Indoctrination And Propaganda Between 1933 And 1945.

To maintain control, support of young people is essential, as they are the future generation of politicians, workers, industrialists and every other intrinsic part of society. If the entire population believed in Hitler and his policies, and children were brought up backing the Nazi's, future resistance would be minimised. Indoctrination was the key way in which the Nazi's gained their support from the Youth and involved full intervention in the education system as well as a variety of youth groups. The extreme bias within school curriculum and the popularity of groups such as the Hitler Youth meant that young people were taught from a young age that "the State was more important than the individual, that individuals must be willing and ready to sacrifice themselves for Nation and Fuhrer." The Nazi involvement in education was introduced in a variety of ways. Many teachers were already sympathetic to the Nazi's, with over 30% voluntarily joining the party before 1936. The vast majority joined the Socialist Teachers' League (97% by 1937) either by choice or through pressure, which involved a month long training course emphasising Nazi ideology, and by 1938 two-thirds of teachers had attended. Additionally, the Nazi regime asserted further control by keeping records on individual teachers, so anyone who did not sufficiently promote National Socialism would lose their jobs. Therefore, few people would be able to afford resisting the Nazi regime whether or not they believed in its ideology, as the threat of being dismissed led to overall cooperation. The curriculum was also altered, with stress on subjects such a physical education, history and biology, where Nazi ideas were inserted. By 1936 Physical Education took up at least two hours a day, so that schools were producing ideal young men: athletic and strong; Religious Education was slowly replaced; in Maths the price of bombs and war materials were taught; chemical warfare was taught in chemistry, and in History where the "rightful" German land lay and a hatred of the Jewish and the French was incited. It was also encouraged to separate the sexes, with girls taking home crafts and needlework in order to prepare them for futures as homemakers and mothers, highlighting the traditional values within the Nazi regime and increasing control over the expected futures of German children. Additional schools were developed to train the potential Nazi leaders, such as the Notional Political Institutes of Education run by the SS, and the Adolf Hitler Schools set up by the Youth Leader Schirach where an even stronger emphasis on physical, political and military training was implemented. Hitler wanted to "mould a youth from which the world will shrink in terror", and so higher education became less important, with national standards falling, as the focus was on military preparation and inciting Nazi ideology, rather than on improving intellect. A strong emphasis was instead put on joining youth groups whilst children were in education; so that they would then go on to join other Nazi organizations as they matured. All youth organisations were banned in 1936, other than The Hitler Youth, which became compulsory. It offered fun and adventure to young people with activities such as sports and camps, and its popularity along with intimidation led to mass membership even before it became enforced. Members all swore an oath of allegiance to Hitler, but most children, as Marianne Gartner wrote were "not thinking of the Fuhrer, nor serving the German people, when I raised my right hand, but of the prospect of. exciting activities away from school and the home". Despite membership being compulsory, many young people avoided the Hitler youth, or even joined opposing youth organisations due to the political and ideological bias being so extreme. Indoctrination was not a complete success due to groups such as The Edelweiss Pirates and The Swing Youth, who would not only camp, hike and sing, but also launch small attacks on Hitler Youth groups with the slogan "Eternal War on the Hitler Youth!" Hitler was unable to dominate the youth entirely, reflecting that perhaps indoctrination did not contribute to Hitler's control essentially. However, rebellion is natural in any regime, particularly within young people, and so Hitler's control was still fairly strong due to the Nazi interference within education and youth groups in spite of their being some resistance. Additionally, over time the punishment for those caught within opposing groups became harsher, and Hitler asserted control through sending culprits to labour camps, corrective education, or even having them hanged. It was not only the youth that needed to be under the control of the Nazi regime, and propaganda is considered by many historians as a vital part of Hitler's rise to power and then his maintenance of control within most other social groups. With almost complete control of the media, the Nazi's influenced virtually everything the German public had access to: radio, print press, cinema and art were all forms of propaganda in the Third Reich. The "people's receiver" was a small wireless radio that was mass produced and made affordable to the mass German market with just one radio station available so that Hitler's key speeches were heard by over half of the population. The press was controlled just as strictly, with over half the content of newspapers being supplied by the state controlled Press Agency, and the rest being strictly monitored. All associates of the press had to be members of the relevant compulsory unions and by 1982 Nazi ownership of the press reached 82%. In the vast range of films produced in the 30s, only a sixth were strongly propagandist, the rest being more subtle in their support of Nazi ideology. Goebbels approved every film made in Germany, and with the number of film goers quadrupling between 1933 and 1942 they were a significant part of keeping support for the Nazi's strong, and feeling such as anti-Semitism fairly high. Similarly, art was used to incite general feeling without directly indoctrinating the public. For example, an exhibition was opened called "The Eternal Jew", designed to show German superiority and to imply a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. It attracted 412,300 visitors, which was over 5,000 per day and the secret police claimed that anti-Semitic feeling increased with direct relation to the exhibition and other similar propaganda. Speer claimed that "Through technical devices like the radio. 80 million people were deprived of independent though. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man." However, although the German people would have been highly influenced by propaganda, we doubt the press now, and it is just as likely that the Germans would have been able to think for themselves, and resist the "brain washing" that many believed occurred in Nazi society. A further important aspect of the Nazi's control in Germany was that over the economy. The Nazi's took total control over industry in the attempt to recover from the economic crises, and rebuild the German economy in preparation for rearmament and war. In 1933, all independent trade unions were banned and the German Labour Front was set up to include both employees and employers. This was another key way to achieve the Volksgemeinschaft as it was the largest organisation in the Third Reich, and so the idea of community was supposed to inspire hard work to increase production. The German Labour Front and economic control was a key part of maintaining total control in Germany, as Hitler wanted to rearm, and so needed the support of industry and the working class. However, Tim Mason argues that Volksgemeinschaft propaganda did not gain Hitler total control of the working class, claiming that it had little effect on all social groups. He believed that within the working class there was significant opposition, but that attempting to find evidence for it was extremely difficult. Pressure on employers he claimed was asserted "through slow-downs in production, the taking of sick-leave, demonstrations of discontent, etc." If there was opposition from the working class throughout the Nazi era this suggests that propaganda could not have been as effective as is commonly believed. Hitler was aiming to bring the German people together, but clearly the vast amount of propaganda publicising the Volksgemeinschaft could not have been totally effective if Mason was correct to believe that the working class were a major challenge to the Nazi regime. The idea of the Volksgemeinschaft was fundamental in a large amount of Nazi propaganda. Mass rallies and festivals were arranged to instil a feeling of belonging, and attachment to the party. They had the ability in Goebbels eyes to transform a person from "a little worm into part of a large dragon", so that Germans felt part of a powerful community. Hitler's addresses evoked incredible emotion, and many of those who heard him speak were almost hypnotised by his passion leaving many completely inspired. His speeches along with propaganda surrounding the Hitler myth created Hitler as a God-like figure, and the desire of almost the entire nation to please him gained a vast amount of control for the Nazi's. The pre-empting of his wishes led to extreme radical actions, and it is possible that the reign of terror and the concentration camps were not the direct will of Hitler, but the result of the desire of others to fulfil his dreams for Germany. Nevertheless, other aspects of Nazi propaganda were in contrast, considered counterproductive, particularly attacks on the Church where much resistance was met. Hitler hoped to eradicate the Churches of Germany first by controlling them, and then reducing their influence, ultimately hoping to replace them with a faith centred on Nazi ideology, however this was never achieved. J. Noakes and G. Pridham wrote that "The churches were the only institutions which both had an alternative "ideology" to that of the regime and were permitted to retain their own organisational autonomy. This made them a major obstacle to the Nazi attempt to establish total control over German life." However, the resistance of the church was limited, as it focused on merely surviving in Germany than on resisting the Nazi regime, and so although the Concordat in 1933 stopped Germany gaining full control, it also prevented any major religious objections, and Hitler did not stay loyal to the terms for long. Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to tell how important propaganda and indoctrination were in Nazi Germany, as the reign of terror could have meant that rather than truly believing in Nazi ideology, the German people were simply too afraid to stand up against it. The secret police were an incredible threat to the public, and disappearances in the middle of the night created a sense of terror and the feeling that no one was safe. When interviewed for the BBC programme The Nazis an old man commented "They (the Gestapo) were everywhere". However, recent research has led historians to believe that in reality, the Gestapo were a fairly weak organisation, and that it was the psychological threat, and fear of the unknown that had such a powerful effect on the nation. The Gestapo were actually a fairly small organisation, only reaching 30,000 officers for the entire country when at its peak, and so only 0.5% of denunciations of people for committing race crimes against the German race in Wurzburg between 1933 and 1945 originated for Gestapo observations. The majority (57%) originated from reports from the general population, suggesting that the German people were complicit in the actions of the Gestapo, and that they contributed to the extreme treatment of those who were not thought to be completely supportive of Hitler. The fact that such a large percentage of German people were denouncing other members of the public suggests that it was the amalgamation of terror and propaganda/ indoctrination that maintained the Nazi's power so effectively. The fear of not wanting to be the next victim of the Gestapo combined with the strong belief that pure Germans were a superior race, and part of a community that should not be challenged created a population so firmly controlled that it allowed not only the holocaust to go ahead but also the murder of thousands of its own people. The small amount of resistance implies that most people were either completely passive, allowing events to unfold due to fear, or active in trying to create Hitler's perfect society through denunciation. Being in control of business was essential for economic control, which the Nazi's gained and then held onto through the German Labour Front. However, it was the balance of terror and propaganda that seemed to brainwashed the German population, allowing Hitler to maintain power. Terror was an extremely important aspect, but it gained a psychological control, as the high number of denunciations reflected that people must have believed in Hitler's idea of Aryan superiority and so people remained either supportive of, or passive towards the Nazi regime. Therefore, indoctrination and propaganda must have been incredibly important and also effective when united with fear, as so little resistance to the Nazi regime ever formed.