1939–1945
Domestic Propaganda in Wartime
Propaganda served as a powerful weapon in Hitler’s expansionist military strategy. The Nazi regime used propaganda as a way of mobilizing Germans to take up arms and to mask military aggression. Nazi propagandists falsely claimed that the nation’s enemies had started the war. They portrayed Germany as a victim that was fighting to defend itself from foreign threats. Propaganda prepared Germans to accept increased hardships at home. It encouraged Germans to shut their eyes to crimes against civilians in occupied territories.
The propaganda was convincing. Even as German hopes of victory fell after 1943, faith in Hitler remained strong. Nazi Germany continued to wage war and terror, even as its military death toll rose to 450,000 per month during the war’s final months. In the end, propaganda could not prevent defeat.
Deceiving the Public
The Invasion of Poland
Nazi propaganda stories alleged Polish aggression against Germany. Those stories disguised Hitler’s plan to attack Poland. Throughout the summer of 1939, the propaganda ministry instructed the German press to run stories that stoked fear of Poland. The articles featured exaggerated claims of Polish atrocities against ethnic Germans living in western Poland. All of Germany’s newspapers, whether independent or controlled by the Nazi Party, were required to run the stories.
The following are some examples of the press directives given out just prior to the German military attack:
Nazi Germany also staged phony attacks on the border to justify retaliation against Poland. Hitler sent German troops into Poland on September 1, 1939.
Invading German troops remove a barrier on the Polish border. September 1, 1939. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Archiwum Dokumentacji Mechanicznej
Themes for Nazi Wartime Propaganda
1940 German propaganda poster
Museum recreation
Nazi wartime propaganda for Germans focused on moral justice, defense, and necessity. As the German army rapidly advanced on neighboring countries, war posters and slogans trumpeted German victories. They inspired unity and enthusiasm. Propagandists repeatedly called for sacrifices to save the “national community” from destruction.
During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded more than a dozen countries. It subjected the populations of those countries to varying degrees of oppression. At the same time, German propagandists tried to win public support in occupied lands. The propaganda shared enticing visions of a prosperous “new order” in Europe. Nazi Germany claimed it was saving western civilization from “Jewish bolshevism.” However, Nazi brutalities against civilian populations helped to negate the power of those messages.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Unknown artist, 1942.
Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, Germany
“Germany’s Victory, Europe’s Freedom”
Nazi propagandists justified Germany’s surprise attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, by calling it a preventive action. The invasion, they claimed, thwarted Communist plans to conquer Europe and destroy western civilization.
In this poster, a German soldier vanquishes the red dragon of bolshevism, or communism. He is using lightning bolts in a V shape that represents victory. German propagandists hoped to diminish the power of the Allied “V for victory” sign by using it themselves.
The Evolution of Nazi Anti-Jewish Policy in Wartime
During the 1930s and 1940s, Nazi policy toward Jews evolved. Initially, the Nazi leadership aimed to dispossess Germany’s Jews of their rights and property. This policy, the Nazis hoped, would force Jews to emigrate. Few countries, however, were eager to accept impoverished refugees. The outbreak of World War II largely brought an end to mass Jewish emigration from Nazi Germany.
German military success in wartime brought millions of European Jews under Nazi control. The Nazi regime adopted increasingly radical measures, including expulsions, removals, resettlement, and ultimately mass murder.
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the German SS, police, army units, and local collaborators carried out mass shootings of Soviet officials as well as of Russian Jews and Roma. In early 1942, Nazi Germany initiated the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” to eradicate all of Europe’s Jews.
German propagandists aided in this process. They helped to foster a climate of indifference, hate, and fear that made expulsions, deportations, and eventually mass murder possible.
In this speech to the all-Nazi Reichstag, Adolf Hitler threatens to annihilate European Jews in the event of war. January 30, 1939, Berlin, Germany.
The Nazis sought to provoke hatred of Germany’s Jews by transforming them from ordinary neighbors into internal enemies, guilty of starting wars and betraying Germany from within. Mjölnir [Hans Schweitzer], 1943.
Library of Congress
The “Jewish Enemy”
Wartime Antisemitic Propaganda
Demonizing the enemy is an effective technique for wartime propaganda. Hitler recognized this technique during World War I. Although most wartime propaganda demonized the political and military leaders of enemy countries, the Nazis went further. They considered all Jews—men, women, and even children—to be a deadly threat to the German people.
On posters and in speeches, newsreels, and radio programs, Nazis demonized and dehumanized European Jews. They depicted European Jews as carriers of deadly diseases such as typhus to justify segregating them in ghettos. They identified European Jews as a violent threat, calling them bandits and terrorists. Nazi propaganda held the Jews responsible for causing World War II, for which they would have to pay. All Jews, Hitler’s propagandists proclaimed, were accomplices in an international plot to enslave the non-Jewish world. Using such false claims, Nazi propaganda presented its war against Jews as a struggle between good and evil.
“Behind Enemy Powers: The Jew”
German propaganda poster
Museum recreation
During World War II, Nazi propagandists purposefully linked the Jews with Germany’s military foes. They created a myth of evil, string-pulling Jews manipulating the leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. Nazi propaganda aimed to unmask foreign Jewish conspirators who were operating behind the scenes. This poster epitomizes that technique by pulling back the curtains to expose the Jew as the dark force behind the enemy powers of Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
This 1941 Nazi poster portrays Polish Jews as carriers of lice and typhus. It plays upon the fear of disease and urges Poles to “Protect Yourself from Typhus, Avoid the Jews.” Nazi authorities in German-occupied Poland circulated these posters to discourage Poles from providing food or shelter to Jews fleeing the ghettos.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, gift of the Katz Family
This poster aimed at Italian audiences shows a negative stereotype of an American Communist Jew as a violent threat to Italy, approximately 1943.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, gift of Alessandra Nacamu
Antisemitic poster from German-occupied Serbia, 1941. It reads: “His [the Jew’s] Tools: Democracy, Masonry, Communism, Capitalism.”
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Katz Family
This 1941 Nazi poster portrays Polish Jews as carriers of lice and typhus. It plays upon the fear of disease and urges Poles to “Protect Yourself from Typhus, Avoid the Jews.” Nazi authorities in German-occupied Poland circulated these posters to discourage Poles from providing food or shelter to Jews fleeing the ghettos.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, gift of the Katz Family
The Spread of Antisemitic Hate Throughout World
Nazi Germany planned to spread anti-Jewish propaganda across the globe. German authorities produced antisemitic materials in occupied countries, from posters to pamphlets to newsreels. German radio stations across Europe broadcast in several dozen languages to audiences living in countries from the Americas to Asia.
German propagandists tailored their messages to different countries, playing on the citizens’ hopes, fears, and prejudices. The Nazis drew on existing anti-Jewish prejudice to whip up hatred and drive support for Nazi Germany. In the occupied parts of the Soviet Union, Nazi propaganda portrayed the Jews as the key figures behind Stalinist rule and its brutalities. In the Middle East, it depicted the Jews as Zionist plotters who aimed to gain control of the region in cooperation with British, French, and American “imperialists.”
Mjölnir (Hans Schweitzer), poster for the film Der ewige Jude (The Eternal or Wandering Jew), directed by Fritz Hippler, 1940.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Gift of Museum für Deutsche Geschichte
Showcasing Hate
Antisemitic Films in Europe
The Nazi Ministry of Propaganda increased its attacks on Jews during wartime by turning to motion pictures. One of the films was Der ewige Jude (the Eternal or Wandering Jew), directed by the head of the propaganda ministry’s film division. It was billed as a documentary on world Jewry aimed at unmasking the alleged harmful influence of the “parasitic” Jewish race on German society. Despite Goebbels’s efforts to promote it, the film was a box office failure.
The Eternal Jew
Watch this film to learn more about Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew) and its impact on German audiences.
A movie poster for Jud Süss.
Library of Congress
Showcasing Hate
Anti-Jewish Feature Films
On Propaganda Minister Goebbels’s instructions, the German film industry produced several antisemitic films. One was Jud Süss. The movie was loosely based on the real-life story of Joseph Süss Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer, was a Jewish 18th-century court financier. The film transformed him into an ambitious conspirator who plotted to control the state and increase Jewish power.
The film featured some of Germany’s leading actors and displayed high production values. In contrast to Der ewige Jude, Jud Süss became a huge box office success. More than 20 million people went to see the film in movie theaters.
Jud Süss
Watch this clip to learn more about Jud Süss and its impact on German audiences.
Antisemitic Newsreels
During the war, special propaganda companies traveled with cameras throughout Europe. They photographed or filmed scenes that would later appear in newsreels. The propaganda companies commonly focused on the supposed racial features of their subjects. In Berlin, Goebbels’s editors turned this raw material into newsreels that were distributed throughout German-controlled territory and even to neutral countries.
Goebbels hoped that such photographic “evidence” would convince German audiences of the supposedly barbaric and alien nature of Jews. In the summer of 1941, German newsreels featured horrific scenes of Soviet killings of Ukrainians, Latvians, and other nationalities; these atrocities were falsely attributed to Jews. Nazi propagandists crafted the film clips into antisemitic morality tales and accused the local Jews of committing crimes for which they had to be punished.
Although audiences witnessed alleged Jewish crimes on the screen, they did not see the mass murder of Soviet Jews by the units of the SS, German army, and police as well as by local collaborators. Goebbels’s propaganda ministry kept such atrocities out of the public eye. The Nazis did all they could to hide their systematic annihilation of Europe’s Jews.
Defying Nazi Censorship
German officials believed that enemy propaganda in World War I had paved the way for defeat. On September 1, 1939, the day German troops invaded Poland, the Nazi state instituted a new law prohibiting Germans from listening to foreign broadcasts. The police arrested, and the courts convicted, thousands of people for violating the ban. Most received jail or prison sentences. Individuals could be punished by death for spreading stories heard on foreign radio broadcasts. The number executed for this crime is unknown.
Despite the danger, millions of Germans listened to neutral or enemy radio stations. They listened for different reasons. Some doubted the truth of Goebbels’s propaganda messages, others hoped to learn more about the progress of the war, and others did so in defiance of the regime.
This German Small Receiver was produced from 1938 onwards and sold for $14. Enterprising Germans could extend the range of the radios to get around the receiver’s technical limitations. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Entertainment as well as threats was used to “educate” the German populace about the dangers of foreign broadcasts. This board game encouraged players to listen to “safe” German stations (blue spaces) while punishing those who landed on a foreign radio station (red) with various penalties that ranged from the loss of a turn to expulsion from the game.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, The Abraham and Ruth Goldfarb Family Acquisition Fund
1942 propaganda poster featuring a picture of a Jewish star and a caption that reads: “Whoever wears this symbol is an enemy of our people.”
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Stigmatizing the Enemy
Jewish Badges
The Nazis aimed to stigmatize Jews as being alien and foreign. In 1939, German officials ordered all Jews in occupied Poland to wear special armbands, or Stars of David. In September 1941, the Nazi regime implemented this policy in Germany as well, ordering every German Jew over the age of six to wear a yellow Star of David marked with the word Jude (Jew). In 1942, authorities introduced similar laws in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and other countries under German control. Such markings made Jews easy targets for random or planned violence and assisted authorities in controlling their movements.
Reactions to Nazi Antisemitism
For 12 years, the Nazi regime bombarded Germans with antisemitic propaganda that helped to transform Jews from citizens into outcasts and internal enemies. Because of strict Nazi media control, no news outlets could permit positive images of Jews to circulate.
The German public’s reaction to antisemitic propaganda varied and shifted. In the summer of 1941, Germans demanded harsher measures against Jews after seeing newsreels of Soviet atrocities. However, a few weeks later, some Germans reacted negatively to the marking of German Jews with the yellow star. Instead of responding with the hate Goebbels demanded, they responded with sympathy for the victims.
Over time, German public indifference to the plight of Europe’s Jews triumphed.
A page from a German Gestapo (Secret State Police) album documenting the deportation of Jews from Würzburg, Germany, to German-occupied Poland. The captions for the photographs read: “The exodus of the children of Israel from beautiful Würzburg,” 1942. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.
Popular reaction in Germany to the introduction of the Jewish star was mixed. Instead of rousing widespread animosity, the star invoked openly displayed sympathy in some Germans, such as offering Jews food or a seat on public transportation.
To counter this sympathy, Goebbels published this pamphlet to reinforce the view that the Jews were every German’s sworn enemy. Expressing “false sentimentality” toward Jews, Goebbels asserted, was committing treason against the German people. At his insistence, this display could be punished by imprisonment in a concentration camp.
Ministry of Propaganda, “Wenn Du dieses Zeichen siehst . . . ” (“If you see this sign . . . ”), 1941. United States Holocaust Memorial Musum, Gift of Helmut Eschwege
This announcement for a March 1942 “resettlement” (Ausseidlung)—suggesting a continued life in a new place—was actually for one of a series of deportations that sent more than 34,000 Jews from the Łódź ghetto to their deaths at the Chełmno killing center.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Gift of Malwina Gerson Allen
Deception and Mass Murder
The Nazi regime tried to hide the mass murder of Europe’s Jews. It deceived Germans, other Europeans, and victims by claiming that Jews were being resettled in the east. The Nazis even went so far as to urge Jews being deported to bring belongings with them on the transports so that they could start a new life.
Unlike the press articles on early Nazi concentration camps, no German newspaper or newsreel reported on the SS killing centers in German-occupied Poland or on the mass shootings of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. There was a news blackout on the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”
Despite those efforts, rumors and reports of Nazi mass murder leaked out. German officials denounced stories of mass shootings and mass gassings as fabrications or atrocity propaganda. They used prison sentences or even death to punish those who dared to circulate the stories.
Propaganda in the Face of Defeat
Following the massive German military defeat at Stalingrad in early 1943, the tide of the war turned against Nazi Germany. Allied advances in North Africa and Italy that same year forced German forces into retreat. On June 6, 1944, British and American troops landed en masse on the Normandy beaches in France and advanced toward the German border. In spite of huge military losses on the battlefield, Hitler refused to surrender. The regime responded to impending defeat with increased terror and intensified propaganda.
German propagandists alternated messages of hope and fear. Goebbels promised miracle weapons that would turn back the Allied onslaught. To frighten Germans into making greater sacrifices, he claimed that “international Jewry” would enslave, sterilize, or annihilate the German people if the Allies won the war.
On May 7, 1945, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies, which ended World War II in Europe and North Africa. It also ended the Third Reich.
A woman walks by a poster kiosk in Nuremberg. March, 1945. Ullstein Bild, Berlin