craves propaganda from the bottom of his being and a propagandist who responds to this craving.”11 In other words, propaganda fills needs both for propagandists and propagandees.
Propaganda is an inevitable result of the growing power of technique and method, of an irreversible flow of technology. It helps governments deal successfully with a citizenry made aware of events by modern media.
Citizens cannot simply be ignored any longer, but neither can governments provide full information on every subject relevant to their citizens or follow shifting public opinion on a multitude of issues. In the midst of confusion and change, propaganda helps citizens come to satisfying explanations of the world around them.
Ellul argues that all modern propagandas are essentially similar, regardless of their democratic or totalitarian makers. However, totalitarian systems expect far more of propaganda than do democratic societies.
Although not expecting instant results, they hope that, with time, propaganda will help them to mold a different type of human being, the prerequisite to the utopian futures they envision.
The word “propaganda” has its origins in religious persuasion. Pope Gregory XV founded the sacra congregatio christiano nomini propagando (commonly known as the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda) in 1622. It was charged with spreading Catholicism in the New World and combating Protestantism in Europe. With a considerably different mandate, it exists to this day, and visitors to Rome can walk down Propaganda Street. As this book makes clear, the religious origins of the term are revealing in the context of the twentieth century’s seemingly secular modes of propaganda.
In a curious way, both National Socialism and Marxism-Leninism were in the business of propaganda in its original religious sense, a statement the Nazis would agree with more readily than the Marxists. Politics typically deals with a part of life. In contrast, the great religions generally lay claim to it all. Western democracies tend to have weak political parties that make few demands on their members, but the National Socialists and Marxist-Leninists subordinated all areas of life to their worldviews, indeed the lives not only of their party members but of everyone in their societies.
The comparison to religious movements is frequently made in passing by those writing about totalitarian movements, but the analogy can prof-itably be developed in more detail. The totalitarian movements resemble the Christian faith in Europe before the Peace of Westphalia in 1648
(which generally ended European attempts to compel the adherence of all citizens to the religion of the state) or the practices of some Islamic states This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:31 UTC
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Introduction
5
today.12 This variant of religion compels public adherence to an established creed, an adherence that takes varied forms. Some accept the established religion with genuine faith, believing its tenets and seeking to realize them in their lives. These people can do dreadful things with the confidence that they are about good work.13 Others adopt the creed for pragmatic reasons: their careers or personal security depend on outward adherence. Another large group does not quite disbelieve. That is, the forces of the church, and of the society that seems universally to accept the church, produce accept-ance without passion. Citizens go through the motions of adherence, but their faith is lukewarm. Finally, there are heretics and infidels. Heretics share the basic theology but interpret it in ways other than those of the established church. Infidels hold to an entirely different religion. Heretics are worse than infidels, since they demonstrate that the accepted truth is not universally held within the society. A large cadre of priests promotes and enforces public adherence, and church and state are deeply intertwined.
The parallels between the old church and modern totalitarian movements are neither few nor trivial.
Western states decided after Westphalia that God was in a better position to judge the beliefs of their citizens than were governments. Too many religious wars had left too many dead. Totalitarian systems, even ones like National Socialism that have a vague religious connection, cannot depend on God. If truth is to be defended, the state or the party must do it. They are compelled inevitably to repeat the mistakes of state religions as a result.
Kenneth Burke’s vivid review of Mein Kampf saw Nazism as “a bastardization of fundamentally religious patterns of thought.”14 Hitler would have disagreed only with the term “bastardization.” In Mein Kampf he discussed the importance of religion: “Take away from present-day mankind its education-based, religious-dogmatic principles—or, practically speaking, ethical-moral principles—by abolishing this religious education, but without replacing it with an equivalent, and the result will be a grave shock to the foundations of their existence. We may therefore state that not only does man live in order to serve higher ideals, but that, conversely, these higher ideals also provide the premise for his existence.”15 He is not interested in the truth of religion, rather its pragmatic results. He admired the firmness with which the Catholic Church held to its doctrines and noted:
“The great masses of a people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude.”16 He wanted the Nazi Party to provide an equivalent that brought the power of religion to the political arena.
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6
Introduction
His acolyte Joseph Goebbels, in a speech to party propagandists in 1928, said: “You will never find millions of people who will give their lives for an economic program. But millions of people are willing to die for a gospel
[ Evangelium], and our movement is increasingly becoming such a gospel.”17 We will see in chapter 1 how the Nazis used specifically religious themes in propaganda. For now, it is enough to note that they were building not merely a political system but a worldview that claimed authority over every area of life.
What about the Marxist-Leninists? Seeing an atheistic philosophy as religious seems at the least odd. Yet the early German Marxist Karl Kautsky, writing of the Soviet state, made an explicitly religious comparison: “Like the God of the monotheists, a dictatorship is a very jealous god. It tolerates no other gods.”18 A more vivid description of the “religion” of the GDR
written shortly after its demise claimed: “East Germany resembled the huge temple of a pseudo-religious cult. It had all the trappings: godlike veneration of the leader, pictures of ‘saints’ and quotations from their teachings, processions, mass rituals, vows, and strict moral demands and commandments administered by propagandists and Party secretaries who held priestly ‘rank.’”19 Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz put the point in milder form: “In the people’s democracies, the communists speak of the
‘New Faith,’ and compare its growth to that of Christianity in the Roman Empire.”20
Though denying religion’s claim to truth, Marxism-Leninism’s assertions fulfilled the same functions. As one witness during the German Bundestag’s hearings on the GDR put it: “Marxist ideology grew out of the loss of a common, compulsory Christian state religion.”21 The language of Marxism, as we shall later see, was often religious in nature, speaking of eternal truths and everlasting friendships, and it promised in Communism a millennial vision of a blessed future state.
I write as a Christian in the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition and see totalitarianism as appealing to fundamentally religious motives and fulfilling an inherent human need. Though it is a poor sort of substitute religion, it partially fills the need for a worldview. As Erich Voegelin wrote: “when God has become invisible behind the world, then the things of the world become new gods.”22 Those who do not share my outlook will, I trust, be able to accept the point that totalitarian systems functioned in ways similar to the great religions.
This book examines National Socialism and M
arxism-Leninism as expressed through their evangelists, the propagandists. In the Christian This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:31 UTC
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Introduction
7
tradition, evangelists are spreaders of the Gospel, of good news, which is an almost exact description of the role of totalitarian advocates. I begin with an overall examination of the worldviews of the systems, which are fundamental to an understanding of their approaches to propaganda. I show how these worldviews addressed the typical concerns of religion and established ideological catechisms for the guidance of adults and youth alike. Following chapters look at the structures and makers of propaganda, the media, the arts, and public life. I conclude that despite all the sound and fury, totalitarian propagandas share inherent weaknesses that assure their eventual failure. Simply put, they cannot in the long term sustain the full range of religious desires, practices, beliefs, and meanings in ways that satisfy human needs.
But why compare Nazi Germany and the GDR? The more obvious comparison is between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, between Hitler and Stalin. There are a variety of books along these lines.23 After all, Marxism-Leninism came to the GDR with the Red Army and ended when Mikhail Gorbachev made it clear that Soviet tanks no longer would maintain it.
Germany was the center of Nazism, just as the Soviet Union was the center of Marxism-Leninism. Why compare the sun to the moon? And people don’t like the comparison. I received angry responses both from neo-Nazis and Marxists when I noted on a web site that I was working on this book.
Neo-Nazis want their system to have nothing in common with Marxism.
Former citizens of the GDR (and those Western scholars who had rather hoped the GDR would succeed) prefer to have as much distance between the two systems as possible.24 The comparison also risks prompting a minia-ture version of the German Historikerstreit of the 1980s, occasioned by the suggestion that Nazism had learned its barbarism from the Soviet Union.
The Nazi-GDR comparison is worthwhile for several reasons. Both systems shared a common history and culture. Both claimed to represent the best of Germany. It should be interesting to see how two different systems attempted to build propaganda on the same foundation. Just how flexible is propaganda? The GDR came into existence as a state in 1949, but its foundations were laid from the first days of the Soviet occupation that immediately followed the collapse of the Third Reich. Can the same methods be used successfully on the same people to promote two quite different systems, with essentially no time between? Second, how much do the two systems have in common? Does the propaganda of the GDR reveal a “kinder, gentler” form of totalitarianism? Did the more humanitarian vision of socialism lead to a propaganda less harmful than that of the This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:31 UTC
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8
Introduction
Nazis? These are questions likely to aggravate many, a sign perhaps that there is a stubborn overlap in the nature and consequences of these disparate systems.
Propaganda is an enormous subject. A 2000 bibliography of publications on National Socialism lists over 37,000 items, many of which have at least some bearing on propaganda.25 The literature on the GDR will never equal that on National Socialism, but it is substantial and growing.26 This book does not attempt a comprehensive analysis of the content of the propagandas of the two systems. Rather, my goal is to consider larger questions: What role did propaganda play in two great totalitarian systems? What did the propagandas of National Socialist Germany and the GDR have in common and where did they differ? How did they succeed and where did they fail? I refer in the notes to sources that provide more detailed analyses of specific topics.
This book is the result of a long interest in German propaganda. I became interested in Nazi propaganda in 1971 as a graduate student at Northwestern University under Robert D. Brooks. In the early 1980s I began subscribing to East German periodicals (an annual airmail subscription to Neues Deutschland, the country’s leading daily newspaper, cost $22 at the time). Although the GDR did not encourage independent tourism, it did run courses for foreign teachers of German that were open to those willing to pay a nominal fee. The courses provided an open visa for the country, and the staffs were not overly insistent on attendance, giving me the opportunity to travel through the GDR in the summers of 1988, 1989, and 1990 and meet a variety of East Germans. As an American, some saw me as a “safe” conversational partner whom they quickly trusted. My 1989
visit was particularly interesting. In April 1989 my name appeared in the pen pal column of the mass weekly Wochenpost. I had not expected to see my address published. It was the first Western address the magazine had printed since 1949, and I received more than 2,300 letters from GDR citizens eager to correspond with an American. I was able to visit a variety of people as a result.27 I owe much to my GDR friends and acquaintances, who will not always share the conclusions I drew from our conversations.
There is a virtual appendix to this book, the German Propaganda Archive (GPA) , an Internet site providing English translations of propaganda material from the Nazi and East German eras. It also includes many images. Some notes will refer to sections of the GPA that provide translations or images relevant to the matter discussed. The GPA can be found at http://www.calvin.edu/ academic/cas/gpa/.
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Introduction
9
It is difficult to predict the future of technology. I write in 2003 and trust this book will be read when the present version of the Internet is a historical curiosity. I intend to maintain and add to the archive for the foresee-able future, however, and will work to adjust to opportunities that technology may provide. I will also deposit copies with the Calvin College Library in Grand Rapids, Michigan in whatever electronic forms become available.
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1
Secular Faiths
M M M M
At the last congress of the GDR writers’ association in 1987, Jürgen Kucyzinski, the perennial tolerated troublemaker of the GDR, wished for a socialist equivalent of prayer: “I have looked in vain for a substitute for prayer that could remind us, despite all the troubles we have and the barriers we encounter each day, or at least each week, of the greatness of socialism. . . . How do we remind ourselves once or twice a day of what is really important, of the things that influence our lives every day?”1 In 1940 Joseph Goebbels asked a related question in his diary: “What can one teach the children, when one still has no new religion? The present substitute is only a substitute.”2 Both were searching for ways of secular worship.
In this book I will consider totalitarian propaganda as a quasi-religious phenomenon. This idea encounters two immediate objections. First, the definition, even existence, of totalitarianism is disputed. Second, although viewing totalitarianism as a religious phenomenon has roots going back to Erich Voegelin and recently has been revived in work by Hans Maier, Michael Burleigh, Claus-Ekkehard Bärsch, and others, it remains an un-orthodox way to get at the issues.3
11
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12
Chapter One
The arguments against the concept of “totalitarianism” range from charges that it is itself a term of Cold War propaganda to the claim that since no society can in practice be totally totalitarian, the term has little value.4 I agree that “total totalitarianism” is i
mpossible but find the term
“totalitarian” useful since it reflects the goal of the dictatorships of the twentieth century, even if their practice fell short. History has a record of many impossible goals earnestly pursued, and totalitarianism is that kind of goal.
I shall use the term “totalitarian” in its classic sense. A totalitarian state is dedicated to an ideal vision of history and sees its mission as getting the world there. It has a party willing to do everything necessary to reach its goals, a leader chosen either by Providence or the laws of history, a worldview that lays claim to all aspects of life, a confident reliance on mass propaganda, and central control of at least most institutions.5 This definition does not require that a totalitarian state succeed in being completely totalitarian or that totalitarian states be equally reprehensible.
The idea of totalitarianism as a form of religious expression is also problematic. Although Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” chapter from The Brothers Karamazov, a prophecy of the century that followed, broke ground for the idea and although people of faith recognized that both National Socialism and Marxism-Leninism were competing for the soul as much as the body, religion has not been central to most analyses of totalitarianism. Although there are numerous analogies to religion, they are usually made in passing. I shall develop the analogy at length.
Religions make claims that ordinary political parties do not, and the claims in a sense are “totalitarian.” Christianity and other major religions are worldviews. The Christian assertion is that, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. No part of creation is outside of the reach of its creator. Most Christians expect their faith to have something to say about personal behavior, social policy, the arts, the past, and the future.
One may not forget the Ten Commandments upon walking out of church.
Christian traditions interpret the faith in differing ways, but Christians generally agree, in principle at least, that Christianity applies to all of life, not only its edges.
Western political parties typically have more modest goals. One would not expect an American political party’s platform to determine daily activities. A Republican is not obliged to see a Democrat as someone so mis-guided as to merit imprisonment, torture, or death. Being a Democrat does not compel one to hold a particular opinion of art or to adopt a This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:33 UTC
The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic Page 2
