The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic
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The Nazis had little interest in going beyond Hitler’s early thinking on propaganda, nor did Hitler himself. He touched on aspects of propaganda in later speeches and conversations, but never again with the intensity of Mein Kampf. His followers published one general book on propaganda, Eugen Hadamovsky’s 1933 Propaganda and National Power, the only broad treatment of propaganda listed in a 1939 bibliography for propagandists.28
It includes chapters on power, mass meetings, radio, the press, and culture.
Although Hadamovsky develops points in more detail than Hitler does, the book is derivative, adding nothing of significance to what Hitler had written in Mein Kampf. 29 Goebbels spoke often on propaganda and discussed it in his collections of speeches and essays but again has little to say that significantly extends Hitler’s thinking. There were numerous books demonstrating the alleged power of international propaganda directed against Germany, some of which discussed general principles of propaganda.30
Textbooks in journalism also considered propaganda, but not in a way likely to be useful to a practicing propagandist.31 Now as then, one wishing to know what the Nazis thought about propaganda turns to Mein Kampf.
Propaganda as a Marxist-Leninist Science
Finding the essence of the GDR’s approach to propaganda is a more difficult task. In principle, its propaganda was a science, not an art. The Marxist-Leninists distinguished between propaganda and agitation. Propaganda dealt with ideas in depth; agitation presented those ideas in less This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:35 UTC
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depth to the masses, but drawing a sharp dividing line between the two forms of persuasion was difficult. Their fields overlapped, leading Willi Münzenberg, the Marxist master of persuasion, to call agitation “applied propaganda.”32 I shall generally use “propaganda” to refer to both.
Someone interested in the Nazi approach to propaganda turns to Mein Kampf. There is no similar bible for Marxist-Leninist propaganda. Marx and Lenin did not speak to the subject with Hitler’s focused clarity, though both were accomplished propagandists. The approach had to be distilled from their broader writings. The GDR published a book of relevant sections from Lenin in 1974 titled On Agitation and Propaganda. According to the dust jacket: “The collection is an indispensable handbook for party functionaries, agitators, propagandists, journalists and many others involved in ideological work.” It is unlikely that many found much practical help from the remarkably varied collection. Some items were simply brief notes from Lenin ordering agitators to be sent to a given area.33
GDR propagandists had a long reading list. First, there was the general Marxist-Leninist canon. The scholarly edition of the Marx-Engels corpus runs to forty-three volumes. Lenin’s works were available in forty volumes. Thirteen of the planned sixteen volumes of Stalin’s work appeared before he fell into disfavor. Then there were the shelves of books by GDR
party leaders (Erich Honecker’s collected speeches and writings were up to twelve volumes with over 5,000 pages in 1988) and decisions of party congresses and meetings, not to mention the productions of scholarly organizations such as the Institute for Marxism-Leninism in Berlin. This was leadership by bureaucracy, not personality.
Second, there was the professional literature. According to a 1972 Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) Politburo decision: “Agitation and propaganda can only be fully effective when they are enriched by social scientific research, when the social scientists themselves actively participate in agitation and propaganda.”34 Unlike the Nazis, who had little expectation that academics had anything useful to say to working propagandists, the GDR actively sought their help.
The major theoretical works were translations from the Russian, consistent with the standard GDR slogan: “To learn from the Soviet Union means to learn victory.” As a 1972 Politburo decision on propaganda ordained: “A primary goal is to spread the results of Soviet scientific research [on propaganda].”35 Propaganda was too important a topic to do independently. One had to follow the Soviets, the source of wisdom.
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Chapter Two
The SED’s publishing house, the Dietz Verlag, published three editions of Methods of Political Education, a translation of a leading Soviet propaganda textbook. It was an immediate consequence of the 1972 Politburo decision and remained a standard propaganda textbook until the end of the GDR.
The book focused on propaganda from the Marxist perspective, meaning education within the party, but it also was interested in mass propaganda and agitation. It began by asserting a scientific foundation for propaganda:
“The methodology of party propaganda is an independent branch of the social sciences and party activity. It is based in and develops from the scientific foundation of Marxism-Leninism and the method of dialectical materialism.” That did not mean propaganda was to be coldly rational: “If the right methods are not chosen and used to make people aware of propaganda’s content, it can entirely miss its goal. . . . The art of propaganda closely resembles the idea of mastery, which includes certain professional knowledge, accomplishments and capacities.”36 The art, however, was second to the science.
The book then gives more than a hundred pages to the theoretical foundations of propaganda. It begins with a reminder of the primacy of Marxist-Leninist theory, which must be constantly studied. The theory is important because it determines the truth that propaganda must preach. A fourteen-page chapter titled “Social Psychological Factors to Increase the Effectiveness of Propaganda” reviews personality, emotional needs, attitudes, and stereotypes. There are chapters on educational methods and logic as well.
Despite various statements about the scientific nature of propaganda, this book and other Soviet works tended to state principles of propaganda rather than demonstrate them empirically. Soviet scholars even complained that the capitalist world did a better job of studying the psychology of propaganda.37 Capitalist social psychology found its way into Marxist propaganda, often unacknowledged. For example, American social psychologist William McGuire proposed his Inoculation Theory of developing resistance to persuasion in 1961.38 It soon emerged in Soviet theory.39 Like Hitler, the Soviets were willing to “baptize” helpful methods that came from opposing traditions.
The GDR produced little of its own scientific study of propaganda, and what it did produce was not helpful. During a flurry of interest in cybernetics around 1970, Georg Klaus, a leading GDR philosopher, published several books that together were the most detailed approach to propaganda during the GDR’s history.40 His convoluted approach had limited influence, This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:35 UTC
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particularly after cybernetics fell into disfavor. The 1967 edition of the party’s political dictionary stated: “Human society is a highly complex system. To properly control the social processes in socialism, it is particularly important to make comprehensive use of cybernetics.”41 The 1988 edition dropped the word entirely. As one GDR media personality later commented: “Georg Klaus based his book on logic and semantics. That made the book almost unreadable. Perhaps that is why it was printed?”42 It certainly had few readers who were practical propagandists.
There was no shortage of domestic material on propaganda, though it never departed significantly from the Soviet model. The SED’s Central Committee made regular binding declarations on the subject. Party leaders spoke frequently about propaganda.43 Every level of the SED hierarchy published material for propagandists and agitators.
Methods fell in and out of fashion, which presented difficulties. A 1972
report from the Institute for Youth Research in Leip
zig found weaknesses in propaganda, in part because the propagandists could not depend on a consistent method: “[W]ith the best intentions—we hurry from one idea to another, from one method to another, from one high point another. Tested principles are neglected. The lack of methodological continuity necessarily influences the results of our ideological efforts.”44
To outline the fundamentals of the GDR’s propaganda, then, requires sifting through a wide range of sources, but its fundamental principles are clear. If the Nazi principles were emotional appeal, simplicity, repetition, force, leadership, and faith, the GDR saw propaganda as a scientific method of persuading the masses to act in their own best interests. As a result, it was logically based, emphasizing Marxist-Leninist theory more than leadership, but it still preferred simplicity and repetition and proposed, sometimes in religious language, an atheistic faith.
The GDR stressed the scientific or rational foundation of its propaganda, which to its mind distinguished it from the manipulative emotional appeals of Nazi and capitalist propaganda. The party defined propaganda as “the systematic dissemination and thorough explanation of political, philosoph-ical, economic, historic, scientific, technical or other knowledge and ideas.”45 Agitation did not go into the same depth, but it also rested on scientific foundations: “An important aspect of agitation is to build on the foundations of the Marxist-Leninist worldview the socialist convictions and behaviors that will lead the workers to socialist patriotism, proletarian internationalism and firm class positions in the battle against the enemies of peace and socialism.”46
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Chapter Two
Marxist-Leninist propaganda had a difficult task. As I have noted, Nazi propaganda was not committed to truthfulness. Although he did not recommend lying as a general policy, Hitler granted its usefulness. Propaganda was also changeable, since the loose National Socialist ideology depended more on what Hitler thought at the moment than on theoretical principles.
The GDR’s propaganda, on the other hand, claimed to follow laws that were demonstrable and in theory rejected lying, which was supposedly the method of the enemy. That did not stop the GDR’s propagandists from lying—but it did make it awkward.
Hitler did not consider the masses without value but thought that they had little idea on their own of what was good for them. The rhetoric of Marxism-Leninism viewed the masses as more capable. The working class was “the most revolutionary class in the history of humanity, and the driving force in the current era of transition from capitalism to socialism.”47
Klaus claimed: “In contrast to imperialist manipulation, we do not want to produce imaginary feelings that will lead people to ‘draw their own conclusions’ (which in reality are programmed) and make ‘free decisions’
(which are in fact expressions of intellectual slavery), rather to create favorable conditions to encourage free thinking, uninfluenced by the forces of manipulation.”48 The masses could be misled by adroit capitalist propaganda that concealed their true interests and deceived them into supporting policies that objectively worked to their detriment, but they were capable of understanding complex issues and of making the correct decisions if given the proper guidance.
Marxist-Leninist propaganda therefore was less emotionally based than that of the Nazis. As a Soviet textbook put it: “The goal of propaganda is to train convinced and active fighters for Communism who do not blindly believe, but base their convictions on scientific knowledge, people who view the theory critically and test it in practice, who analyze their experiences and are capable of arguing persuasively for their ideas.”49 The system rejected uncritical belief while putting blinders on its propagandists, directing their sight only in approved directions—but at least the approved directions seemed rational.
The result was a bias in favor of the written word, which provided a better arena for carefully developed argumentation. In speeches in 1953 and 1954, Politburo member Fred Oeßlner quoted Lenin and Stalin: “As is well known, the press is the party’s strongest and sharpest weapon.”50 Oelßner was purged from the Politburo in 1958, and other GDR leaders weren’t quite as firm as he was on the primacy of the press, but certainly the GDR
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depended substantially more on the printed word than did the Nazis. As we shall see later, when using the spoken word the GDR preferred person-to-person or small-group oral agitation rather than public meetings, since the former provided better opportunity for tailored argument.
Despite the greater stated confidence in the masses, the GDR still thought leadership important. Erich Honecker’s statement was frequently cited: “The art of leadership is the art of persuasion.”51 His words are close to Hitler’s statement cited earlier ( “For leading means: being able to move masses” ), but whereas Hitler focused on the leading through passion, Honecker leaned more toward ostensibly reasoned argument.
The SED also favored simplicity and repetition. As an early brochure for propagandists (translated from Russian) put it: “Clarity, simplicity and ease of comprehension are the primary characteristics of Bolshevist agitation.”52
Soviet textbooks did note that simplicity should not insult the audience’s intelligence.53 The basic purpose of agitation was to put the great issues into a form comprehensible by the masses. Klaus discussed repetition, which he thought important as long as it did not bore the audience.54 Certainly any reader of the GDR’s press was struck by its incessant repetition and by its black-and-white reporting.
Marxism-Leninism was a worldview, not merely a political and economic theory. As a worldview, it claimed absolute truth. The GDR frequently quoted Lenin’s familiar comment that the “teachings of Marx are all powerful [ allmächtig] because they are true.” A standard work on Marxism-Leninism, published in 1960, made the claim clear: “The successful study of Marxism-Leninism brings one to a unified worldview—the most progressive worldview of our day.”55 To accept this worldview required a certain leap of faith. Although the SED did not use the word
“faith” as much as the Nazis did, it called on its followers to accept more than reason could demonstrate.
Summary
In developing propaganda theory, the Nazis and the SED began from different places, both rooted in German culture. The Nazis were pietistic, the Marxist-Leninists people of the Enlightenment. Nazism drew on a tradition that downgraded the intellect, favoring instead intuition and nature. Such an approach saw little good in developing complicated theories of propaganda. It was a matter more of right intuition than study. A good propagandist knew what had to be done. Marxism-Leninism, drawing on the This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:35 UTC
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Chapter Two
parallel German rational tradition, was confident that propaganda was as subject to theory as any other area of life. Despite their different starting points, in practice their approaches to propaganda had more similarities than differences.
The Nazis thought the masses were not particularly intelligent and were easily swayed, while the SED claimed they were the moving force of history, but both concluded that the masses needed a great deal of help were they ever to accomplish anything significant. Their insistence that the ability to make effective propaganda resided either with leaders of genius or with the Marxist-Leninist party led to problems.
In the case of Nazism, there was no easy way to settle differences in propaganda policy. As Goebbels and Hitler repeatedly said, the measure of effective propaganda was success. If it worked, it was good; if it did not, it was bad. This is a principle with limited predictive value, as it can be applied only after the fact.
If Goebbels and Otto Dietrich disagreed about press strategy, their only recourse was to appeal to Hitler.
GDR propaganda was based on Marxist-Leninist theory rather than personality. The problem was that the theory was broad enough to be vague.
Thus cybernetics was a touchstone during one period but entirely forgotten during the next. And since the theory was presumed to be infallible, though not perfectly understood, any failings had to be explained by criticizing the technique rather than the theory. Since the theory was nonfalsi-fiable, it was also difficult to change. When change did happen, it was the result of action by the leadership, not scholarly discussion.
The rational foundation of Marxism-Leninism led to a much more convoluted approach to propaganda in the GDR. As we shall see later, Nazi propagandists did not have to be particularly well trained. They were told that passion was more important than detailed knowledge. SED propagandists, to the contrary, were expected to study Marxist-Leninist theory in substantial depth. Their propaganda was to reach the mind as much as the heart.
The respective party congresses of the two systems demonstrate the differing views on reason and emotion. The Nazis held six Nuremberg rallies from 1933 to 1938. The SED held eleven party congresses. The Nuremberg rallies were spectacular emotional experiences (although it could get dull standing in formation for hours) that gave the world an image of Nazism that yet endures. They were directed outbursts of energy, not decision-making events. The SED’s congresses subjected delegates to interminable speeches. They supposedly made the decisions that would guide the This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:35 UTC
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country until the next congress, but the outcome was planned in advance.
Even the “discussion speeches” were normally prepared in advance. A socialist Leni Riefenstahl could not have transformed an SED congress into a film with the power of Triumph of the Will. That may be a reason why socialist societies produced more satirists than the Nazis. Whatever Nazism was, it was not funny. The staid, bureaucratic, and rigid socialist system begged for the satire of writers like Václav Havel.