- 2 days ago
For educational purposes
This episode provides an intriguing look at the part played by propaganda as Governments struggled to gain the upper hand in the war away from the battlefield.
Methods were sometimes less than subtle, or in some cases, non-existent however, Josef Gobbels honed the art of mass communication until, in the early days at least, it became one of Germany's most effective weapons.
Gobbels was the master of advancing the cause of National Socialism to his own people, although the attempts to take the message to his enemies were less successful; the British people treated the rantings of 'Lord Haw-Haw' -the traitor William Joyce - with derision.
This episode features rare examples of propaganda posters and leaflets, there are also interviews propaganda and military experts.
This episode provides an intriguing look at the part played by propaganda as Governments struggled to gain the upper hand in the war away from the battlefield.
Methods were sometimes less than subtle, or in some cases, non-existent however, Josef Gobbels honed the art of mass communication until, in the early days at least, it became one of Germany's most effective weapons.
Gobbels was the master of advancing the cause of National Socialism to his own people, although the attempts to take the message to his enemies were less successful; the British people treated the rantings of 'Lord Haw-Haw' -the traitor William Joyce - with derision.
This episode features rare examples of propaganda posters and leaflets, there are also interviews propaganda and military experts.
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LearningTranscript
00:05the 1920s in Germany was a time of enormous struggle and upheaval in the
00:11wake of the disastrous collapse of the economy following the Great War Germany
00:15descended into a period of political chaos out of that maelstrom emerged the
00:21Nazi Party the National Socialist movement led by Adolf Hitler as a result
00:28of the monstrous deeds committed under the name of that organization the natural
00:32assumption is that the regime itself was illegal in reality the Nazis actually
00:38came to power through the conventional democratic process they initially
00:43achieved power in Germany as a result of a struggle that took place at the ballot
00:48box the Nazis were able to win power in large part thanks to their mastery of the
00:54arts of propaganda
01:46the propagandists were very concerned to create us a sense of monolithic unity and I think historians
01:52have completely exploded that the Third Reich was very much a fragmented organization a fragmented
01:58regime with a lot of infighting and different members of the elite fighting each other for
02:03influence and control and propaganda was very much part of that the minister of propaganda was Goebbels
02:09who ran the propaganda ministry but other people had interests in propaganda and very often interfered
02:15and challenged Goebbels for bits of his turf
02:18what we have here is almost like as if it was a business building a brand and
02:23setting a marketing campaign into action and they do it supremely well Hitler
02:30starts with the logo which he actually designs himself he designs this swastika motif and that comes to represent the
02:37aspirations of the party and it is relentlessly used to plug the Nazi ideology
02:55the Nazi propaganda minister was Joseph Goebbels physically he was very far from the Aryan ideal of the tall blonde
03:04Nordic Superman he was dark short and afflicted with a club foot but he was to prove a genius in
03:11the arts of what we would now call public relations
03:14and marketing it was Goebbels who became synonymous with the propaganda effort of the Third Reich he was an intuitive
03:22communicator who saw the possibilities of the new media opportunities in the cinema and radio
03:29Goebbels exploited this position like no other man in history before him
03:35Joseph Goebbels was the mastermind behind the propaganda machine in the Third Reich
03:41obviously with hindsight we see we view the state has been completely abhorrent
03:46but at the time a large number of people also did but Goebbels and his department were so effective that
03:53they were able to sway
03:55large numbers millions of people on to accept this philosophy which was based on hatred and is in no way
04:02to be viewed as a sophisticated political creed
04:06but somehow they managed it one of the reasons they managed that is because Goebbels was so effective as a
04:11communicator
04:12in many ways although Hitler has the reputation of being a great and inspired propagandist
04:18in many ways Goebbels was more talented the more versatile figure
04:21and Goebbels is great insight about propaganda was that you had to vary the propaganda diet
04:27and that it was no good blasting people with ideological messages all the time because that would switch them off
04:33and one of the big battles that Goebbels fights really with other branches of the propaganda interested elite in Nazi
04:40Germany
04:40is that he's very keen to increase the amount of entertainment supplied to Germans
04:45it's particularly true of radio where a great deal of radio was essentially light music and basically rather trivial stuff
04:51but in cinema it's also true about 80 percent of all the films produced by the Nazi film industry in
04:58this period
04:58are so innocuous that they can be shown usually with minor cuts after the war after 1945
05:05so Goebbels felt propaganda is absolutely vital but if we blast people with it all the time it will turn
05:11them off
05:11and so for a lot of the time he was concerned to give Germans the kind of escapism that they
05:17actually wanted
05:18in addition to Goebbels Adolf Hitler understood completely the essence of political campaigning
05:25he personally had designed the red and black party identity incorporating the ancient Indian symbol of the swastika
05:33the swastika emblem was used relentlessly as a symbol to identify the efforts of the party
05:39it was this very clear and simple image which suggested forward momentum that was used to project the policies of
05:47national socialism to the population
05:50originally a symbol of peace the swastika will be forever associated with some of the most barbaric crimes ever committed
05:57against humanity
06:08a key element of the efficiency of the Nazi propaganda was to use the very best photographers that could be
06:14found
06:14one such man was Heinrich Hoffman who became Hitler's favorite photographer
06:20Hoffman was a very gifted stills photographer and his excellent compositions were soon harnessed
06:26to present Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party in the very best possible light
06:31this is a typical picture that would be taken by Hoffman and printed for him by developers in Munich
06:41and if we turn it over we can see on the back the the Hoffman stamp this is an original
06:47photograph
06:48which was given to an SS man serving in the Waffen SS prior to World War II
06:55what's very interesting about this is this picture is actually signed
07:00if we look down on the collar here we can see the signature of Adolf Hitler
07:06one of the most evil men of the 20th century and fortunately we're not going to see too many more
07:12of these
07:17if you were a youngster and grown up in Nazi Germany you might have the misfortune to find this in
07:25your Christmas stocking
07:26this is a 1935 volume which deals with a year in the life of Adolf Hitler
07:33but what's interesting about it is once again it's superbly put together
07:38it's full of Hoffman's photographs and it was actually printed by a cigarette company
07:45the Herzbogen cigarette company
07:47and it really is a record in photographs of Adolf Hitler on tour relaxed and on party business
08:01but what's interesting is throughout it's so well presented
08:05even down to the fact that they'd chosen this pseudo medieval typeface
08:10which accompanied all of these Third Reich publications
08:14it really is a very very well put together document
08:19and once again it's got this very very clear purpose
08:23which is to project the message of the party above all else
08:28The Third Reich celebrated militarization and order to a frightening degree
08:33the music which was harnessed to support the regime was suitably militaristic in tone
08:40upbeat marching songs were the order of the day
08:43and the party found its own anthem in the Horst Vessel song
08:47which celebrated the legend of a Nazi supporter mortally wounded in a street brawl
09:10in power the Nazi party soon seized control of all media in Germany
09:15and was able to use all of the instruments of the state
09:18to produce a remarkably cohesive propaganda machine
09:21the likes of which had never been seen in the world
09:24The propagation of the Nazi message involved harnessing all aspects of a communication program
09:31to form a relentless tide of propaganda
09:34which many governments even today would struggle to match for impact
09:40I think the German propaganda machine did have some quite striking successes
09:46and it did have some fairly notable failures
09:49I think one has to say in Prattin Goebbels's defence
09:53that he was very aware as a good propagandist of the limitations of propaganda
09:57and one of the propagandist's first rules is that it is extremely difficult
10:02to change the attitudes and prejudices of mature people
10:06it was very difficult to make convinced Christians, Catholics
10:09into fanatical totalitarian Nazis
10:13and I think the Nazis have very little success with that kind of propaganda strategy
10:19they certainly did try it
10:20One of the successes was on building on prejudices that Germans
10:24and fears and anxieties that most Germans had already
10:28building on that was a relatively easy thing to do
10:31and perhaps the first most important fear and prejudice that Germans have
10:37which the Nazis definitely exploit is anti-communism
10:40Most middle class Germans and a lot of working class Germans
10:44were seriously and sincerely terrified of Bolshevism
10:47and if you look at the map and see the size of Soviet Russia
10:51and the relatively easy nature of German frontiers and the flatness of Poland
10:56it's very understandable why that was so
10:58people thought back to the revolutionary events of 1918-19
11:01terrifying attempts of communists to seize power with Russian backing
11:06you didn't have to blast people with propaganda to make them afraid of the Russians and the communists
11:11The interesting thing is that when war came about
11:15Soviet propaganda on many areas went into a kind of different gear
11:20it returned to different themes
11:22and I think we can point out a number of areas in which Soviet wartime propaganda was different
11:27First of all they went back to a lot more traditional themes
11:32a lot more traditional ideas of defending the country
11:35defending the fatherland, the motherland
11:38going back to previous struggles
11:41resurrecting heroes of the past
11:43and generally using national struggles including the struggle against Napoleon
11:48the struggle against medieval German invasions as part of their propaganda
11:52for the new struggle which was beginning in 1941
11:56Surprisingly a lot of studies of Stalinist propaganda including its wartime propaganda
12:01have shown that the role of women has been much more prominent than it has been in any other form
12:05of propaganda up to that point
12:07and during the war in posters and things of that nature
12:11the role of women being at the front as nurses
12:14taking over in the factories
12:16taking over the driving of tractors
12:18taking on a lot of traditional male roles
12:20for the simple reason of course that they wanted to release men to go away and fight
12:26and that nobody else was there to keep production going and arms production going but women
12:41The very best filmmakers, photographers and artists were chosen to contribute to the propaganda machine
12:47Under the careful guidance of Goebbels
12:56cinema was also used to present newsreels
12:59which demonstrated advances in the construction of autobahns
13:03and the continually rising standards of living with which the Nazi party was so proud
13:09With the entire German press under government control
13:13newspapers too were merely servants of official policy
13:19Posters were another widely used method of disseminating propaganda
13:23In this area the heroic realist art style favoured by the Nazis
13:29was the main style used for the posters
13:31These posters disdained anything tainted with modernism or experimentalism
13:37Real paintings, preferably of heroic figures and heroic landscapes
13:42were the stuff of the Nazi propaganda machine
13:46Medieval imagery was celebrated above all else
13:52Hitler himself was turned into a shining knight
13:55riding to the aid of Germany and her hour of need
14:03The posters were a very, very important part of the National Socialist Movement
14:08They appeared at the time when Hitler was striving to be elected
14:13and once the party was in place
14:15they were used throughout World War II to try and shore up civilian morale
14:21to reflect the victories
14:22to try and deflect away some of the defeats
14:25So they were used very effectively throughout the years
14:30The Nazi vision for the future was one of order and uniformity
14:35Before the war the Nuremberg party rallies provided the focal point for the party
14:40Throughout the 30s they became increasingly important
14:44and also increasingly more spectacular as the decade wore on
14:50The Nazis were a totalitarian movement
14:52who distrusted private life I think
14:55They wanted to get people out of their houses
14:57and see what they were doing
14:58and line them up and march them around
15:00and make their allegiance to the regime as public as possible
15:04and so they invented as many possible occasions for that as they could think of
15:08There was the whole September Nuremberg rally week-long festivities
15:13which were superimposed on the old Sudan Day festivities
15:17celebrating the victory over France in 1870
15:20which again the Nazis took over and used for their own purposes
15:24The Nuremberg rallies were not unlike party conferences in democratic countries in our own day
15:29Their very definite purpose was to psych up the followers
15:34to motivate the members of the Nazi party, the Hitler Youth, increasingly the SS
15:39to go on being visible and to work hard for the party and the regime for the coming 12 months
15:45and clearly if you were a young party member, you lived in some remote place
15:50you perhaps never seen Hitler personally
15:52the idea of being chosen to attend a Nuremberg rally and to camp out
15:56and to attend these enormous speeches was something very, very exciting
16:01These were the occasions on which Hitler would make big statements on matters of policy
16:05increasingly foreign policy in the later 30s
16:08and for that reason foreign diplomats followed these speeches with huge attention
16:13But if you take 1935 for example
16:15the regime constantly had to think of things to do
16:19and 1935 was the year of the Nuremberg laws
16:22which supposedly regulated the relationship between Jews in Germany
16:26and the rest of German society
16:27and the Nuremberg laws were announced with great pomp and glamour and fanfares
16:33as that year's public pronouncement
16:361934 is the first military march passed in the Nuremberg rally
16:40and that really ushers in the reintroduction of conscription in 1935
16:45another very important milestone for the regime
16:51Nuremberg rallies were used as a showcase to the world
16:55to show the Third Reich in all its glory
16:58all its efficiency and all its military pomp and splendour
17:02the sheer scale of the rallies
17:05year upon year they grew throughout the 30s
17:08each one becoming more and more spectacular than the last
17:12they were also recorded for posterity by Leni Reichenstall
17:16who was a spectacularly gifted filmmaker
17:20and she has created the images which we still associate today
17:25with the rise of Nazism
17:27This produced a powerful impact on German cinema screens
17:31which played its part in persuading the wavering elements of the population of Germany
17:35that the Nazi Party was the way forward
17:39where he couldn't persuade adults to follow him
17:42Hitler affected disdain
17:44he knew that with the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls
17:48capturing the minds of German children
17:50his propaganda machine was now so strong
17:53he was likely to indoctrinate the children in any event
17:59the Hitler Youth is also involved heavily in propaganda and parades and rituals
18:03and they operated on the very well established psychological principle
18:07if you get people young you can brainwash them
18:10you can actually affect their attitudes to a very considerable degree
18:13and they showed very considerable skill
18:16in making Nazi organisations like the Hitler Youth
18:19seem exciting and fun to small children
18:22to get them away from their parents
18:23to make home life, to make church going, to make schools seem boring
18:27whereas going out in the woods, camping, playing with weapons
18:31playing with gliders, riding motorcycles
18:34was very very exciting
18:36against the background of children
18:38who perhaps spent their very early years in the depression
18:40in some big city, no holidays, no access to the countryside
18:44Hitler Youth, which was of course a massively propagandised organisation
18:49stood in for this
18:50and I think does succeed up to a point in fanaticism
18:58young people
18:59Radio was another widely used propaganda device
19:03Goebbels quickly apprised the potential of the new device
19:07which could be used to insert a propagandist message
19:09into almost every home in Germany
19:12The Nazi Party encouraged the spread of radio sets
19:15in order to assist the spread of propaganda
19:18and introduced special low-cost models for home use
19:22which led to a huge increase in radio listeners
19:25Radio was very important
19:27There were occasions where the real value of radio
19:31was the kind of intimacy that it gives
19:33the kind of immediacy that it gives
19:35Film by its very nature was always out of date
19:38by the time it got to the cinema screens
19:40even if it was only a few days or a week
19:42it was looking at the past
19:44but major events were signified by major speeches
19:49broadcast directly on the radio by the leaders
20:01As World War II loomed, the Nazi propaganda machine was firmly in place
20:08Initially, it proved itself to be far more adept than the allies at handling propaganda
20:14In the period immediately after the declaration of war
20:17early British and French attempts to deal with the press
20:20were so cumbersome that many international journalists preferred to get their news from Berlin
20:26on the grounds that there was less official interference and censorship
20:30and the reports were more accurate
20:33With the spread of war, the propaganda machine harnessed a number of publications
20:38which provide a unique insight into how the Nazi regime functioned
20:54Once the war had started, new methods were used to disseminate propaganda
21:00One of the main elements was the publication of a magazine known as Signal
21:04The job of Signal was to promote German victories under arms
21:08and give the occupied countries a glimpse into just how efficient the Third Reich could be
21:15It was designed to trumpet advances in living standards in the Third Reich
21:19and to ensure that the conquered peoples of Europe
21:22received the official, sanitized view of the war
21:26Signal is interesting because it was an early pioneering use of color photography
21:31which has given us some of the most enduring images of World War II
21:35Like all of the most effective propaganda, Signal was careful to mix a fair deal of truth with the lies
21:44It's a curious mixture of current affairs stories
21:48There's advertising for aircraft manufacturers, shoe manufacturers
21:54and in addition to that there are a large number of military stories
21:58This particular edition is in Spanish
22:02Signal was actually produced in a whole range of different languages for all the territories which were occupied
22:09And what we have here is a glimpse into how World War II was strained through the propaganda machine
22:17Signal is also interesting in that it pioneered to a large extent the use of color photography
22:22Here for example we have a U-boat man returning from a successful operation in the Atlantic
22:29And it's a good example of how the pioneering techniques of color photography was used for propaganda
22:36In addition they would use things like graphics, maps, we had cartoons
22:42And then there's this slightly curious aspect to it in that it has a kind of soft porn quality from
22:54the 1940s
22:55Wherever possible they filmed beautiful girls
22:59In keeping with many elements of the Nazi ideology
23:02The very best photographers were drafted into the armed forces in order to provide the photographs for the pages of
23:09Signal
23:10Signal was aimed primarily at a civilian market
23:14For the 8 million men under arms in the German armed forces
23:18A range of specialist titles were produced
23:21Der Wehrmacht was designed to communicate to the German army
23:29Der Adler was the magazine for the Air Force
23:32And the Kriegsmarine was the official magazine for the Navy
23:37By 1940 the propaganda machine had a great deal to be triumphant about
23:43German advances in arms were happening on every front
23:46And Signal was quick to publish the news
23:51Working in conjunction with Signal was Deutsche Wokenschau
23:56A newsreel prepared for German cinema audiences throughout the Nazi era
24:17Once again these were expertly conceived productions
24:20Which brought up to the minute reports from all of the battlefronts
24:24And projected the rosiest possible light onto the home front
24:30The Deutsche Wokenschau played a very important part in the overall propaganda strategy of the Nazi regime
24:37I think it's important to make the point that both Hitler and Goebbels were very taken by film
24:42As a propaganda medium
24:44And by film I mean not only documentaries and newsreels
24:48But feature film, entertainment film
24:50The problem about feature films, particularly during the war
24:53Was that their lead time was very long
24:56You'd never had the right kind of film exactly when you wanted it
25:00And I mean there were moments during the Second World War
25:02When Goebbels was desperate for suitably inspiring patriotic films
25:07And simply didn't have them
25:08And in fact had to revive films that had been made many years early and reissue them
25:13So that was a problem
25:15The Nazis did invest a lot of money in some, a relatively small number, of very spectacular propaganda films
25:22But the everyday film fair of Germans
25:26And the everyday film vehicle for propaganda was newsreel
25:31World War 2 was a very bloody and brutal affair
25:35And obviously what you're not going to see in Wokenschau is the real realities of war
25:38You're not going to see bodies, you're not going to see wounded men
25:41Because these were watched by mothers in cinemas for example
25:44And they didn't want to destroy civilian morale
25:47By showing their own men wounded
25:49And their own men lying dead
25:51Or even to an extent the enemy dead
25:53So they're very much sanitised and they're very much cleaned up
25:56Once again as propaganda, they're designed to get a very specific message
26:01So when the German advances are happening
26:04The forces of triumphalism are there
26:07The music's up, the images are upbeat
26:09And the Reels relentlessly attempt to project this image of success
26:16Even when Germany's on the retreat, the retreats are projected as successes
26:23They're tactical withdrawals, they're withdrawals to prepared defences
26:26The latest weapons are always shown on the Reels
26:30The latest technology is never very far behind
26:33And they were actually used by the Allies
26:36As a means of keeping track on what was going on behind the Third Reich
26:43And interestingly, a lot of these films were actually made for overseas dissemination
26:48And because the Germans controlled the Channel Island, a number of them are in English
26:53We are continually forced to turn back under the fire of the German anti-aircraft artillery
26:58And you have this rather bizarre female voice who sounds like she's spent time in America
27:04Who describes the events, for example, of the Dieppe Raid
27:07And every time a British plane is down, we hear the voice,
27:11Shot down!
27:14Shot down!
27:16Throughout the war years, Deutsche Wochenschau was to become the main vehicle for German audiences
27:22To gain news of what was happening at the front
27:26The films were shot by what were known as propaganda companies
27:30Under which professional movie cameramen were drafted into the ranks of the Wehrmacht
27:34And used to shoot footage from the very front line
27:38For that reason, the Wochenschau gives us an immediate picture of the events as they occurred during World War II
27:46Their products are highly professional and slickly put together, incorporating good use of soundtrack and imagery
27:52They have a very strong aesthetic and emotional function
27:57Which was really to psych up the viewers, to make them more patriotic, to motivate them
28:02With all the aids that talkies have by the 1940s
28:07Powerful, inspiring, bombastic 19th-century music very frequently
28:12And a very wide palette of science which the Germans dubbed on
28:16It's important to realise that these films were nearly always shot silent
28:20The exception was speeches by party leaders
28:22But military footage would have been shot silent
28:25And then dubbed with sounds and music at headquarters at the production studios back in Berlin
28:36A side effect of the newsreels was some very powerful documentaries, compilation films
28:42Made in the early months of the war, and documenting the victories over Poland and over France
28:48Victory in the West, and other films, which were put together out of newsreel footage
28:53Direct front coverage of military events
28:57With the very strong and effective purpose, I think, of instilling terror and fear, really, in foreign audiences
29:06Because these were shown by German diplomats abroad in foreign countries, in Belgium, in Holland, in France, before Germany attacked
29:13them
29:16Above all else, Waukenschau was designed as a piece of propaganda, with indoctrination as its main objective
29:26As the war wore on throughout 1940 and into 1941
29:31The makers of Deutsche Waukenschau had more and more to be triumphant about
29:36German conquests filled the globe
29:38And it seemed that the new armed forces of Germany were invincible
29:43One particular favourite of the makers of the propaganda reels were the men of the U-boat arms
29:54These were very much the film stars of the day
29:57They were fettered and adored by crowds, and were seen as the real heroes of the war
30:03Their kills were celebrated in the same way that buccaneers of old would have
30:07And the newsreels were very quick to pick up on the experiences of the U-boat men
30:15The U-boat crews were very much the film stars of the days
30:19These are the men who were revered and worshipped by the cinema audiences
30:24The most successful men, like Gunter Prime, actually became known by name
30:29And would be recognised by a cinema audience
30:32And it's interesting when you see them, that they're as near as you can get to glamour in the war
30:38They even outstripped Air Force pilots in terms of glamour
30:45It was not unusual for a U-boat crew to be accompanied by a propaganda company specialist
30:50Who would film the entire duration of the mission
30:53And make a detailed record of the events endured by the U-boat men
30:57Their successes, of course, were carefully recorded for triumphant declaration on the screens of Germany
31:12The German newsreel cameramen prided themselves on covering practically every aspect of the German war effort
31:20From aeroplanes to submarines
31:22And clearly covering U-boat warfare, the Battle of the Atlantic, was relatively difficult
31:26Submarines are rather cramped
31:28They have a very brief, short supply of electricity
31:30There are, however, some very dramatic newsreel films of German submarines in action
31:36Particularly, one thinks of periscope pictures of burning tankers that have been torpedoed by German submarines
31:43And footage of the American coast and the Canadian coast by submarines which went right across the Atlantic
31:48And clearly impressed the German public by how far they were getting
31:52And how many American and Canadian ships they were sinking in their home waters
31:56However, I think a lot of this footage is half-faked, at least staged
32:01I think, actually, footage of submarine crews being depth charged were probably shot in the Baltic
32:06With a German destroyer dropping depth charges at a very safe distance
32:10Rather than British submarines, British warships, attacking the submarine
32:14Which would have been a very much more difficult and unpleasant experience
32:17And they would not have wanted to have had camera crews in the control room
32:21Using up electricity, getting in the way of the crew
32:24During this kind of very traumatic and difficult and dangerous event
32:32Other theatres of the war covered by the cameras of the propaganda companies
32:35Included the sands of North Africa
32:38Where, in 1941, Rommel was forging ahead triumphantly
32:49Rommel was one of those commanders who knew and understood the benefits of good PR
32:54And he was always keen to have cameras around him
32:57For that reason, we have a very complete record of the affairs of the Africa Core
33:04Nazi propaganda did have some spectacular failures
33:08It was impossible even for the propaganda machine to convince the German population
33:12That the level of rations they were living on were adequate
33:15This was definitely an uphill task
33:18Because the German population could see just how slender the actual rations were
33:23And how difficult it was to obtain food
33:38As the tide of war began to turn against Germany
33:41The nature of the propaganda machine also had to change
33:46The first real sea change in the nature of German propaganda
33:50Arrived at the time of the battle for Stalingrad
33:56If we look at, for example, the Wehrmacht, the army's own magazine
34:01Suddenly we are confronted with these images of men
34:04Who are defending to the last and making us stand
34:09In the same way that Leonidas did with the Spartans thousands of years before
34:13And that begins to convey something of the desperation of the regime
34:17They know the tide is turning
34:19And they are now beginning to hook on to these ideas of fighting to the last and resistance
34:25As opposed to these ideas of conquest and triumph that we have seen up to this point
34:31Because so many of Germany's fathers and sons were involved in the fighting
34:36It was impossible to disguise the scale of the disaster
34:39Which was unfolding on the city in the Volga
34:43And as the 6th Army was gradually surrounded and destroyed
34:47Goebbels and his propaganda department had to resort to a rather pathetic attempt
34:52To compare the men of the 6th Army with classical heroes of old
34:57The half-starved scarecrows of Stalingrad were compared to Leonidas and the Spartans
35:03Who had held the pass at Thermopylae
35:06Once the propaganda department was reduced to using images of this almost pathetic level of honesty
35:12It was clear that the writing was now on the wall
35:21There were attempts by both sides to try to influence the other to try to get radio messages across
35:28Of course, it was much easier for people in liberal states to pick up what messages being put out by
35:36totalitarian states
35:37It was very, very dangerous to listen to a foreign radio during wartime in either Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia
35:44If you were caught with your radio tuned to a foreign station
35:47Well, you could be arrested, you could even be executed
35:50It was very, very harsh punishment
35:52So it is very much kept under control even though both sides were attempting to do this
35:57I don't think it actually had a terrific effect on the way the war went either for Soviet propaganda in
36:03Germany
36:04Or German propaganda in the Soviet Union
36:06Both sides were also dropping leaflets on each other and all kinds of things like that
36:10Getting soldiers in Stalingrad to surrender
36:13Germans dropping leaflets on Moscow trying to persuade the population to turn against their leaders
36:17It's had very, very little effect, I think, that sort of propaganda
36:25At the end of 1942, the beginning of 1943, the surrender of Stalingrad in February 1943
36:32Which is by any standards a huge disaster and is presented as not a wasted sacrifice
36:39But nevertheless a huge setback
36:41And that is the opening really for Goebbels' new campaign
36:45Which is to say we may lose this war
36:47This was something which was new
36:49And which is a new propaganda line
36:52There had been notes of it, I think rumblings of it already in 1942
36:56But in 1943, it's brought out in a very much more foregrounded way
37:08From Stalingrad onwards, the path for Hitler's Germany lay only downwards towards eventual defeat
37:15The propaganda ministry did once again play its part in an attempt to keep up the levels of civilian morale
37:22But Germany was now massively on the defensive on every front
37:37Wave after wave of Allied bombers were beginning to destroy the German cities
37:42Goebbels, in the attempt to increase the propaganda effort, launched his so-called Total War campaign
37:48In which he tried to persuade the citizens of Germany that everything that had happened up to now
37:54Had not been in the name of Total War
37:57Now the events were going to get serious
38:00The seriousness of the situation could no longer be disguised by the propaganda machine
38:06He speaks to a carefully selected audience of party workers, dressed up as real people, some of them
38:12Saying, do we want Total War?
38:13The British claim that the Germans have lost the stomach for this fight
38:16Is that true?
38:18And these people have been warmed up very effectively
38:20And they shout, see Kyle, no, it's a lie, it's a lie
38:23And then Goebbels very dramatically, and if you look at the footage, it's a pretty powerful speech
38:30Says, do we want Total War? More total, more radical than anybody has been able to imagine it before
38:36And the replies to that, of course, are yes, yes, heil, heil, heil
38:42And I think Goebbels was doing this as a propaganda stunt in a very practiced, very cold way
38:47Very much like a professional actor
38:49And behind that, behind that thinking were two motives, it seems to me
38:53Or two perceptions
38:55One was that if you frightened the Germans
38:57And you made them feel that they might lose
39:00Interesting contrast with the First World War
39:02When the Germans were told all the time that they were winning
39:05Until they were told that they'd lost
39:07Goebbels, I think, takes a very different tack
39:09He warns people that they may lose
39:11The second perception
39:13Was that there was a great deal of slack in German society
39:16In the German economy
39:17And if people gave up their maidservants
39:19If they tightened their belts
39:21There was a great deal of productive and military capacity
39:24In the German economy
39:25Which actually, in Britain, people were bringing to bear on the war effort
39:29But which in Germany was taking a lot longer
39:31If they did that, then Germany could, nevertheless, defeat her opponents
39:35And particularly, of course, Russia
39:40Despite the darkening war situation
39:42The Deutsche Wachenschau continued to do its part to try and bolster civilian morale
39:47It was used in an attempt to convince the wavering population
39:51That miracle weapons such as the Tiger tank
39:54Or the V1 and V2
39:56Would eventually turn the tide
39:58And somehow halt the wave of Soviet advances
40:02Mercifully, for the rest of mankind
40:04This would not be the case
40:10As the tide begins to turn against Germany
40:14It almost becomes impossible to disguise the fact that the whole Third Reich is now under pressure from every site
40:21And Wachenschau is really used to try and bolster morale
40:26Increasingly as the day of reckoning comes nearer
40:29They're actually using it to try and demonstrate just how bad things are going to be under the Russians
40:35And it's an attempt to really bolster the morale to the very last moment
40:40The Red Army were indeed committing these horrendous atrocities
40:44And we've got here in the Wachenschau
40:47A contemporary record actually made up the time under desperate circumstances
40:52To try and bring these atrocities to a wider audience
40:56With a view towards stiffening the resolve of the civilian population to resist to the very last
41:03As the war goes on into 1943 and 1944
41:06The Germans are not able to stabilise the front in the east
41:10More and more the propaganda theme is terror
41:13What will the Russians do actually if they do win?
41:18And Goebbels is very clever at exploiting propaganda windfalls
41:22Like the discovery of the Katyn massacre in April 1943
41:25The Russians had murdered a lot of Polish officers in eastern Poland at the beginning of the war
41:30The Germans discover this and get some extremely grisly footage of bodies being dug up
41:35And the message of that was very clear
41:37If we lose this war that's going to happen to us
41:40And of course this is to a certain extent backed by reality as the war goes worse and worse
41:45Right to the end of the war the German propaganda machine continued to turn out its efforts to indoctrinate the
41:51population
41:52But by now the citizens of Germany could hear the Russian guns in the distance
41:57And the daily sorties flown overhead by the allied bombers
42:01No amount of propaganda would ever hide the truth
42:07Newsreels were now used to illustrate to the domestic population just how vicious Soviet reprisals would be
42:14These are real atrocities carried out by the Russians in cities recaptured from the Germans
42:20They were used by Deutsche Wachenschau in an effort to stir the will of the German people to resist
42:26Or suffer atrocities like these
42:29Their efforts were in vain
42:33As the German war effort begins to go increasingly badly wherever you look
42:37The Western Desert, the Battle of the Atlantic, the Eastern Front above all
42:41It becomes very very difficult to produce the kind of material which was going to have the necessary effect
42:47However when one thinks about it the possibilities for manipulation and deception are very great
42:53Making newsreels or any other kind of visual material
42:56And I think one of the principles that one needs to hold in mind is that the Germans were always
43:00winning somewhere
43:01Right up to April 1945
43:04Even on a very localized basis
43:08And one of the tricks that the propagandists used to use, one of many
43:12Was to zoom in, although they didn't have zoom lenses
43:15But they could close up in on maps
43:18Particularly of the Russian front
43:20And then cut to footage of German soldiers capturing a farm
43:24Or consolidating a position that they'd actually managed to drive Russians out of
43:28Or driving Russians out with flamethrowers supported by tanks
43:32That kind of relatively inspiring fairly upbeat material
43:35And if you looked at the map and you were sitting in a German cinema in Cologne or Dusseldorf
43:39It wasn't very apparent where that spot was or how it related to the bigger picture
43:44What you saw was German soldiers clearly having a success
43:48And the Germans were able to do this until the very end of the war
43:51A very interesting example is the newsreel shot of the D-Day landings
43:56Which is heavily falsified
43:59First of all by the fact that
44:02Captured Allied prisoners who, I mean things did go wrong on D-Day for the Allies
44:06Allied prisoners were taken
44:08They do look demoralised, they do look frightened, they do look wounded
44:12And the German forces are shown rounding them up
44:16Inspecting crashed or destroyed Allied tanks
44:20Destroyed landing craft, all these things
44:22Gliders which had crashed in the wrong places
44:24And had been damaged with bodies lying around
44:26And you could film these
44:27And they were soon on the spot and did film these
44:29As evidence that in fact the invasion had been a complete failure
44:34The German armed forces were succeeding and so on
44:37Obviously filmmakers have the ability to project
44:39A much rosier picture than actually exists in real life
44:44And right up to 1945
44:46They're making these newsreels which convey the impression of this
44:50Remorseless juggernaut in waiting
44:53Which is ready to drive back the Allies
44:56So even when the last dregs, the Home Guard, the Volksturm is being dragged together
45:03This is projected in the newsreels
45:06As somehow a huge mass of strength that's waiting to be unleashed on the Allies
45:11Of course it's not true, it is propaganda
45:14But it's very skilfully made nonetheless
45:17Well as far as the Soviet state was concerned
45:19From 1945 onwards the war was much more prominent as a theme than the revolution itself
45:26The regime, the Soviet government claimed its legitimacy
45:30Far more from its role as national defender, defender of the Russian people
45:34Than it did as the harbinger of revolution
45:37The revolution theme wasn't forgotten
45:40And the building of socialism still went on
45:42But this was secondary very much to war
45:46That was what was much more in people's minds
45:48That whole generation
45:50Right the way up until the last vestiges of it still alive in Russia today
45:54For them that was a vivid experience rather than the war itself
45:57And it was a Soviet triumph
45:59It was unambiguously a Soviet triumph
46:01It was conducted by Soviet people
46:02Through their central system, through their state, through the party
46:05And all the rest of it
46:06So this was seen as a great Soviet achievement
46:11As the war drew to its horrific conclusion
46:14The architects of the propaganda machine
46:16Also prepared to take their final bow
46:20Goebbels poisoned himself, his wife and his young family
46:23Rather than see them fall into allied hands
46:29This is the last footage of Adolf Hitler
46:37When finally faced with the certain prospect of retribution
46:41Adolf Hitler did not have the personal courage to face up to his moment of reckoning
46:46He married his mistress and took his own life in the chancellery building in the ruins of Berlin
46:52The city that he and his propaganda machine had brought to complete destruction
47:00It is very easy and has often been done to study the organisation of Nazi propaganda
47:05And to look at its actual products in the form of posters and films and photographs
47:10Very, very elaborate, very impressive
47:12It impresses us still, it impressed people at the time
47:16If we're asking about what effect it had on the public or foreigners
47:20That's a much more difficult question to answer and one we shouldn't dodge I think
47:25There were security police, SD reports about public opinion and morale
47:29Which did study in great detail what people said about the actual visual communication
47:36Of events like Hitler's birthday celebrations
47:39And these celebrations were very much part of one of Goebbels' more successful propaganda stunts
47:46Which was the building up of a Hitler myth
47:48The creation of Hitler into a superhuman being essentially
47:51And I think historians who've studied this
47:55Probably agree now that it was rather successful
47:57That Hitler is built up into being a mythic, almost superhuman figure
48:02Increasingly detached physically in the coverage of these parades
48:08Visibly different and remote from the crowds of onlookers and party members
48:13And as far as Hitler's birthday celebrations were concerned
48:16They were increasingly militaristic
48:19Military parades, demonstrations of the state of the art of German military power
48:24Fly-pass, big parades of heavy artillery, goose-stepping soldiers, this kind of thing
48:30And as far as you can tell from looking at the crowds
48:33Who were of course carefully selected around Hitler
48:35They seemed very impressed
48:37How this went down to the ordinary person is a different matter
48:40And I think one of the things that the security police were picking up
48:44Was a very considerable distaste for the prospect of another war in Germany
48:49Certainly people wanted Germany's great power status to be revived and confirmed
48:55But there was huge distaste for the possibility of going to war again
48:58And one of the things which is striking about the actual declaration of war in 1939
49:02Is the deafening silence
49:04Even in places like Berlin
49:06Which of course have been exposed to masses of close-quarters Nazi propaganda for six years
49:11To the pirates
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