The difference goes back to their respective founders. Hitler’s Mein Kampf makes more sense on propaganda than on most topics it covers, but he was not interested in proposing a detailed theory of propaganda, nor was anyone else within the party. Marxism-Leninism, on the other hand, claimed scientific foundations, though those foundations proved of limited help in developing effective propaganda. I shall begin by looking at what the two systems claimed to be their approaches to propaganda, turning in later chapters to what happened in practice.
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There Is No ABC of Propaganda
The Nazis rejected the possibility of a scientific theory of propaganda.
Goebbels put it bluntly in a book on his early activities in Berlin. The academic propagandist was useless. “He comes up with an intellectual approach while sitting at his desk and is then amazed and surprised when actual propagandists do not use his methods, or when they are in fact attempted but do not achieve their goals.”1 He repeated this view regularly.
Propaganda was a matter of practical action, not of academic discussion. He was only following Hitler’s lead. Mein Kampf has a great deal to say about propaganda, but Hitler does not there or later give a detailed explanation of how or why propaganda functions. His point was to devise propaganda that worked, not to develop theories to explain what might work.
A writer in the Nazi journal for propagandists in 1934 came closer than most to seeing a role for scientific study but made it clear that it was subsidiary: “Modern psychology . . . supported by psychiatry and neurology, attempts to discover the laws of psychological processes through systematic experimentation and statistical analysis (e.g., logical thinking). These modern methods have led to valuable conclusions, but they are not sufficient by themselves. There are imponderables in the psyche of individuals as well as of the masses that can scarcely be explained. Neither psychological experiments nor statistical techniques can produce laws that the propagandist can apply with mathematical certainty.”2 The best propagandists were those who knew intuitively, from their souls and through experience, how to reach the masses. Study and training were necessary but not sufficient.
Mein Kampf was, used in the way Christians sometimes use the Bible, as a source of “proof texts,” a way of indicating one was on the right path.3
No Nazi treatment of the subject failed to bow toward Mein Kampf. Since Nazi propaganda theory never developed much beyond it, it remains the best guide to Nazi thinking on the matter.
Hitler claimed no great originality on the subject. He freely admitted to learning from the Catholics, the Marxists, the Freemasons, and quite a range of other sources.4 His approach was original in its totality and comprehensiveness, not in particular details. He was willing to borrow a good method from any source, since he viewed the methods themselves as neutral.
What did Hitler think about propaganda? He devoted two chapters to the subject, one titled “War Propaganda,” the other “Propaganda and Organization,” but the subject appears throughout Mein Kampf. He saw it as This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:35 UTC
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“public education,” as a way of persuading the masses to accept the views of a party or a state. Propaganda was to be integrated into the culture of a people, not restricted to particular media or situations. The cardinal principles in his mind were emotional appeal, simplicity, repetition, force, leadership, and faith.
Hitler’s principles follow from his unflattering view of humankind in general and Germans in particular. The masses are “stupid and forgetful.”5
He praised Vienna’s mayor Karl Lueger, who “took good care not to consider people better than they are.”6 The masses face a complex world beyond their ability to understand rationally or logically. Any attempt to win them over by complicated argument is sure to fail. Ignorant and forgetful people need all the help they can get to stay on the path to truth.
The masses are moved by emotion, which Hitler did not mean pejora-tively. Feelings are a surer guide than the mind. The masses can be misled by reason, but in the long run their instincts might save them: “In political matters feeling often decides more correctly than reason.”7 Goebbels made the same point: “The thinking of the masses is simple and primitive. They love to generalize from complicated facts and from those generalizations they draw clear and uncompromising conclusions. Those are indeed generally simple and uncomplicated, but they usually hit the nail on the head.”8
Hitler and Goebbels flattered the masses by telling them that they did not need to work hard at understanding the complexities of the world around them, because their leaders would make what they would instinctively realize to be the right choices.
Hitler considered it crucial to understand the psychology of the masses.
They are not absolutely malleable, able to be manipulated in any direction a propagandist might wish: “A movement with great aims must therefore be anxiously on its guard not to lose contact with the broad masses.”9 To move the masses, one has to build on their existing attitudes and feelings.
Hitler claimed that Germany’s World War I propaganda failed to understand the masses. For example, it mocked foreign soldiers, disconcerting German troops who afterward encountered a determined foe. They were misled by propaganda from both home and abroad. Even during World War II, Hitler was slower to implement total war measures than the Allies for fear that they would arouse popular opposition.
The closer a method of propaganda is to the masses, the more directly it reaches them, the more powerful it will be. Hitler therefore preferred speaking to writing: “[T]he power which has always started the greatest religious and political avalanches in history rolling has from time immemorial been This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:35 UTC
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the magic power of the spoken word, and that alone.”10 His emphasis is on passion, easier to arouse through the direct presence of a speaker than through words on a page. The page wins adherents one by one, and only if the reader has the ability to focus on the argument (which Hitler thought the masses lacked). The spoken word makes the audience an ally of the speaker. The speaker’s passion becomes the audience’s passion.
Hitler’s idea of the “big lie,” which he thought more readily believed than a smaller one, is often misunderstood. His point was that a small lie (for example, “The mayor is a convicted embezzler”) is less plausible than a larger one (for example, “The Jews are engaged in a worldwide conspiracy”). The smaller lie is readily disproved, the larger one less so. Paradoxi-cally, the broader the lie, the harder it is to disprove. The mayor can prove his innocence by a trip to the courthouse. How could Jews prove that they were not engaged in a vast conspiracy? The less the evidence, the more the proof of the power of the conspiracy in suppressing it. His argument comes in the middle of a discussion of the Jewish press in Vienna: “In this they proceeded on the sound principle that the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds, they more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big. Such a falsehood will never enter their heads, and they will not be able to believe in the possibility of such monstrous effron-tery and infamous misrepresentation in others.”11 Hitler did not advocate lying as a general principle, though he saw it as a sometimes necessary tool. He favored lying by selection rather than fabrication but had n
o concern about fabrication if selection proved inadequate for his purposes. He was clear that propaganda is a means, always subsidiary to the larger goal.
Considerations of humanitarianism or aesthetics are irrelevant.12 The end justifies the means.
In public, Goebbels was less explicit about the need for deception, even though he generally is blamed more for inventing the “big lie” than Hitler.
At the 1934 Nuremberg rally, he praised the truthfulness of Nazi propaganda: “Good propaganda does not need to lie, indeed it may not lie. It has no reason to fear the truth. It is a mistake to believe that people cannot take the truth. They can. It is only a matter of presenting the truth to people in a way that they will be able to understand.”13 He was, of course, making propaganda for propaganda. Still, he was serious about being as This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:35 UTC
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truthful as he thought the situation allowed. With a mass of facts to choose from, there were usually ones that were congenial or ones that could be interpreted to be so.
Since the masses are easily confused, propaganda must be clear. It should not confound people with choices or complex arguments. Hitler argued that German propaganda during World War I made the mistake of allowing public discussion of the causes of the war. “As soon as our own propaganda admits so much as a glimmer of right on the other side, the foundation for doubt in our own right has been laid. The masses are then in no position to distinguish where foreign injustice ends and our own begins.”14
Just as a soap manufacturer claims its product is the best, so, too, a political propagandist must admit no virtue on the opposing side. The masses understand black and white, not shades of gray. Goebbels thought that propaganda should not even attempt to prove its most controversial claims.
Discussing Der Angriff, the Berlin newspaper he founded in 1927, he noted:
“It intentionally assumed what it wanted to persuade its readers of, and then drew its conclusions relentlessly.”15 Such propaganda is a monologue, not a dialogue. It squelches contrary ideas or perspectives. In current jargon, it aims for hegemony, never for a marketplace of ideas.
The masses’ limited capacity makes repetition critical. Even the most gifted propagandist faces great challenges in securing the attention, much less the belief, of the masses. Since the masses are of limited intelligence and great forgetfulness, “all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.”16
Hitler did not mean that propaganda had to repeat its points in the same way, as that would quickly become boring. Rather, a point must be made in varied ways and not only until it is grasped. Hitler realized that in politics as in advertising, consistent effort is necessary to maintain even an established product: “All advertising, whether in the field of business or politics, achieves success through the continuity and sustained uniformity of its application.”17
Power to Hitler was part of effective propaganda. The masses have no respect for a movement that tolerates what its propaganda says is evil. The secret to winning the masses is “will and power.”18 Hitler favored a range of appropriate force or power, depending on the circumstances. He approved of anything that demonstrated power that did not alienate the masses. Mass meetings and marches are invariably powerful. Hitler noted This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:35 UTC
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the impact Marxist meetings had even on him: “[A]fter the war, I experienced a mass demonstration of the Marxists in front of the Royal Palace and the Lustgarten. A sea of red flags, red scarves, and red flowers gave to this demonstration, in which an estimated hundred and twenty thousand persons took part, an aspect that was gigantic from the purely external point of view. I myself could feel and understand how easily the man of the people succumbs to the suggestive magic of a spectacle so grandiose in effect.”19 He wrote of the significance of the SA and the willingness of his followers to die for the movement. The expression of force impressed those who were not yet members.
The state has even stronger weapons at its disposal, and Hitler was direct in describing the centrality of power. Leadership requires the use of power:
“Firm belief in the right to apply even the most brutal weapons is always bound up with the existence of a fanatical faith in the necessity of the victory of a revolutionary new order on this earth. ”20 The masses are impressed by a doctrine that tolerates no rival, that asserts absolute confidence in its ability and right to command obedience.
But force is by itself an unstable foundation, capable of holding the masses only in the short term unless combined with something they can believe in: “Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain.” Hitler was absolutely clear on the need for faith: “A man does not die for business, but only for ideals.” Although he viewed religion as a competitor that ultimately needed to be sup-planted, Hitler repeatedly looked to religion as the model of powerful mass influence: “I consider the foundation or destruction of a religion far greater than the foundation or destruction of a state, let alone a party.” He made frequent reference to the Catholic Church, whose central control of the faith he found exemplary: “It has recognized quite correctly that its power of resistance does not lie in its lesser or greater adaptation to the scientific findings of the moment, which in reality are always fluctuating, but rather in rigidly holding to dogmas once established, for it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith.”21
Hitler saw the personal commitment religion claims to be necessary for an effective mass movement. Typical political parties make suggestions to their adherents. Religion makes absolute claims. He wrote : “Political parties are inclined to compromises; philosophies never. Political parties even reckon with opponents; philosophies proclaim their infallibility. ”22 It was that infallibility Hitler required for his movement.
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The final characteristic of Hitler’s approach to propaganda is his emphasis on leadership. A religious faith generally includes a god. As we have seen, Hitler was in fact spoken of as a deity, though he could not present himself in that guise in Mein Kampf. He did stress the importance of leadership. Speaking in 1927, Hitler said: “We deceive ourselves if we believe that the people have a desire to be governed by majorities. No, you do not understand this people. This people has no desire to be dragged into ‘majorities.’ It has no interest in such plans. It wants a leadership in which it can believe, nothing more.”23 He was speaking to thousands of passionate followers whose cheers proved his point.
Hitler saw leadership as an innate ability: “No more than a famous master can be replaced and another take over the completion of the half-finished painting he has left behind can the great poet and thinker, the great statesman and the great soldier be replaced. For their activity lies always in the province of art. It is not mechanically trained, but inborn by God’s grace.” Such innate leadership has a direct link to propaganda: “For leading means: being able to move masses. ”24 In its essence, great propaganda, like great leadership, was a matter of personality, of genius, not of principles that ordinary people could master. The masses would not long tolerate ineffective leadership, according to Nazi thinking—but as long as the leadership did its job, it would have the support of the masses.
From the Nazi perspective, effective propaganda required a single will.
As Adolf Raskin, a radio director, put it, a propaganda minister cannot operate by majority rule: “Either such a liberal democratic p
ropaganda minister is a farce, or he becomes the dictator of all parties—and thus ceases to be a democrat and the minister of a democracy.”25
Hitler saw an effective organization as a hierarchy of dictators. He claimed to give party officials “unconditional authority and freedom of action downward, but . . . unlimited responsibility upward.”26 This greatly simplified matters; one obeyed superiors and commanded subordinates. It also had a certain internal logic. Leadership was demonstrated by ability, so if one became a leader, he by definition had the ability. Hitler himself was the great example. In fourteen years he rose from obscurity to absolute power.
Control of propaganda by a strong leader did not mean that anything was possible. Leaders had to understand that followers have differing levels of commitment. Hitler made a distinction between propaganda and organization, basically a distinction between the passive and active followers of a movement.
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The function of propaganda is to attract supporters, the function of organization to win members.
A supporter of a movement is one who declares himself to be in agreement with its aims, a member is one who fights for them. . . .
Since being a supporter requires only a passive recognition of an idea, while membership demands active advocacy and defense, to ten supporters there will at most be one or two members. 27
Hitler proposed a party whose members must be deeply committed but which welcomes the support and votes of those less passionate.
In sum, Hitler viewed propaganda as a pragmatic set of methods instrumental in reaching a goal. The same methods could be used for disparate causes, as Hitler makes clear as he discusses what he learned from other persuasive movements. The best propagandists were not intellectuals re-mote from their audiences, rather ones who intuitively knew what should be done even if they could not explain why.
The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic Page 7
