Throughout the history of mankind, there have been atrocities that have rocked the world and changed the way we view the world around us. In the 1930s, the world watched on as the defeated people of Germany turned to Hitler and followed him into his final solution to the ‘Jewish problem’. This solution was the extermination of all individuals of Jewish descent. However, this ‘solution’ has come to be known as the holocaust and is the worst Genocide in recorded history, seeing over 6 million Jewish individuals murdered. In the great depression of the 1930’s, the German people were suffering great economic hardship due to the conditions that were enforced upon them by the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty’s War Guilt Clause destroyed the pride of the German people in addition to establishing unreasonable reparations the other countries involved in the conflict. Hitler used these deplorable conditions after World War One to take control of the people and lead them into the second world war and subsequently the holocaust. Hitler came to power by devising a principle of controlling all aspects of German life – Hitler used propaganda and the desperate youth of Germany to further entrench historical anti-Semitism, allowing him to promote his principles and justify not only his leadership, but the necessity of his principles.
The use of propaganda greatly assisted Hitler in encouraging the German people to lead him into the Holocaust. Propaganda can be applied to media that is designed to change the way people feel or influence their actions. Hitler used propaganda to increase appeal to his Nazi authoritarian regime, further anti- Semitic ideologies and ultimately cause the systematic dehumanisation of an entire group of people, the Jewish. Through the propaganda film “Triumph of the Will”, a narrative film published in 1935, it has been said that the entire German population was influenced and brainwashed. In the recent documentary titled “Triumph of the Will of Propaganda”, it was noted that Hitler was well aware of the power of propaganda as he writes in his famous book Mein Kampf “Propaganda should not depict truth”. Hitler cunningly manipulated the German people with a plan to indoctrinate all citizens to his anti-Semitic ways.
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Hitler used the propaganda principle of repetition of information of a biased or misleading nature, to promote the Nazi political cause, assert his power and ultimately lead the German people into the Holocaust.
After Germany's fall from grace’, Hitler used the desperation of the German people to indoctrinate the German youth into his ideals. After the end of World War One, the German people were left disempowered and hopeless in their sate of economic hardship and low standard of living. Hitler used this desperation to provide hope to the whole of the German populace by inspiring them with the thought of a great Germany rising from the ashes; restored to its former glory. In this role as an inspiration for the German people Hitler realised this importance of the youth in fulfilling his mission controlling all German with the Nazi ideals. Hitler provided hope to the next generation of Germans in the hope that they would spread Nazi ideals to their families. Hitler used traditional aspects of German life to instil Nazi ideals in the members of the Hitler Youth or Hitlerjugend. One example of this repurposing of German life was the incorporation of communal singing, this was done through the communal song book Uns geht die Sonne nicht unter. One example of a song from this book is Es zittern die morschen Knochen. The song, originally written by Hans Baumann in 1932, aimed to highlight the desperation of Germany after WWI and how it was a call to action for the German people to follow Hitler and take on the world. The song was purpose made from the Hitler Youth.
Throughout the song, the phrase “Because Germany hears us, and tomorrow the whole world,” illustrates how the German youth were given a purpose in their time of desperation. This allowed Hitler to act as a father figure, meaning that ruled with affection not fear. In addition to the hope and affection that the song instils, the song illustrates the unique role that Hitler charged the younger generation of German citizens with the lyrics, “And the elders may chide, so just let them scream and cry.” These lyrics illustrate how Hitler was able to give the Hitler Youth what is perceived as a unique purpose in his goal for the German people. The song also imparted prominent Nazi ideologies o the members of the Hitler youth, hailing “Meanwhile our acres ripen, Flag of freedom, fly! We will continue to march, even if everything shatters; Freedom rose in Germany, and tomorrow the world belongs to it.” Lines such as these instil the Nazi ideals that the party values; such as nationalism. Through the Hitler Youth and their songs, Hitler was able to instil such a sense of nationalism on young Germans that he was able to use then to encourage and force their parents into following Hitler and accept his values as their own.
In addition to controlling the youth of Germany through hope, Hitler sought to gain favour with the wider population by providing a scapegoat for the hardships that the nation had suffered since their loss in World War One. He did this by preying on historical anti-Semitism in the German populace. Anti Semitism emerged as it is seen in the time of WWII in the 1800's when German man Wilhelm Marr published the pamphlet The Victory of Judaism over Germandom. The ideals present in the pamphlet spread through Europe and further reinforced the Jewish people as scapegoats. Despite this, anti-Jewish attacks had been present in Europe for centuries, with the Jewish people often being used as scape goats for incidents such as plague, famine and economic hardship. This predisposition to anti-Semitic ideals allowed Hitler to use the Jewish people not only as scape goats but also as a seemingly credible future threat to German people and society. Moreover, Hitler sought to further entrench anti-Semitic ideals in the population in order to validate his ideals and views on the Jewish population. One example of how Hitler further entrenched anti-Semitic ideals is the children’s book Der Giftpliz. The book was first published in 1938 in Germany by the founder of the Nazi Newspaper Der Stürme Julius Streicher, was written by Ernst Himer and was illustrated by Phillipp Rupprecht (Fips). The book was published in order to spread anti- Semitic ideals throughout Germany through the book’s introduction to schools and family homes. The book illustrates how Hitler used the Jewish people as scapegoats for the economic hardship for the economic hardship that was facing the German lower class stating, “keep the hail from us, protect us from lightning and flood, Then we shall have again good harvest. But worse than these plagues, Never forget, is the Jews! Be warned: Lookout for the bloodthirsty Jew!” This use of the Jewish people as scapegoats allowed Hitler to dehumanise them to the point where they were viewed as alien. In conjunction to the alienation of the Jewish people, the book also promotes the ideal that the Jewish people do not care about the welfare of Germany in their time of economic hardship, quoting the Jews saying “What do we care about Germany? All that matters is that we get on and have a good time!”. Hitler used this notion of the Jewish people being unwilling to contribute to the German economy to justify putting them into labour camps. Der Giftpliz also conveys the idea that the Jewish people are a plague on the German people appealing to the pathos of families when stating, “A devil goes through the land, The Jew he is known to us all as murderer of the peoples and polluter of the races, The terror of children in every country!” This statement serves to incite a feeling of hatred towards the Jewish people by presenting them as a threat to German families. This all led to the German population following Hitler into the Holocaust as he degraded the Jewish people from valued members of society to feral animals plaguing the German people.
The German people we destroyed after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles and were looking for a leader who could shape them into a global superpower. Hitler used this hope to manipulate the German people into following him through controlling all aspects of their lifer with propaganda and the Hitler
Youth while amplifying historical anti-Semitism in order to get the German people into his dream of the holocaust. Hitler moreover used propaganda to promote the ideals of the Nazi party and then used the German people’s desperation and historical anti-Semitism to incorporate them into everyday German life. And thus, the German people followed Hitler into WWII and the Holocaust because they simply knew no better after Hitler made the Nazi ideals an integral part of the German life
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