The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic
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Both systems placed propaganda in a rhetorical straitjacket. The principle that the Führer or the party was infallible forced both systems to say things that were not true and that contradicted the direct experience of those who received the propaganda. The constraints were felt less when things were going well than when they were going poorly, but even during smoother periods citizens had little difficulty perceiving that propaganda was determined more by how things ought to be than how they were. This knowledge undermined the theoretical claim that each system was able to explain both where the world had been and where it was going.
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Hierarchies
M M M M
On 30 March 1945 Joseph Goebbels was complaining to Adolf Hitler about ineffective propaganda produced by Otto Dietrich and Robert Ley.1 Goebbels never quite succeeded in persuading Hitler to grant him the full authority he craved. Unlike the GDR’s propaganda, which had clear lines of authority, Nazi propaganda displayed organizational confusion.
Party and state were intertwined in bewildering ways, with half a dozen or more leading Nazis struggling for influence. I begin with a survey of their respective and overlapping jurisdictions, then turn to the clearer structure of GDR propaganda.
Symphonies and Discords
Control over the Third Reich’s propaganda was divided between party and state. Some matters were the responsibility of the party, some of the state; some were shared. This did not mean that there were two approaches to propaganda. The Nazis used state structures but made plain who had the power. The “leadership principle” in practice meant that those who could get power had power as long as Adolf Hitler did not intervene. To understand 57
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the Nazi system, one must know who actually had what power when, not in theory.
The major players in Hitler’s propaganda system were Joseph Goebbels, Otto Dietrich, Robert Ley, Alfred Rosenberg, Joachim Ribbentrop, Philip Bouhler, and Max Amann. All save Ribbentrop were party Reichsleiter, of whom there were sixteen in 1933. Each theoretically had direct access to Hitler.2 Consistent with Hitler’s practice of assigning several people to the same area, their respective areas of authority were shifting and overlapping. The boundaries between party and state were equally unclear. The results are suggested by Table 1.
Hitler could and did intervene in any area, and other leading Nazis sometimes claimed authority as well. In most significant areas of propaganda, at least two leading Nazis had say. Sometimes that say came by virtue of simultaneous party and state positions.
The results of organizational uncertainty were at times almost comical.
Goebbels and Dietrich each issued daily directives to the German press.
Their directives did not always agree. One day in 1940, each gave a speech that he instructed the press to carry as the lead story, putting editors in an unpleasant predicament.3 Hitler once locked them together in a railway car with instructions not to leave until they had made peace. They left with an agreement that neither took seriously.4 The Propaganda and Foreign Ministries each maintained a club for foreign correspondents in Berlin. A Swedish journalist noted that the food and service were better at the Foreign Ministry’s club. He also observed that being in the bad graces of one ministry often put one in the good graces of the other, useful for a foreign correspondent who was doing his or her duty.5 While Goebbels and Ribbentrop were fighting for control of international propaganda, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Rosenberg won control of propaganda in the East.6
There are good summaries of the intricacies of the Nazi propaganda system, the best being Jay Baird’s and Robert Herzstein’s.7 I am interested here in the general structure of the system, not in the full details of the infighting and rearrangements over time. What Michael Balfour writes about the disputes between Goebbels and Dietrich is true of the system as a whole as well: “[T]he relative positions of Goebbels and Dietrich were continually changing, so that no statement can be made about them which is valid for the period as a whole.”8 Nazism viewed the world in Darwinian terms, but its internal politics were only semi-Darwinian. Extinction was difficult (Hitler was usually loyal to his intimates), but fading into relative This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:38 UTC
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TABLE 1. Nazi Propagandists
Area
State Control
Party Control
Newspapers
Goebbels
Goebbels
Dietrich
Dietrich
Ribbentrop
Amann
Magazines
Goebbels
Goebbels
Ley
Amann
Films
Goebbels
Goebbels
Books
Goebbels
Bouhler
Rosenberg
Amann
Public Meetings and
Goebbels
Goebbels
Ceremonies
Rosenberg
Ley
Foreign Propaganda
Goebbels
Goebbels
Ribbentrop
Rosenberg
Theater
Goebbels
Goebbels
Rosenberg
The Arts
Goebbels
Goebbels
Rosenberg
Domestic Radio
Goebbels
Goebbels
Party Education
Goebbels
Ley
Rosenberg
impotence was a constant threat. However, as we shall see, the infighting did not have a great impact on the nature of the propaganda that actually was produced.
I shall begin with Joseph Goebbels, the central figure who made propaganda almost from the day he joined the party in 1924. Hitler sent him to Berlin in November 1926, where he developed an effective propaganda system that greatly increased both the visibility and membership of the This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:38 UTC
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party. The following year he founded Der Angriff, a newspaper that quickly developed a lively reputation for scandal-mongering. By 1931 he had become Reichspropagandaleiter, the head of the party propaganda apparatus, a position he held until 1945. After the Nazi takeover, Goebbels became head of the RMVP. He was president of the Reich Chamber of Culture, the organization to which all employed in culture had to belong. Goebbels was the single most influential propagandist, but he had substantially more power in some areas than in others.
Goebbels’s ministry was the most important propaganda entity. It was an unprecedented organization, which Goebbels saw as the director of the symphony of public opinion and which he boasted was the “most modern ministry.”9 It began with 350 employees in 1933. Though Goebbels’s professed goal was to keep it under 1,000, there were more than 1,900 employees by 1942. The forty-two regional propaganda offices by the war years employed another 1,400 people.10 These were organizationally subordinate to the RMVP but in the peculiar Nazi tangle of party and state had heads who often owed allegiance more to their local party Gauleiter (party regional leader) than to Berlin. He was near, Berlin was far away, and proximity to was important in Nazism. Among other duties, the regional offices provided detailed reports on propaganda-related matters to Berlin.
&n
bsp; Goebbels probably had the most capable ministry in Berlin (at least until Albert Speer’s advent as production organizer). Although 92 percent of the staff were party members, he did not tolerate fools.11 He wanted people of genuine competence, providing they were willing to grant Goebbels even greater competence. As his diaries demonstrate, he kept careful watch on his subordinates, not hesitating to fire those he thought not up to the job.
Herzstein observes: “The best background for a successful career in the Goebbels ministry was a doctorate in the humanities or social sciences, combined with a past history as an old Nazi. If one had these qualifications and was under forty, so much the better.”12 The ministry began in 1933
with five divisions: propaganda, radio, press, motion pictures, and theater.
By 1941 there were seventeen divisions, including art, music, periodicals, and literature.13 The Propaganda Ministry was funded primarily by radio license fees that grew at a pace faster than Goebbels’s ministry, making it almost self-supporting.14 This was a happy side effect of the Nazi policy of manufacturing cheap radio receivers (the “People’s Receiver”) to make radio ownership feasible even for those with low incomes.
Goebbels’s goals were comprehensive from the beginning. Two days after the ministry began its official existence, he spoke to the press: “We This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:38 UTC
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have founded a ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. . . .
Popular enlightenment is essentially something passive; propaganda, on the other hand, is something active. . . . It is not enough to reconcile people more or less to our regime, to move them towards a position of neutrality toward us, we want rather to work on people until they are addicted to us, until they realize, in the ideological sense as well, that what is happening now in Germany not only must be allowed, but can be allowed.”15
Goebbels was making the distinction Hitler had made between propaganda and organization, though changing the terms. For him, enlightenment was to win general support, propaganda was to produce passion.
Goebbels was also president of the Reichskulturkammer, the Reich Chamber of Culture (RKK). The RKK was the “professional” organization encompassing nearly everyone with any role at all in culture, whether in performance, production, or management. Established in 1933, the RKK
initially had separate chambers for literature, theater, music, film, fine arts, press, and radio. The radio chamber proved superfluous and was eliminated after the outbreak of the war. The ties between the Propaganda Ministry and the RKK were cemented by Goebbels’s right as president to appoint the RKK’s top officials.
The RKK had significant legal powers. Since no one could work in the arts without being a member and since members could be expelled for any violation the RKK thought proper, the RKK encouraged fidelity to Nazi principles without blatant censorship. It also allowed the state to promote the art and support the artists it wished. Since there were regional offices, RKK activities could be coordinated at the local level throughout the country.16
Next, I turn to the party propaganda apparatus. The leading organ was the Reichspropagandaleitung, the Nazi Party Central Propaganda Office (RPL), based in Munich. Goebbels was its head, but since he was in Berlin, subordinates handled day-to-day direction. The RPL was divided into five main divisions in 1939: active propaganda, film, radio, culture, and coordination. The busiest was active propaganda. Its tasks included “carrying out propaganda actions at every level, from the mass events with their archi-tectonic structure to membership meetings at the local group or section level. This requires organizing the entire speaker system of the party, its subsidiaries and affiliated organizations. Along with handling the daily questions of politics, it provides the entire speaker system with information and sends all propagandists in the country the monthly Unser Wille und Weg. The speaker system also requires the production and distribution of appropriate posters and leaflets, as well as the careful examination of This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:38 UTC
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meeting reports from the speakers and propaganda offices.”17 The film section organized film showings, particularly in areas that lacked a movie theater. The radio section encouraged listening, promoted programs consistent with Nazi ideology, and organized hobbyists. The culture section had supervision of artistic matters that somehow impinged on the party. For example, it controlled the use of Nazi symbols and approved music for party gatherings and the architecture of party buildings. The coordination section was responsible for relations with the state and other organizations. The RPL had far less power than the Propaganda Ministry.
Subordinate to the RPL was the Reichsring für nationalsozialistische Propaganda und Volksaufklärung, the Reich Circle for National Socialist Propaganda and People’s Enlightenment. This structure, with national, regional, and local offices, was established in July 1935 as a way of bringing order to the profusion of groups making propaganda. It was headed by the party’s propaganda leaders at the various levels. As its director, Walter Tießler, wrote in 1939: “After the seizure of power, we knew that all areas of party activity, propaganda included, were very decentralized. The various subsidiaries and affiliated organizations of the party, as well as other German organizations with propaganda offices, largely did not see the necessity to follow the party’s propaganda directives, rather wanted to go their own way wherever possible. The result was that not only were different problems handled at the same time, they were handled in different ways. That inevitably produces uncertainty and mistrust on the part of the population.”18 Of course, the propagandists at the lower level were only following the example of their leaders, which fact could hardly be admitted.
Still, the Reich Circle did help to coordinate the activities of a wide range of groups, beginning with party organizations such as the German Labor Front (DAF), the student association, the SA, the SS, and the NSDAP
Colonial Office. It soon also included representatives from many nonparty organizations. Its stated tasks were numerous:
• Guaranteeing the NSDAP’s leadership of the entire propaganda apparatus;
• Establishing general guidelines;
• Distributing the RPL’s informative material to all propagandists;
• Organizing unified ceremonies and special events;
• Making subordinate propagandists aware of the RPL’s general regulations and guidelines;
• Clarifying and eliminating misunderstandings and conflicts between various propaganda offices;
• Supporting propaganda campaigns;
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• Supporting conferences and mass meetings;
• Arranging discussions of propaganda at party conferences;
• Arranging meetings and correspondence encouraging the smooth functioning of the propaganda system;
• Holding a monthly meeting for all propagandists in the Reich Circle’s jurisdiction;
• Producing quarterly activity reports;
• Informing the RPL three weeks in advance of conferences at which propaganda will be discussed to allow for its participation.19
Fine in theory, the Reich Circle sometimes foundered in the inherent chaos of the Nazi system. As Herzstein observes, party potentates often insisted on their own way despite orders from above.20 They liked the leadership principle as long as they were giving, not receiving, the orders.
Goebbels viewed propaganda as a whole, with responsibilities assigned to the organization best able to handle them. Speaking to propaganda leaders in 1935, he outlined the system: “Take the control of the press: t
hat we do through the state. For the party cannot do that since it lacks both the means and the legal authority. The press obeys me as a minister. If I went to it as Reich Propaganda Leader, it would say: You have no legal authority.
Say, however, that we want to fill the Tempelhof Field with people. That is the job of the party. When we want to reach the people with a propaganda campaign through meetings, the party is responsible. When we want to do it through the press, the ministry handles it. The whole influence over public opinion remains in our hands in either case.”21 From Goebbels’s perspective, the problem was that “our hands” were not always his hands. Other Nazis fought hard to have influence.
Otto Dietrich was another early party member who brought with him considerable journalistic experience. Hitler appointed him the party’s Reichspressechef (Reich press chief) in 1931. He became the chief press officer of the government late in 1937 and Hitler’s press secretary. Dietrich was organizationally subordinate to Goebbels as an undersecretary in the RMVP, though he rarely showed up at his office there. As party leaders with the rank of Reichsleiter, they were equals. During the war, Dietrich was in Hitler’s immediate presence far more often than Goebbels was. Since Hitler was by nature more of an optimist than Goebbels, the propaganda minister regularly was distressed by Dietrich’s sanguine releases on the state of the war, releases based more on the Führer’s optimism than on the true situation.
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Dietrich’s influence was primarily limited to the press, but he defended his realm with tenacity, as Goebbels’s regular complaints demonstrate. In November 1939, for example, Goebbels wrote: “Dr. Dietrich is stirring up trouble. He wants to be press minister. A bone-head without imagination or understanding.”22 Still, Dietrich had daily direct access to Hitler once the war began and also was chairman of the Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro, the sole national news agency after 1939. To compete with Goebbels’s daily press conference in Berlin, Dietrich began issuing daily press releases in 1940, which he sometimes used to needle Goebbels. Goebbels gave a speech in February 1941, for example, to which he instructed the press to give major coverage. Dietrich promptly issued a release that said: “There is reason to mention that the reporting of political meetings should be sufficiently restrained so as to allow for stronger coverage for mass meetings addressed by the Führer.”23 Since Dietrich’s directives claimed to have Hitler’s direct authority behind them, they had influence, but they went from Dietrich to Goebbels for release at his press conference in Berlin. This put Dietrich at a disadvantage. Goebbels was in Berlin, and he was not.