiate Nazi racial theories. (An injury would prevent Peacock from participating in the Games.)

African American opinions on this matter, however, were not unanimous. Some Black-owned newspapers and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) strongly opposed the racist policies of the Nazi regime. Already in 1933, the NAACP expressed concern about Black athletes' participation in the Berlin Olympics. And as late as August 1935, the New York Amsterdam News encouraged Black athletes to boycott the Games.

In December 1935, Walter White, Secretary of the NAACP, expressed his opposition to the Games in a letter drafted (external link) but never sent to Jesse Owens. In this draft letter he urged Owens to boycott the 1936 Olympic Games, writing:

"...it is my firm conviction that the issue of participation in the 1936 Olympics, if held in Germany under the present regime, transcends all other issues. Participation by American athletes, and especially by those of our own race which has suffered more than any other from American race hatred, would, I firmly believe, do irreparable harm."
-Letter drafted but not sent from Walter White, NAACP Secretary,
to Jesse Owens, Olympic athlete
December 4, 1935

White also raised the issue of growing antisemitism, and growing anti-Catholic and anti-Black prejudice in the United States. He expressed fears that the United States could head towards a Fascist dictatorship if the Hitlers of the world were not stopped.

It seems that White never sent this letter to Owens; however, his words provide a historical record of the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by African American athletes at the time.

African American Athletes in the 1936 Olympics
The Nazi Olympics Berlin 1936: African American Voices and "Jim Crow" America
In the end, 18 African Americans (16 men and 2 women) competed in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. This was three times the number who had competed in the 1932 Los Angeles Games. The increase in the number of Black athletes who competed reflected the migration of Black people to northern cities beginning in the 1910s. It was also the result of the growing interest of northern colleges in recruiting Black athletes.

The African American athletes on the 1936 US Olympic team brought home 14 medals: 8 gold; 4 silver; and 2 bronze.

African American Medalists

David Albritton

High jump, silver

Cornelius Johnson

High jump, gold

James LuValle

400-meter run, bronze

Ralph Metcalfe

4x100-meter relay, gold
100-meter dash, silver

Jesse Owens

100-meter dash, gold
200-meter dash, gold
Broad (long) jump, gold
4x100-meter relay, gold

Frederick Pollard, Jr.

110-meter hurdles, bronze

Matthew Robinson

200-meter dash, silver

Archibald Williams

400-meter run, gold

Jack Wilson

Bantamweight boxing, silver

John Woodruff

800-meter run, gold

Continued Discrimination after the Olympics

While the 1936 Olympic victories were a source of pride for the African American communities in the United States and a step toward alleviating discrimination in American sports, they did not have an immediate impact on the daily lives of Black athletes at home or on American race relations in general. After the Olympics, the athletes returned to a country segregated by race, to a nation where they were treated as "second-class" citizens. A survey of the press from the time, particularly in the South, indicates that the success of African American Olympians was either downplayed or ignored.

And Olympic victories did not translate into professional opportunities. As Jesse Owens, the most celebrated athlete on the 1936 US Olympic team, wrote in his 1972 autobiography I Have Changed:

"After I came home from the 1936 Olympics with my four medals, it became increasingly apparent that everyone was going to slap me on the back, want to shake my hand or have me up to their suite. But no one was going to offer me a job."
-Jesse Owens, 1972

Despite this pervasive racism, the boycott debate before the Olympics and the clear victories of African American athletes at the Games had an impact in the long term. Specifically, the boycott debate called attention to racial discrimination through the prism of sports, while the Olympic victories of such celebrated figures as Jesse Owens and Mack Robinson inspired future Black Olympians.

Last Edited: Aug 13, 2020

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Nazi Olympics Berlin 1936: African American Voices and "Jim Crow" America

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Soon after Adolf Hitler took power in Germany in 1933, observers in the United States and other western democracies debated on whether or not to boycott the 1936 Olympic Games. While Hitler saw the Olympics as a chance to demonstrate the superiority of what he considered the "master race," observers from outside Germany questioned the morality of supporting Olympic Games hosted by the Nazi regime.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Was Jesse Owens Snubbed by Adolf Hitler at the Berlin Olympics?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Was Jesse Owens Snubbed by Adolf Hitler at the Berlin Olympics?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Introduction
The Nazi Olympics Berlin 1936
For two weeks in August 1936, Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship camouflaged its racist, militaristic character while hosting the Summer Olympics. Softpedaling its antisemitic agenda and plans for territorial expansion, the regime exploited the Games to bedazzle many foreign spectators and journalists with an image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany.

Having rejected a proposed boycott of the 1936 Olympics, the sponsoring athletic and Olympic organizations of the United States and other western democracies missed the opportunity to take a stand that-some observers at the time claimed-might have given Hitler pause and bolstered international resistance to Nazi tyranny.

With the conclusion of the Games, Germany's expansionist policies and the persecution of Jews and other "enemies of the state" accelerated, culminating in World War II and the Holocaust.

The 1936 Summer Olympic Games

In 1931, the International Olympic Committee awarded the 1936 Summer Olympics to Berlin. The choice signaled Germany's return to the world community after its isolation in the aftermath of defeat in World War I.

Two years later, Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany and quickly turned the nation's fragile democracy into a one-party dictatorship that persecuted Jews, Roma (Gypsies), all political opponents, and others. The Nazi claim to control all aspects of German life also extended to sports.

German sports imagery of the 1930s served to promote the myth of "Aryan" racial superiority and physical prowess. In sculpture and in other forms, German artists idealized athletes' well-developed muscle tone and heroic strength and accentuated ostensibly Aryan facial features. Such imagery also reflected the importance the Nazi regime placed on physical fitness, a prerequisite for military service.

Exclusion from German Sports

In April 1933, an "Aryans only" policy was instituted in all German athletic organizations. "Non-Aryans"-Jews or individuals with Jewish parents and Roma (Gypsies)-were systematically excluded from German sports facilities and associations. The German Boxing Association expelled professional light heavyweight champion Erich Seelig in April 1933 because he was Jewish. (Seelig later resumed his boxing career in the United States.) Another Jewish athlete, Daniel Prenn-Germany's top-ranked tennis player-was removed from Germany's Davis Cup Team. Gretel Bergmann, a world-class high jumper, was expelled from her German club in 1933 and excluded from the German Olympic team in 1936.

Jewish athletes barred from German sports clubs flocked to separate Jewish associations, including the Maccabee and Shield groups, and to improvised segregated facilities. But these Jewish sports facilities were not comparable to well-funded German groups. Roma (Gypsies), including the Sinti boxer Johann Rukelie Trollmann, were also excluded from German sports.

Jewish Athletes

As a token gesture to placate international opinion, German authorities allowed the star fencer Helene Mayer to represent Germany at the Olympic Games in Berlin. Mayer was viewed as a "non-Aryan" because her father was Jewish. She won a silver medal in women's individual fencing and, like all other medalists for Germany, gave the Nazi salute on the podium. No other Jewish athlete competed for Germany in the Summer Games.

Still, nine athletes who were Jewish or of Jewish parentage won medals in the Nazi Olympics, including Mayer and five Hungarians. Seven Jewish male athletes from the United States went to Berlin. Like some of the European Jewish competitors at the Olympics, many of these young men were pressured by Jewish organizations to boycott the Games. These athletes chose to compete for a variety of reasons. Most did not fully grasp at the time the extent and purpose of Nazi persecution of Jews and other groups.

In August 1936, the Nazi regime tried to camouflage its violent racist policies while it hosted the Summer Olympics. Most anti-Jewish signs were temporarily removed and newspapers toned down their harsh rhetoric, in line with directives from the Propaganda Ministry, headed by Joseph Goebbels. Thus, the regime exploited the Olympic Games to present foreign spectators and journalists with a false image of a peaceful, tolerant Germany.

Boycott Movements

Movements to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics surfaced in the United States, Great Britain, France, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands. Debate over participation in the 1936 Olympics was most intense in the United States, which traditionally sent one of the largest teams to the Games. Some boycott proponents supported counter-Olympics. One of the largest was the "People's Olympiad" planned for the summer of 1936 in Barcelona, Spain. It was canceled after the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936, just as thousands of athletes had begun to arrive.

Individual Jewish athletes from a number of countries also chose to boycott the Berlin Olympics or Olympic qualifying trials. In the United States, some Jewish athletes and Jewish organizations such as the American Jewish Congress and the Jewish Labor Committee supported a boycott, as did a number of liberal Catholic politicians and many college presidents. However, once the Amateur Athletic Union of the United States opted in a close vote to participate in December 1935, other countries fell in line and the boycott movement failed.

Preparation for the Games

The Nazis made elaborate preparations for the August 1-16 Summer Games. A huge sports complex was constructed, including a new stadium and state-of-the art Olympic village for housing the athletes. Olympic flags and swastikas bedecked the monuments and houses of a festive, crowded Berlin.

Most tourists were unaware that the Nazi regime had temporarily removed anti-Jewish signs, nor did they know of a police roundup of Roma in Berlin, ordered by the German Ministry of the Interior. On July 16, 1936, some 800 Roma residing in Berlin and its environs were arrested and interned under police guard in a special camp in the Berlin suburb of Marzahn.

Nazi officials also ordered that foreign visitors should not be subjected to the criminal penalties of Paragraph 175, a German statute that criminalized sexual relations between men.

Opening of the Games

On August 1, 1936, Hitler opened the XIth Olympiad. Musical fanfares directed by the famous composer Richard Strauss announced the dictator's arrival to the largely German crowd. Hundreds of athletes in opening day regalia marched into the stadium, team by team in alphabetical order. Inaugurating a new Olympic ritual, a lone runner arrived bearing a torch carried by relay from the site of the ancient Games in Olympia, Greece.

Forty-nine athletic teams from around the world competed in the Berlin Olympics, more than in any previous Olympics. Germany fielded the largest team with 348 athletes. The US team was the second largest, with 312 members, including 18 African Americans. American Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage led the delegation. The Soviet Union did not participate in the Berlin Games (or any Olympics until the 1952 Helsinki Games, when many politicians, journalists, and competitors regarded the Olympics as an important battle in the Cold War).

Propaganda

Germany skillfully promoted the Olympics with colorful posters and magazine spreads. Athletic imagery drew a link between Nazi Germany and ancient Greece, symbolizing the Nazi racial myth that a superior German civilization was the rightful heir of an "Aryan" culture of classical antiquity. This vision of classical antiquity emphasized ideal "Aryan" racial types: heroic, blue-eyed blonds with finely chiseled features.

Concerted propaganda efforts continued well after the Olympics with the international release in 1938 of Olympia, the controversial documentary directed by German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. Renowned for her earlier propaganda film, Triumph of the Will (1934) depicting Nazi Party rallies at Nuremberg, Riefenstahl was commissioned by the Nazi regime to produce this film about the 1936 Summer Games.

German Victories

Germany emerged victorious from the XIth Olympiad. German athletes captured the most medals, and German hospitality and organization won the praises of visitors. Most newspaper accounts echoed the New York Times report that the Games put Germany "back in the fold of nations," and even made the Germans "more human again." Some even found reason to hope that this peaceable interlude would endure. Only a few reporters, such as the American William Shirer, understood that the Berlin glitter was merely a facade hiding a racist and violently oppressive regime.

After the Games

As post-Games reports were filed, Hitler pressed on with grandiose plans for German expansion. Persecution of Jews resumed. Two days after the Olympics, Captain Wolfgang Fuerstner, head of the Olympic village, killed himself when he was dismissed from military service because of his Jewish ancestry.

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Within just three years of the Olympiad, the "hospitable" and "peaceable" sponsor of the Games unleashed World War II, a conflict that resulted in untold destruction. With the conclusion of the Games, Germany's expansionist policies and the persecution of Jews and other "enemies of the state" accelerated, culminating in the Holocaust.

Last Edited: Aug 22, 2023

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Nazi Olympics -1936 Berlin Olympic Games

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The 1936 Olympics in Berlin under Adolf Hitler's Nazi dictatorship were more than just a worldwide sporting event, they were also a show of Nazi propaganda.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, aimed to eliminate Europe’s Jews and other perceived enemies of Nazi Germany. Learn more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Before the onset of the Great Depression in Germany in 1929-1930, the National Socialist German Workers' Party (or Nazi Party for short) was a small party on the radical right of the German political spectrum. In the Reichstag (parliament) elections of May 2, 1928, the Nazis received only 2.6 percent of the national vote, a proportionate decline from 1924, when the Nazis received 3 percent of the vote. As a result of the election, a "Grand Coalition" of Germany's Social Democratic, Catholic Center, German Democratic, and German People's parties governed Weimar Germany into the first six months of the economic downturn.

During 1930-1933, the mood in Germany was grim. The worldwide economic depression had hit the country hard, and millions of people were out of work. The unemployed were joined by millions of others who linked the Depression to Germany's national humiliation after defeat in World War 1. Many Germans perceived the parliamentary government coalition as weak and unable to alleviate the economic crisis. Widespread economic misery, fear, and perception of worse times to come, as well as anger and impatience with the apparent failure of the government to manage the crisis, offered fertile ground for the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party.

Hitler was a powerful and spellbinding orator who, by tapping into the anger and helplessness felt by a large number of voters, attracted a wide following of Germans desperate for change. Nazi electoral propaganda promised to pull Germany out of the Depression. The Nazis pledged to restore German cultural values, reverse the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, turn back the perceived threat of a Communist uprising, put the German people back to work, and restore Germany to its "rightful position" as a world power. Hitler and other Nazi propagandists were highly successful in directing the population's anger and fear against the Jews; against the Marxists (Communists and Social Democrats); and against those the Nazis held responsible for signing both the armistice of November 1918 and the Versailles treaty, and for establishing the parliamentary republic. Hitler and the Nazis often referred to the latter as "November criminals."

Hitler and other Nazi speakers carefully tailored their speeches to each audience. For example, when speaking to businessmen, the Nazis downplayed antisemitism and instead emphasized anti-communism and the return of German colonies lost through the Treaty of Versailles. When addressed to soldiers, veterans, or other nationalist interest groups, Nazi propaganda emphasized military buildup and return of other territories lost after Versailles. Nazi speakers assured farmers in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein that a Nazi government would prop up falling agricultural prices. Pensioners all over Germany were told that both the amounts and the buying power of their monthly checks would remain stable.

Using a deadlock among the partners in the "Grand Coalition" as an excuse, Center party politician and Reich Chancellor Heinrich Bruening induced the aging Reich President, World War I Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, to dissolve the parliament in July 1930 and schedule new elections for September 1930. To dissolve the parliament, the president used Article 48 of the German constitution. This Article permitted the German government to govern without parliamentary consent and was to be applied only in cases of direct national emergency.

Bruening miscalculated the mood of the nation after six months of economic depression. The Nazis won 18.3 percent of the vote and became the second largest political party in the country.

For two years, repeatedly resorting to Article 48 to issue presidential decrees, the Bruening government sought and failed to build a parliamentary majority that would exclude Social Democrats, Communists, and Nazis. In 1932, Hindenburg dismissed Bruening and appointed Franz von Papen, a former diplomat and Center party politician, as chancellor. Papen dissolved the Reichstag again, but the July 1932 elections brought the Nazi party 37.3 percent of the popular vote, making it the largest political party in Germany. The Communists (taking votes from the Social Democrats in the increasingly desperate economic climate) received 14.3 percent of the vote. As a result, more than half the deputies in the 1932 Reichstag had publicly committed themselves to ending parliamentary democracy.

When Papen was unable to obtain a parliamentary majority to govern, his opponents among President Hindenburg's advisers forced him to resign. His successor, General Kurt von Schleicher, dissolved the Reichstag again. In the ensuing elections in November 1932, the Nazis lost ground, winning 33.1 percent of the vote. The Communists, however gained votes, winning 16.9 percent. As a result, the small circle around President Hindenburg came to believe, by the end of 1932, that the Nazi party was Germany's only hope to forestall political chaos ending in a Communist takeover. Nazi negotiators and propagandists did much to enhance this impression.

On January 30, 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany. Hitler was not appointed chancellor as the result of an electoral victory with a popular mandate, but instead as the result of a constitutionally questionable deal among a small group of conservative German politicians who had given up on parliamentary rule. They hoped to use Hitler's popularity with the masses to buttress a return to conservative authoritarian rule, perhaps even a monarchy. Within two years, however, Hitler and the Nazis outmaneuvered Germany's conservative politicians to consolidate a radical Nazi dictatorship completely subordinate to Hitler's personal will.

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Nazi Party was one of a number of right-wing extremist political groups that emerged in Germany following World War I. Learn about the Nazi rise to power.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Shaping the Future: Indoctrinating Youth

"These boys and girls enter our organizations [at] ten years of age, and often for the first time get a little fresh air; after four years of the Young Folk they go on to the Hitler Youth, where we have them for another four years . . . And even if they are still not complete National Socialists, they go to Labor Service and are smoothed out there for another six, seven months . . . And whatever class consciousness or social status might still be left . . . the Wehrmacht [German armed forces] will take care of that."
-Adolf Hitler (1938)

From the 1920s onwards, the Nazi Party targeted German youth as a special audience for its propaganda messages. These messages emphasized that the Party was a movement of youth: dynamic, resilient, forward-looking, and hopeful. Millions of German young people were won over to Nazism in the classroom and through extracurricular activities. In January 1933, the Hitler Youth had approximately 100,000 members, but by the end of the year this figure had increased to more than 2 million. By 1937 membership in the Hitler Youth increased to 5.4 million before it became mandatory in 1939. The German authorities then prohibited or dissolved competing youth organizations.

Education in the Nazi State

Education in the Third Reich served to indoctrinate students with the National Socialist world view. Nazi scholars and educators glorified Nordic and other "Aryan" races, while labeling Jews and other so-called inferior peoples as parasitic "bastard races" incapable of creating culture or civilization.

After 1933, the Nazi regime purged the public school system of teachers deemed to be Jews or to be "politically unreliable." Most educators, however, remained in their posts and joined the National Socialist Teachers League. 97% of all public school teachers, some 300,000 persons, had joined the League by 1936. In fact, teachers joined the Nazi Party in greater numbers than any other profession.

In the classroom and in the Hitler Youth, instruction aimed to produce race-conscious, obedient, self-sacrificing Germans who would be willing to die for Führer and Fatherland. Devotion to Adolf Hitler was a key component of Hitler Youth training. German young people celebrated his birthday (April 20)-a national holiday-for membership inductions. German adolescents swore allegiance to Hitler and pledged to serve the nation and its leader as future soldiers.

Schools played an important role in spreading Nazi ideas to German youth. While censors removed some books from the classroom, German educators introduced new textbooks that taught students love for Hitler, obedience to state authority, militarism, racism, and antisemitism.

From their first days in school, German children were imbued with the cult of Adolf Hitler. His portrait was a standard fixture in classrooms. Textbooks frequently described the thrill of a child seeing the German leader for the first time.

Board games and toys for children served as another way to spread racial and political propaganda to German youth. Toys were also used as propaganda vehicles to indoctrinate children into militarism.

Youth Organizations

The Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls were the primary tools that the Nazis used to shape the beliefs, thinking and actions of German youth. Youth leaders used tightly controlled group activities and staged propaganda events such as mass rallies full of ritual and spectacle to create the illusion of one national community reaching across class and religious divisions that characterized Germany before 1933.

Founded in 1926, the original purpose of the Hitler Youth was to train boys to enter the SA (Storm Troopers), a Nazi Party paramilitary formation. After 1933, however, youth leaders sought to integrate boys into the Nazi national community and to prepare them for service as soldiers in the armed forces or, later, in the SS.

In 1936, membership in Nazi youth groups became mandatory for all boys and girls between the ages of ten and seventeen. After-school meetings and weekend camping trips sponsored by the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls trained children to become faithful to the Nazi Party and the future leaders of the National Socialist state. By September 1939, over 765,000 young people served in leadership roles in Nazi youth organizations which prepared them for such roles in the military and the German occupation bureaucracy.

The Hitler Youth combined sports and outdoor activities with ideology. Similarly, the League of German Girls emphasized collective athletics, such as rhythmic gymnastics, which German health authorities deemed less strenuous to the female body and better geared to preparing them for motherhood. Their public displays of these values encouraged young men and women to abandon their individuality in favor of the goals of the Aryan collective.

Military Service

Upon reaching age eighteen, boys were required to enlist immediately in the armed forces or into the Reich Labor Service, for which their activities in the Hitler Youth had prepared them. Propaganda materials called for ever more fanatic devotion to Nazi ideology, even as the German military suffered from defeat after defeat.

In the autumn of 1944, as Allied armies crossed the borders into Germany, the Nazi regime conscripted German youths under sixteen to defend the Reich, along side seniors over the age of 60, in the units of the " Volkssturm " (People's Assault).

After the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces in May 1945, some German boys continued to fight in guerilla groups known as "Werewolves". During the following year, Allied occupation authorities required young Germans to undergo a "de-Nazification" process and training in democracy designed to counter the effects of twelve years of Nazi propaganda.

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Nazi Party targeted German youth as a special audience for its propaganda messages. Read more about the indoctrination of youth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In his book Mein Kampf, written in the 1920s, Hitler said, "Whoever has the youth has the future." Even before they came to power in 1933, Nazi leaders had begun to organize groups that would train young people according to Nazi principles. By 1936, all "Aryan" children in Germany over the age of six were required to join a Nazi youth group. At ten, boys were initiated into the Jungvolk (Young People), and at 14 they were promoted to the Hitler Youth. Their sisters joined the Jungmädel (Young Girls) and were later promoted to the League of German Girls. Hitler hoped that "These young people will learn nothing else but how to think German and act German. . . . And they will never be free again, not in their whole lives."

Although membership in the Hitler Youth organizations was compulsory, many young people did not have to be forced to join. In fact, they were eager to do so, drawn by the sense of belonging and importance they felt as members of these groups. In 1938, a boy named Hans Wolf wrote a story about his experiences in the Hitler Youth that was published in a school textbook. The story was called "Comradeship." It begins:

It was a hot day and we had far to march. The sun was burning down on the heath, which was bereft of trees. The sand was glistening, I was tired. My feet were hurting in those new walking shoes, every step was hurting and all I could think about was rest, water, and shade. I clenched my teeth to keep walking. I was the youngest, and this was my first outing. In front of me strode Rudolf, the leader. He was tall and strong. His backpack was heavy and pressed down on his shoulders. Rudolf carried the bread for us six boys, the cooking pot, and a pile of books, from which he would read us wonderfully thrilling stories, at night in the hostel. My backpack only contained a shirt, a couple of sneakers, washing utensils, and some cooking gear, apart from a tarpaulin for rainy days and straw beds. And yet I thought I could not lug this backpack any longer. My comrades all were somewhat older and had camping experience. They hardly felt the heat and hardship of the march. Every now and then they would sigh and drink lukewarm coffee from their canteens. More and more, I remained behind, even though I tried to make up for my slack by running. Suddenly Rudolf turned around. He stopped and watched me crawling up to him from a distance, while our comrades continued in the direction of a few trees on the horizon. "Tired?" Rudolf asked me, kindly. Ashamed, I had to say yes. Slowly, we walked side by side. I was limping. But I did not want to let on to Rudolf. When we got to a juniper bush, the leader sat down and said: "For a little rest!" Relieved, I threw myself down. I did not want to talk, for I was shy. Rudolf gave me something to drink. I thanked him and leaned back comfortably, glad to be able to stretch my aching feet, and before I knew it I was sleeping. . . . When we resumed our march, my feet hurt much less and my backpack did not press down on me so. I was very glad about that.

Like Hans Wolf, Alfons Heck was an enthusiastic participant in the Nazi Youth organizations. In a memoir written many years after World War II, Heck reflected on what made him want to join:

Far from being forced to enter the ranks of the Jungvolk, I could barely contain my impatience and was, in fact, accepted before I was quite 10. It seemed like an exciting life, free from parental supervision, filled with "duties" that seemed sheer pleasure. Precision marching was something one could endure for hiking, camping, war games in the field, and a constant emphasis on sports. . . . To a degree, our pre-war activities resembled those of the Boy Scouts, with much more emphasis on discipline and political indoctrination. There were the paraphernalia and the symbols, the pomp and the mysticism, very close in feeling to religious rituals. One of the first significant demands was the so-called . . . "test of courage," which was usually administered after a six-month period of probation. The members of my Schar, a platoon-like unit of about 40-50 boys, were required to dive off the three-meter board-about 10 feet high-head first in the town's swimming pool. There were some stinging belly flops, but the pain was worth it when our Fahnleinführer, the 15-year-old leader of Fahnlein (literally "little flag"), a company-like unit of about 160 boys, handed us the coveted dagger with its inscription Blood and Honor. From that moment on we were fully accepted.

1. Why do you think the Nazi leadership wanted all young people to belong to a Nazi youth group? What were the young boys in this reading being prepared for through their participation?

2. Why would the authorities want to include Hans Wolf's story in a school textbook? What values does the story communicate?

3. How are the two excerpts (by Hans Wolf and Alfons Heck) different? Looking back, what does Heck see that he might not have been aware of at the time?

4. How do the Nazi youth organizations and their symbols connect with the idea of a "national community"? How do they connect with the vision of a nation ready for battle?

5. When is it appealing to join a group? Why might some young people have joined even if they didn't fully agree with Nazi policies?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In his book Mein Kampf, written in the 1920s, Hitler said, "Whoever has the youth has the future." Even before they came to power in 1933, Nazi leaders had begun to organize groups that would train young people according to Nazi principles.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On November 9–10, 1938, the Nazi regime coordinated a wave of antisemitic violence. This became known as Kristallnacht or the “Night of Broken Glass.” Learn more

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On the night of November 9-10, 1938, the Nazi regime coordinated a wave of antisemitic violence in Nazi Germany. This nationwide riot became known as the "Night of Broken Glass." The name "Kristallnacht" is a reference to the shattered glass from store windows that littered the streets during and after the riot. Kristallnacht or Kristallnacht is also sometimes referred to as the November pogrom.

The violence was supposed to look like an unplanned outburst of popular anger against Jews. In reality, Kristallnacht was state-sponsored vandalism and arson. Nazi leaders actively coordinated it with Adolf Hitler's support. On the night of November 9, Nazi leaders ordered members of the Nazi Party's paramilitaries (the SS, the SA, and the Hitler Youth) to attack Jewish communities.

In the hours and days that followed, organized groups of Nazis wreaked havoc on Jewish life in Nazi Germany. During the riot, local Nazis set hundreds of synagogues on fire. They vandalized thousands of Jewish-owned businesses. They desecrated Jewish cemeteries. They broke into homes, smashed furniture, and terrorized Jewish families. Following orders given by Nazi leaders, police forces and fire brigades did not intervene to stop the destruction. Policemen did not protect Jews or their property. Firemen did not put out fires in synagogues.

The rioters also attacked and beat individual Jewish people. As a result, hundreds of Jews died during Kristallnacht and its aftermath. Some died of injuries inflicted during the riots. Others were deliberately killed.

During Kristallnacht, the Nazi regime ordered the police to arrest about 30,000 German Jewish men. These men had not committed any crime. The police arrested them simply for being Jewish. They were sent to concentration camps such as Dachau and Buchenwald. In the concentration camps, the men were humiliated and violently attacked. Some even died. The arrests shocked and terrified Jewish families and communities. In the following months, the Nazi authorities released many of these men if families could prove they had plans to leave Germany.

Kristallnacht was an important turning point for Germany's Jews. Afterwards, many Jews concluded that there was no future for them in Nazi Germany.

Key Dates

November 7, 1938
The catalyst for On November 7, 1938, Herschel Grynszpan shoots Ernst vom Rath. Grynszpan is a 17-year-old Polish-German Jew living in Paris. Vom Rath is a minor German diplomat posted to the German embassy in Paris. Grynszpan apparently acts out of despair over the fate of his parents, whom the Nazi regime had expelled from Germany to Poland. The Nazis use the shooting to incite antisemitic fervor. They claim that Grynszpan shot vom Rath as part of a wider Jewish conspiracy against Germany. When vom Rath dies on November 9, Nazi leaders use this theory as a pretext for Kristallnacht .

November 9, 1938
Joseph Goebbels instigates On November 9, 1938, Nazi Party leaders from across Germany are gathered in Munich to commemorate the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed attempt by Adolf Hitler in 1923 to seize power in Germany. During the commemoration of the putsch, they learn that Ernst vom Rath has died of his wounds. In response, German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels delivers a passionate antisemitic speech. With Hitler's permission, Goebbels calls for an attack on Germany's Jewish communities. After the speech, Nazi officials call their home districts and communicate Goebbels' instructions. This results in the violence known today as Kristallnacht , or the "Night of Broken Glass."

November 15, 1938
President Roosevelt condemns At a press conference on November 15, 1938, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt denounces the Nazis' antisemitic attack. In an official statement, he writes, "I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a twentieth-century civilization." To show the US government's condemnation of the violence, President Roosevelt recalls the US ambassador to Germany.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The "Night of Broken Glass" | Holocaust Encyclopedia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On November 9-10, 1938, the Nazi regime coordinated a wave of antisemitic violence in Nazi Germany. This became known as Kristallnacht or the "Night of Broken Glass."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On September 15, 1935, the Nazi regime announced two new laws related to race:

The Reich Citizenship Law

The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor

These laws informally became known as the Nuremberg Laws or Nuremberg Race Laws. This is because they were first announced at a Nazi Party rally held in the German city of Nuremberg.

Why did the Nazis enact the Nuremberg Race Laws?

The Nuremberg Race Laws The Nazis enacted the Nuremberg Laws, because they wanted to put their ideas about race into law. They believed in the false theory that the world is divided into distinct races that are not equally strong and valuable. The Nazis considered Germans to be members of the supposedly superior "Aryan" race. They saw the so-called Aryan German race as the strongest, and most valuable race of all.

According to the Nazis, Jews were not Aryans. They thought Jews belonged to a separate race that was inferior to all other races. The Nazis believed that the presence of Jews in Germany threatened the German people. They believed they had to separate Jews from other Germans to protect and strengthen Germany. The Nuremberg Laws were an important step towards achieving this goal.

What was the Reich Citizenship Law?

The Nazi Party had always promised that, if they came to power, only racially pure Germans would be allowed to hold German citizenship. The Reich Citizenship Law made this a reality. This law defined a citizen as a person who is "of German or related blood." This meant that Jews, defined as a separate race, could not be full citizens of Germany. They had no political rights.

What was the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor?

The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor was a law against what the Nazis viewed as race-mixing or "race defilement" (" Rassenschande "). It banned future intermarriages and sexual relations between Jews and people "of German or related blood." The Nazis believed that such relationships were dangerous because they led to "mixed race" children. According to the Nazis, these children and their descendants undermined the purity of the German race.

Who was Jewish according to the Nuremberg Laws?

According to the Nuremberg Laws, a person with three or four Jewish grandparents was a Jew. A grandparent was considered Jewish if they belonged to the Jewish religious community. Thus, the Nazis defined Jews by their religion (Judaism), and not by the supposed racial traits that Nazism attributed to Jews.

The laws also categorized some people in Germany as " Mischlinge " ( "mixed-race persons"). According to law, Mischlinge were neither German nor Jewish. These were people who had one or two Jewish grandparents.

The Nazi regime required individuals to prove their grandparents' racial identities. To do so, people used religious records. These included baptism records, Jewish community records, and gravestones.

Did the Nuremberg Laws apply to other groups?

Yes. While initially focused on Jews, the Nazi government clarified that the Nuremberg Laws also applied to Roma (also called Gypsies), Black people, and their descendants. They could not be full citizens of Germany. Nor could they marry or have sexual relations with "people of German or related blood."

What were the consequences of the Nuremberg Laws?

The Nuremberg Laws changed the everyday lives of Jews in Germany by making Jews legally different from their non-Jewish neighbors. In the years that followed, the Nazi regime enacted more and more anti-Jewish laws and decrees. These later laws relied on the definition of "Jew" as defined in the Nuremberg Laws. Examples of these other laws or decrees include:

The Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names (August 1938)

The Decree on Passports of Jews (October 1938)

The Police Regulation on the Marking of Jews (September 1941)

The Nuremberg Laws were an important step in the Nazi regime's process of isolating and excluding Jews from the rest of German society.

Key Dates
August 17, 1938
Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names October 5, 1938
Decree on Passports of Jews September 1, 1941
Police Regulation on the Marking of Jews
On August 17, 1938, the Law on the Alteration of Family and Personal Names sets new name requirements for Jews in Germany. This law states that Jews can only be given specific Jewish first names. New Jewish parents must choose a name from a government-approved list. Also, any Jew who does not already have a name from this list, must add an additional first name: "Israel" (for men) and "Sara" (for women). Individuals have to report their new names to government offices. They also have to use both their given and added first names for business transactions.

The Nazi regime invalidates the German passports of all German Jews. For their passports to become valid again, German Jews must submit them to a passport office so that they can be stamped with the letter "J." The decree specifies that this applies to the passports of German Jews as defined by the Nuremberg Laws.

Beginning in September 1941, all Jews in Nazi Germany are required to wear a special yellow badge in public. The badge must be a palm-sized, yellow six-pointed star with black lines outlining the Star of David. The star must have the word " " (German for "Jew") written in the middle. It must be visible anytime a Jew appears in public. Specifically, Jews are required to sew this yellow star onto the left breast of their clothes. This order applies to all German Jews (as defined by the Nuremberg Laws) who are six years old and older. Germans categorized as Mischlinge do not have to wear the star.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Nazi regime's Nuremberg Race Laws of September 1935 made Jews legally different from their non-Jewish neighbors. The laws were the foundation for future antisemitic measures .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Antisemitism is a starting place for trying to understand the tragedy that would befall countless numbers of people during the Holocaust.
Antisemitism
Throughout history Jews have faced prejudice and discrimination, known as antisemitism. Driven nearly two thousand years ago by the Romans from the land now called Israel, they spread throughout the globe and tried to retain their unique beliefs and culture while living as a minority. In some countries Jews were welcomed, and they enjoyed long periods of peace with their neighbors. In European societies where the population was primarily Christian, Jews found themselves increasingly isolated as outsiders. Jews do not share the Christian belief that Jesus is the Son of God, and many Christians considered this refusal to accept Jesus' divinity as arrogant. For centuries the Church taught that Jews were responsible for Jesus' death, not recognizing, as most historians do today, that Jesus was executed by the Roman government because officials viewed him as a political threat to their rule. Added to religious conflicts were economic ones. Rulers placed restrictions on Jews, barring them from holding certain jobs and from owning land.

At the same time, since the early Church did not permit usury (lending money at interest), Jews came to fill the vital (but unpopular) role of moneylenders for the Christian majority. In more desperate times, Jews became scapegoats for many problems people suffered. For example, they were blamed for causing the "Black Death," the plague that killed thousands of people throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. In Spain in the 1400s, Jews were forced to convert to Christianity, leave the country, or be executed. In Russia and Poland in the late 1800s the government organized or did not prevent violent attacks on Jewish neighborhoods, called pogroms, in which mobs murdered Jews and looted their homes and stores.

As ideas of political equality and freedom spread in western Europe during the 1800s, Jews became almost equal citizens under the law. At the same time, however, new forms of antisemitism emerged. European leaders who wanted to establish colonies in Africa and Asia argued that whites were superior to other races and therefore had to spread and take over the "weaker" and "less civilized" races. Some writers applied this argument to Jews, too, mistakenly defining Jews as a race of people called Semites who shared common blood and physical features.

This kind of racial antisemitism meant that Jews remained Jews by race even if they converted to Christianity. Some politicians began using the idea of racial superiority in their campaigns as a way to get votes. Karl Lueger (1844-1910) was one such politician. He became Mayor of Vienna, Austria, at the end of the century through the use of antisemitism -- he appealed to voters by blaming Jews for bad economic times. Lueger was a hero to a young man named Adolf Hitler, who was born in Austria in 1889. Hitler's ideas, including his views of Jews, were shaped during the years he lived in Vienna, where he studied Lueger's tactics and the antisemitic newspapers and pamphlets that multiplied during Lueger's long rule.

Key Dates

1890s
A concocted Jewish conspiracy
In France, a member of the Russian secret police concocts the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Protocols promote claims that there exists a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. These forged documents are presented as the minutes of a supposed meeting of world Jewish leaders in which they finalized plans to dominate the world, and suggest that Jews have formed secret organizations and agencies through which they aim to control and manipulate political parties, the economy, the press, and public opinion. The Protocols are published in countries throughout the world, including the United States, and used by antisemites to reinforce claims of a Jewish conspiracy. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Protocols are used to gain support for Nazi Party antisemitic ideology and policies.

1894
Dreyfus Affair divides France
Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, is arrested and falsely accused of handing over to Germany documents involving the national defense of France. After a summary trial before a military court, Dreyfus is found guilty of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island, located off the coast of French Guiana. This case divides the French nation into two opposing groups: those who insist that Dreyfus is guilty (conservatives, nationalists, and antisemitic groups), and those who insist that Dreyfus should receive a fair trial (liberals and intellectuals). In 1899, Dreyfus receives a new trial, but is again found guilty by a military court. However, the president of the French Republic intervenes, granting him a pardon. Shortly before World War I, Dreyfus is fully vindicated by a civilian court. The controversy surrounding the Dreyfus affair reflects latent antisemitism in the French officer corps and other conservative French groups.

APRIL 1897
Karl Lueger, antisemitic mayor of Vienna
Karl Lueger is elected mayor of Vienna. He holds this position for 13 years, until his death in 1910. Lueger, co-founder of the Christian Socialist Party, uses economic antisemitism to gain support from the small businessmen and artisans who are suffering after the surge of capitalism during the industrial revolution in Austria. He claims that Jews have a monopoly on capitalism and that they thus compete unfairly in the economic arena. This form of antisemitism is used by other right-wing parties in Austria and Germany in the early twentieth century as a means to broaden their popular appeal. Adolf Hitler, a resident of Vienna during Lueger's mayoral reign, is greatly influenced both by Lueger's antisemitism and by his ability to rally public support. Lueger's ideas are reflected in the Nazi Party Platform in 1920s Germany.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Antisemitism is a starting place for trying to understand the tragedy that would befall countless numbers of people during the Holocaust. Antisemitism Throughout history Jews have faced prejudice and discrimination, known as antisemitism. Driven nearly two thousand years ago by the Romans from the land now called Israel, they spread throughout the globe and tried to retain their unique beliefs and culture while living as a minority.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Victims of the Nazi Era: Nazi Racial Ideology

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Nazis carried out genocide against Europe’s Jews and persecuted and murdered other groups based on racial theories. Learn about the history of these murderous ideas.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nazi Propaganda and Censorship The Nazis wanted Germans to support the Nazi dictatorship and believe in Nazi ideas. To accomplish this goal, they tried to control forms of communication through censorship and propaganda. This included control of newspapers, magazines, books, art, theater, music, movies, and radio.

How did the Nazis use censorship?

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through decrees and laws, the Nazis abolished these civil rights and destroyed German democracy. Starting in 1934, it was illegal to criticize the Nazi government. Even telling a joke about Hitler was considered treachery. People in Nazi Germany could not say or write whatever they wanted.

Examples of censorship under the Nazis included:

Closing down or taking over anti-Nazi newspapers;

Controlling what news appeared in newspapers, on the radio, and in newsreels;

Banning and burning books that the Nazis categorized as un-German;

Controlling what soldiers wrote home during World War II.

How did the Nazis use propaganda?

The Nazis used propaganda to promote their ideas and beliefs. Beginning in March 1933, the regime tried to centralize its propaganda efforts in a new ministry led by Joseph Goebbels. This ministry was called the Reich Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda.

The Nazis used a variety of propaganda tools to spread Nazi ideas. Examples of propaganda under the Nazis included:

Glorifying Adolf Hitler by using his image on postcards, posters, and in the press;

Spreading negative images and ideas about Jews in magazines, films, cartoons, and other media;

Making radios more affordable so that more Germans could listen to Nazi ideas and news;

Broadcasting Nazi speeches on the radio and public loudspeakers;

Organizing large and celebratory Nazi Party rallies;

Creating groups, like the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls, that fostered Nazi ideals.

How did propaganda and censorship work together?

Textbooks are a good example of how propaganda and censorship worked together in the Nazi regime. The Nazis used both propaganda and censorship to control what students read in school. Nazi censors removed some textbooks from classrooms. New textbooks taught students to obey the Nazi Party, love Hitler, and hate Jews.

Key Dates

During the spring of 1933, Nazi university student organizations, professors, and librarians put together long lists of books they think are un-German. These lists include books written by Jewish authors. They also include books by non-Jewish authors whose ideas conflict with Nazi ideals. On the night of May 10, 1933, Nazis hold book burnings. They march by torchlight in nighttime parades, sing chants, and throw books into huge bonfires. On that night more than 25,000 books are burned.
March 28, 1935
Premiere of the Propaganda Film September 1939
Banning Germans from Listening to Foreign Radio Triumph of the Will
Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film Triumph of the Will premieres in Berlin. The film shows footage taken at the 1934 Nazi Party Rally at Nuremberg. The footage from the rally shows smiling children, cheering crowds, and uniformed Nazis. It features military parades and a speech by Adolf Hitler. Triumph of the Will will become one of the most infamous Nazi propaganda films.

World War II begins on September 1, 1939. Shortly afterwards, the Nazi regime makes listening to foreign radio broadcasts illegal. This is an attempt to control what information Germans hear about the war. The Nazi regime sees news and information from outside Germany as a security threat. They are worried about foreign radio broadcasts, which some Germans can access on their home radios. Later in the war, the regime even sentences people to death for listening to foreign radio stations.

Last Edited: Jan 15, 2021

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nazi Propaganda and Censorship The Nazis wanted Germans to support the Nazi dictatorship and believe in Nazi ideas. To accomplish this goal, they tried to control forms of communication through censorship and propaganda. This included control of newspapers, magazines, books, art, theater, music, movies, and radio.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly."

Communicating the Nazi Message

Nazi Following the seizure of power in 1933, Hitler established a Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels. The Ministry's aim was to ensure that the Nazi message was successfully communicated through art, music, theater, films, books, radio, educational materials, and the press.

There were several audiences for Nazi propaganda. Germans were reminded of the struggle against foreign enemies and Jewish subversion. During periods preceding legislation or executive measures against Jews, propaganda campaigns created an atmosphere tolerant of violence against Jews, particularly in 1935 (before the Nuremberg Race Laws of September) and in 1938 (prior to the barrage of antisemitic economic legislation following Kristallnacht ). Propaganda also encouraged passivity and acceptance of the impending measures against Jews, as these appeared to depict the Nazi government as stepping in and "restoring order."

Real and perceived discrimination against ethnic Germans in east European nations which had gained territory at Germany's expense following World War I, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, was the subject of Nazi propaganda. This propaganda sought to elicit political loyalty and so-called race consciousness among the ethnic German populations. It also sought to mislead foreign governments-including the European Great Powers-that Nazi Germany was making understandable and fair demands for concessions and annexations.

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union , Nazi propaganda stressed to both civilians at home and to soldiers, police officers, and non-German auxiliaries serving in occupied territory themes linking Soviet Communism to European Jewry, presenting Germany as the defender of "Western" culture against the "Judeo-Bolshevik threat," and painting an apocalyptic picture of what would happen if the Soviets won the war. This was particularly the case after the catastrophic German defeat at Stalingrad in February 1943. These themes may have been instrumental in inducing Nazi and non-Nazi Germans as well as local collaborators to fight on until the very end.

The Role of Film

(1938), depicted the Films in particular played an important role in disseminating racial antisemitism, the superiority of German military power, and the intrinsic evil of the enemies as defined by Nazi ideology. Nazi films portrayed Jews as "subhuman" creatures infiltrating Aryan society. For example, The Eternal Jew (1940), directed by Fritz Hippler, portrayed Jews as wandering cultural parasites, consumed by sex and money. Some films, such as The Triumph of the Will (1935) by Leni Riefenstahl , glorified Hitler and the National Socialist movement. Two other Riefenstahl works, Festival of the Nations and Festival of Beauty and promoted national pride in the successes of the Nazi regime at the Olympics. 1936 Berlin Olympic Games

The Role of Newspapers

Newspapers in Germany, above all Der Stürmer (The Attacker), printed cartoons that used antisemitic caricatures to depict Jews. After the Germans began World War II with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazi regime employed propaganda to impress upon German civilians and soldiers that the Jews were not only subhuman, but also dangerous enemies of the German Reich. The regime aimed to elicit support, or at least acquiescence, for policies aimed at removing Jews permanently from areas of German settlement.

Covering up Atrocities and Mass Murder

During the implementation of the " ," the mass murder of European Jews, SS officials at Final Solution killing centers compelled the victims of the Holocaust to maintain the deception necessary to deport the Jews from Germany and occupied Europe as smoothly as possible. Concentration camp and killing center officials compelled prisoners, many of whom would soon die in the gas chambers, to send postcards home stating that they were being treated well and living in good conditions. Here, the camp authorities used propaganda to cover up atrocities and mass murder.

In June 1944, the German Security Police permitted an camp-ghetto, located in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (today: Czech Republic). The SS and police had established Theresienstadt in November 1941 as an instrument of propaganda for domestic consumption in the German Reich. The camp-ghetto was used as an explanation for Germans who were puzzled by the deportation of German and Austrian Jews who were elderly, disabled war veterans, or locally known artists and musicians "to the East" for "labor." In preparation for the 1944 visit, the International Red Cross team to inspect the Theresienstadt ghetto underwent a "beautification" program. In the wake of the inspection, SS officials in the Protectorate produced a film using ghetto residents as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish "residents" of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed. When the film was completed, SS officials deported most of the "cast" to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center.

Mobilizing the Population

The Nazi regime used propaganda effectively to mobilize the German population to support its wars of conquest until the very end of the regime. Nazi propaganda was likewise essential to motivating those who implemented the mass murder of the European Jews and of other victims of the Nazi regime. It also served to secure the acquiescence of millions of others-as bystanders -to racially targeted persecution and mass murder.

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nazi propaganda had a key role in the persecution of Jews. Learn more about how Hitler and the Nazi Party used propaganda to facilitate war and genocide.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the days after the Nazi electoral victories of July 1932, Adolf Hitler informed Joseph Goebbels that he intended to make Goebbels director of a new propaganda ministry when the Nazis took over the reins of national government. Goebbels soon envisioned an empire that would control schools, universities, film, radio, and propaganda. "The national education of the German people," he wrote, "will be placed in my hands."

Creating a Propaganda Ministry

Creating a Propaganda Ministry was a novel idea for a country at peace. Governmental propaganda organizations had tended to be temporary committees necessitated by war or disguised as ministries of information. Indeed, Goebbels initially opposed the term propaganda, recognizing that in popular usage, both in Germany and abroad, it was associated with lies.

Even after the ministry had been in existence for a year, he proposed changing its name to Ministry of Culture and Public Enlightenment, but Hitler vetoed this proposal. In addition, in keeping with his governing style of establishing ministries with overlapping responsibilities, Hitler retained propaganda offices that fell under others' control, including those of the ministries of Foreign Affairs and of Education. Even in the realm of culture and the arts, Goebbels's authority was far from absolute; Hitler, Nazi leader Hermann Göring, ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, and others created their own separate areas.

Control of Film, Radio, Theater, and the Press

Still, Goebbels wielded enormous influence. Film, radio, theater, and the press largely fell under Goebbels's jurisdiction (though he shared power over the press with the head of the Reich Press Chamber, Max Amann, the Nazi newspaper magnate, and after 1937 with Otto Dietrich, head of the Reich Press Office). Goebbels also continued as head of the party's propaganda apparatus that reached down to the local Nazi organizations. At the age of thirty-five, the youngest minister in the new cabinet, Goebbels became indispensable to the regime and to Adolf Hitler.

The Propaganda Ministry, through the Reich Press Chamber, assumed control over the Reich Association of the German Press, the guild that regulated entry into the profession. Under the new Editors Law of October 4, 1933, the association kept registries of "racially pure" editors and journalists, thus excluding Jews and those married to Jews from the profession.

Editors and journalists were expected to follow the mandates and instructions handed down by the ministry and had to be registered with the Reich Press Chamber to work in this field. Clause 14 of the law ordered editors to omit anything "calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home." The Propaganda Ministry aimed further to control the content of news and editorial pages through directives distributed in daily conferences in Berlin and transmitted through the party propaganda offices to regional or local papers. Detailed guidelines stated what stories could or could not be reported and how to report the news.

Journalists or editors who failed to follow these instructions could be fired or sent to a concentration camp. Reflecting in his diary on the press's loss of independence, Goebbels, a one-time journalist, wrote: "Any man who still has a residue of honor will be very careful not to become a journalist."

Within months of Hitler becoming chancellor, the Nazi regime destroyed the country's free press. It shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers, forcibly transferred Jewish-owned publishing houses to "Aryans," and secretly took over established periodicals. Daily directives from the Propaganda Ministry's Press Division dictated what could or what could not be published under punishment of reprimand, loss of position, or imprisonment. Oversight of radio, film, newsreels, theater, and music fell directly to the Propaganda Ministry, which used a combination of these media to sell Nazi ideology.

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the days after the Nazi electoral victories of July 1932, Adolf Hitler informed Joseph Goebbels that he intended to make Goebbels director of a new propaganda ministry when the Nazis took over the reins of national government. Goebbels soon envisioned an empire that would control schools, universities, film, radio, and propaganda.

# data[].attributes.body
*This topic will look a little different from the others. You may use other research sources if necessary.