-The Nazis systematically ambushed the German people with propaganda

The question of whether teaching the masses to be less gullible could stop regimes like Hitler’s coming to power is difficult to decipher, if one considers the reasons behind the rise of Hitler in a holistic sense. On face value, the idea that a less gullible citizenry would reject Hitler seems correct.

However, in politics there is often a level of deceit or distortion, and this was magnified under the Nazi regime with a specialised ministry catering in propaganda. It appears that a citizenry must not only be less gullible, but constantly on guard to prevent personalities lie Hitler, and ideas that the Nazi regime stood for, coming to fruition. A less gullible and more informed citizenry

The Nazis systematically ambushed the German people with propaganda, making them think the Nazis would benfit them, using the common political tactic of promising the people a better, more secure future, striking a chord in a nation under severe economic hardship. The future that the Nazis eventually imposed on Germany would be ghastly to the German people, and more so to ethnic groups such as Jews and Gypsies.

Joseph Goebbals was the architect of Nazi propaganda, and became the Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany. In 1930, he set up ‘propaganda apparatus centrals in most German cities. Nazis studied commercial advertising techniques, but adopted their propaganda to appeal to more long term values. Propaganda wardens were trained to lead the entire local propaganda effort. The centrals had complex and hierachial structures and were a pre-government department of propaganda.

Once in power, that department became the Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. Goebbals often reflected on propaganda itself. He claimed that the Nazis “have transformed it into a truly creative art. It was our sharpest weapon in defending and building the state. The great wealth of ideas and never failing creativity of our propaganda proven during our struggle for power was perfected to the last detail. Now we turned it to serve the state itself to find meaningful ways and flexible forms to immunise the people’s thinking . The people should share the concerns and successes of their government. Its concerns and successes must therefore be constantly presented and hammered into them, so that the people will consider the concerns and successes of their government to be their concerns and successes.

Hitler used democracy to destroy democracy, believing that once elected, a leader could assume full power over the people. He won 30% of the vote in the 1933 German elections and did a deal with Hindenburg, the presidential winner, to become Chancellor of Germany. When Hindenburg died, Hitler claimed the mantle of president also, becoming the all ruling Fuhrer. This move was helped by the the Nazi terror mob, the ‘Brownshirts’ who burnt down the Reichstag (German parliament) to manufacture a crisis atmosphere, which led to the Enabling Act, which literally enabled the Hitler dictatorship.

In the next year Jewish people rapidly lost their rights. Non-Aryans were banned from all government jobs, incuding patent lawyers, doctors, dentist and university lecturers and professors. They are also banned from the cultural and entertainment industries, journalism and all German sports teams.

Eventually Jews are restricted from public schools, swimming pools, public parks, and can no longer own land. Beggars, the homeless and the unemployed are sent to concentration camps. Those with genetic defects can be sterilised and homosexuality is ‘combatted’.

Dissent to the Nazi regime is also repressed. The Gestapo, a secret terror organisation is born, and with the Brownshirts, strike fear into Germans. The Brownshirts loot and burn Jewish shops and bash and murder Jews and other people. The German police force is purged of those considered politically unreliable and 50 000 SS stormtroopers are sworn in as secret police.

Hitler’s rise to power brought in a Nazi police state where individual freedomws were lost. Political parties, trade unions and communism are banned. Nazi students and Brownshirts burnt books with ‘unGerman ideas’, including Ernest Hemmingway, Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstien.

All opposition and criticsm to hitler’s regime was extinguished due to the threat of being sent to a concentration camp, where torture and murder abounded.

A secret spy web set up by the Gestapo meant that anyone could be an informant. People who disagreed with the Nazis stayed silent out of fear of ‘disappearing into the night’, and lived a lonely existence. Often people were sent to camps due to vague accusations or somebody disliking them and informing on them out of spite. The Gestapo set up similar secret spy webs in the countries they occupied.

School children were victims of Nazi indoctrination. Hitler stated he wanted “unquestioning young men, ready to obediently serve the Fatherland unto death�. The children were taught to hate but had little knowledge of value, due to the purging of teachers, who were replaced by Nazi indoctrinators. Hitler Youth was set up, teaching boys physical education, and later, military combat. Girls were trained as mothers and homemakers, were the Nazis believed they belonged.

The Nazis also used pageantry and symbolism to propagate their message to society, which was epitomised in the yearly, week long Nuremberg rallies.

There does appear that there were elements of gullibility in sections of German society. While the Nazis crushed dissent, some people chose to actively support the Nazi regime. Others benefited from the losses given to Jewish people, claiming their former jobs, business or land.

However, a substantial number of Germans despised Hitler and the Nazi regime. Many people formed clandestione groups to help Hitler’s victims escape Germany. Some planned a coup d’etat to rid Germany of nazism and planned a new society to replace it with.

There were 15 assassination attempts on Hitler during his reign, but were either thwarted by the Gestapo, or poorly prepared. The most infamous attempt was on July 20, 1944, when a bomb ripped through Hitler’s East Prussian headquarters. While it came too late too change the regime, it did send a message to the world that there was some resistance to Hitler in Germany.

Misfortune and lack of success brings into question the worth of the resistance to Hitler.
The broad movement opposing Hitler did help ease Germany back into the world after the war. The different elements in the resistance movement included groups with Christian, socialist, conservative and reactionary beliefs. While there was a broad range of groups opposing Hitler, there was no real unified resistance. Many groups labored in isolation and all had to operate in secrecy.

The important thing to remember was that despite the immense state repression and grand propaganda, many people still objected. A group known as Soft Circle helped those most persecuted by the Nazis. A student group known as White Rose distributed anti Nazi leaflets in Munich. There was also various groupings of left and right wing militants that opposed Hitler. One of the most effective was the Red Orchestra, who were actually named this by the Gestapo.

The only groups that formed close ties was a union between a conservative group associated with a former mayor, and a resigned army chief of staff, the Kriesav Circle, who espoused a Christian socialist philosophy and opponents in the German military, including the Military Intelligence Group. This branch of the resistance had the clearest aims and came the closest to succeeding. (including the bombing on July 20. 1944)

The rise of Hitler cannot be explained away by one sweeping statement, like a less gullible citizenry would have stopped Hitler’s rise to power. However it is part of the reason why, as a more informed citizenry would have been able to identify the early warning signs and oppose Hitler before it became too late.

There were many reasons why Hitler came to power, and reasons put forth include; the poor treatment of German society by the Allied Forces after World War 1; the troubled economy; the disillusionment the people felt for democracy during such difficult economic times; racial prejudice and the covert nature of propaganda propagated by Joseph Goebbals.

By the time Hitler came to power, the need for gullibility to maintain that regime was countered by official propaganda and sheer force. Those who were not gullible, had to keep silence or face the threat of “disappearing in the night.�.

Before Hitler gained absolute power, there was still a chance that people could of resisted his dissent to Fuhrer. A people reminded of the follys and tricks of those in power may have been able to be more sceptical about Hitler’s true plans.

The importance of education is paramount to prevent regimes like Hitler’s coming to power. However eternal vigilance is needed. We cannot take the freedoms we have for granted and we need to increase our autonomy from state repression. We cannot trust the media, particularly when it is owned by those in power.

We need to educate our communities collectively. We can only defend our communities from fascism if we build strong ties within those communities and foster equality and show no tolerance to discrimination. The German resistance showed that a fragmented force will not achieve much. Diversity, unity and information sharing may counter fascism. But we must always be eternally vigilant.

Wallaby Poors
Soil Liberation Frontyard Publications

This was written for a talk I did for a philosophy subject in 2002. The references were given to my tutor, but I didn’t need to for my hardcopy. I thought it had a few good summaries of the Nazi system. It was done in a debate format with others, where I argued that the mind and social control of the Nazis does ot necessarily make the people ‘gullible’ and likely to be led toward fascism. The question was whether teaching the masses to be less gullible could stop regimes like Hitler’s coming to power

I will endeavor to find the links of my references which included the actual essays written by Joseph Goebbals, Propaganda Minister in Hitler’s Nazi regime in the late 1930s and early to mid 1940s.

Another thing I learnt for preparing for this talk was putting ‘mind control’ in a google search engine comes up with all sorts of information, including CIA documents relating to mind control experiments.