1933–1939
The Weapons of Dictatorship: Terror and Propaganda
Soon after becoming chancellor, Hitler used the power of the state to crack down on political opponents. He primarily targeted those on the left. To frighten middle-class Germans, Nazi propagandists spread rumors of an impending Communist plot to seize power. They even blamed an arsonist’s burning of the German parliament building on Communists.
As a result, the government suspended basic civil rights for all German citizens, including rights such as freedom of expression, press, and assembly. Police and Nazi paramilitary units arrested Communists and Social Democrats. In 1933, they detained as many as 100,000 Germans without trial. Nazi thugs publicly humiliated, tortured, and killed people they deemed to be their enemies.
In less than six months, the Hitler government destroyed German democracy. It established concentration camps—initially for political opponents—and introduced anti-Jewish laws and policies. The regime either shut down other political parties or forced them to dissolve themselves. By July 1933, Germany had become a one-party Nazi state.
The Weapons of Dictatorship
Propaganda
Nazi propaganda went hand-in-hand with violence. Nazi propagandists considered terror to be a form of propaganda. Terror could also be used to compel people to change their behavior. The threat of violence or imprisonment in a concentration camp served to intimidate would-be dissidents.
Nazi propagandists did not rely on threats alone. They aimed to win over millions of Germans who had not voted for the Nazi Party with promises of a better future. Nazi propaganda played on the public’s hopes, fears, and prejudices. The regime also trumpeted the success of its public works projects such as the national highway system (Autobahn) in creating jobs. The Nazis rearmed the military, while at the same time pledging to uphold peace. Nazi authorities cracked down on what they considered social and political deviance. They justified those measures as necessary to reestablishing law and order.
German chancellor Adolf Hitler greets President Paul von Hindenburg during opening ceremonies for the new Reichstag in Potsdam, 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of B. I. Sanders
Germans on a crowded Berlin tram express their support for the new regime following the opening of the Nazi-dominated Reichstag in Potsdam. March 21, 1933.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
Coercion and Consensus
German Responses to the Nazi Takeover of Power
Many Germans welcomed the Nazi rise to power and cheered the return of strong central leadership. They applauded the crackdown on the Communist and Social Democratic parties.
Nazi propagandists increased the regime’s popularity. They played on the public’s hopes, fears, and prejudices. At the same time, they painted a picture of united Germany. According to the Nazis, Hitler would restore German greatness.
Forging Unity and Allegiance
The Hitler Cult
Starting in January 1933, Nazi propaganda transformed Hitler from a party leader into the personification of the new German nation. Nazi propagandists posted Hitler’s likeness everywhere. They carefully cultivated his public image to radiate strength and a single-minded devotion to Germany. They stressed that Hitler had brought about stability, created jobs, and restored German self-confidence.
At the same time, the government crushed any political dissent.
German spectators at the 1937 Reich Party Day (Reichsparteitag) celebration in Nuremberg raise their arms in the Nazi salute. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Nazi regime promoted the cult of Adolf Hitler on a mass scale. Municipal officials in Germany—and later in German-occupied Europe—renamed streets, town squares, and other public places after Hitler. Paintings, posters, and busts of the Führer were reproduced in huge quantities. These were sold and put on display in public venues and in private homes.
Shop window displaying Hitler busts for sale in Nuremberg, 1935. Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin / Art Resource, New York
Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf, served as the Nazi movement’s bible. The Nazi Party’s publishing house heavily marketed the book both to increase profits and to spread Nazi propaganda to the masses. Though it is unclear how many people read the lengthy text, millions of Germans owned a copy. Some Germans even created altars in their homes for Mein Kampf. The Nazi Party issued commemorative versions for events such as Hitler’s 50th birthday or deluxe copies for officials. Local officials presented “wedding editions” of the book to German newlyweds.
A German athlete stands next to a Nazi flag and a table with Mein Kampf. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Dan Lenchner
The Nazi Propaganda Machine
In March 1933, Hitler named the Nazi Party’s propaganda chief Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels to the newly created post of minister of public enlightenment and propaganda. Goebbels was a radical antisemite and an early Nazi Party member. He had overseen the Nazi Party’s propaganda efforts since 1929.
In this new position, he gained immense control over culture and the mass media. Using those tools, he furthered Hitler’s political, racial, and territorial goals. Informants in German cities, towns, and villages alerted Goebbels’s ministry to public responses to the regime’s propaganda. Propaganda officials used the public opinion reports to continually adjust the Nazi government’s message.
Joseph Goebbels (front row, sixth from right) with his staff, 1933. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
German poster promoting the People’s Receiver. It reads “All of Germany hears the Führer with the People’s Receiver.”
Bundesarchiv (Plak 003-022-025), Koblenz, Germany
The Weapons of Dictatorship
Media Control
When Hitler came to power in 1933, Germany was a world leader in mass communications. It produced more newspapers than any other European nation. Its film industry ranked among the world’s largest.
Within months of Hitler becoming chancellor, his regime destroyed the country’s free press. It shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers. The propaganda ministry issued daily orders dictating what could be published. Oversight of radio, film, newsreels, theater, and music likewise fell under its rule.
Beginning in the 1920s, radio emerged as a worldwide sensation. For the first time, people could listen to news, current events, and entertainment in the privacy of their homes. The Nazis quickly recognized the power of this new medium. Goebbels declared that radio would serve as an intermediary between the German government and the people. After 1933, the Nazi regime broadcast propaganda over the radio to homes, factories, and even city streets. Goebbels’s propaganda ministry created diversified programming. To enhance the power of more blatant political propaganda, most of the programming combined entertainment with more subtle forms of persuasion.
The People's Receiver (Volksempfänger 301). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Spread of Propaganda Through Radio
After January 1933, Nazi Germany made great efforts to expand broadcasting platforms. Popular interest in radio was high. German radios tended to be relatively expensive, especially during the Great Depression. To remedy this problem, Goebbels’s propaganda ministry subsidized the production of the Volksempfänger (People’s Receiver). As a result, many Germans could afford a radio.
Radio ownership in Germany increased dramatically—from 4.3 million sets in January 1933 to over eight million in 1934. By January 1938, more than nine million radios were in German homes, roughly one for every two German households. Three years later, the figure rose to almost 15 million. Around 50 million Germans regularly listened to the radio.
German poster promoting the first part of Leni Riefenstahl’s film on the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Completed in 1938, the film won international acclaim and promoted a positive picture of Nazi Germany to the world.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The German Film Industry
In 1933, Germany was Europe’s largest film producer and the second-largest in the world, trailing only the United States. From 1933 to 1945, German studios created roughly 1,100 motion pictures. All of those films were subject to the Nazi propaganda ministry’s censorship. The ministry granted financial incentives and state commissions for studios to produce pictures it considered to be politically valuable and pressured German cinema owners to promote such films.
Goebbels understood that propaganda had to be mixed with entertainment to entice audiences. As a consequence, only a small percentage of the total German film output was overt political propaganda.
The German Newsreel Industry
In the 1930s and 40s, newsreels brought current events to millions of people in Europe and the United States. Before home television sets, people flocked to movie theaters to watch feature films, comedic shorts, and newsreels.
In Nazi Germany, the Propaganda Ministry sought to take advantage of their popularity. The Ministry subjected the four independent newsreel companies to strict censorship. Audiences saw only what the government permitted. In 1940, the Propaganda Ministry nationalized the newsreel industry. Only state-produced newsreels were shown. These newsreels often combined strong visuals and music with heavily biased reporting.
On April 1, 1933, the Nazi Party organized a boycott of all Jewish businesses. Nazi propagandists justified it as a defensive action aimed at countering an “International Jewry” call for a boycott of German goods. This German newsreel presents a deceptive version of the event.
Bundesarchiv Filmarchiv
The German Newspaper Industry
Prior to 1933, Berlin alone supported more than 140 daily newspapers. After the Nazi takeover, the regime eliminated freedom of the press.
Goebbels pledged to cleanse the German press of Jewish influence. Laws were enacted to prohibit Jews and those married to Jews from being newspaper editors. The Nazi state forced Jewish German publishers to sell off their enterprises. At the same time, Nazi press baron Max Amann bought up all non-Nazi newspapers, which increased the party’s share of total newspaper circulation from 3 percent in 1933 to more than 80 percent in the 1940s.
In the field of journalism, the propaganda ministry dictated who could work in newspapers and what they could publish. All German newspapers received daily secret instructions that spelled out what and how stories were to be reported.
Civilians crowd around a uniformed Nazi holding the morning edition of the Wiener Montagblatt newspaper announcing Hitler's arrival in Vienna, 1938. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
Selling Nazi Success
German triumphs in foreign policy during the 1930s and economic recovery after the Great Depression fueled Nazi popularity. Nazi propagandists reminded Germans how their lives had improved under Hitler. They condemned Germany’s earlier democracy as a source of instability, immorality, humiliation, and desolation. In stark contrast, they claimed that Nazi Germany was a regime of action and change. It had eliminated unemployment and restored national self-confidence and German moral values.
In reality, the Nazi regime had increased working hours and kept wages down. To curb potential unrest, the regime arrested workers who complained about the conditions, labeling the people as work-shy. German police rounded up thousands denounced as asocial and sent them to concentration camps or other “reeducation” institutions.
“The army of labor and of peace answers the Führer with: Yes!” This poster urges Germans to repay Hitler for creating jobs by voting “yes” in the November 1933 public referendum on German foreign policy. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Nazi propagandists continually played up the regime’s success in creating jobs, boosting industrial production and profits, and improving German workers’ lives. This poster dramatizes the rapid growth of the German auto industry following the Nazi takeover as well as Hitler’s promise to create an inexpensive People’s Car (the Volkswagen) that would be affordable to many families.
“The Führer promised to motorize Germany,” 1936. Bundesarchiv Koblenz
This poster, for a 1939 German film, highlights Hitler’s foreign policy successes. Nazi propaganda credited the regime with reversing the Versailles Treaty’s restrictions against Germany. The image depicts Hitler’s diplomacy breaking the chains of foreign enslavement. As a result, Germany increased in size and stature.
The Nazi regime portrayed these victories as justified. Yet the changes were accomplished through threats of military invasion and were further facilitated by the world’s unwillingness to go to war again.
Tobis-Filmkunst GmbH, 1939. The Wolfsonian—Florida International University, Miami Beach
Hundreds of thousands of Germans participate in the annual Nazi-staged Thanksgiving Harvest Festival. October 4, 1936.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Scherl Bilderdienst
Creating a Racial State
The National Community
Nazi propagandists repeated the idea that the new regime would forge a true national community, or Volksgemeinschaft, out of a fragmented German people. Weimar democracy, they claimed, had increased divisions among Germans with special-interest politics. Instead of class and religious conflict, Nazi Germany would foster social harmony. Ethnic Germans would be united in service to the national community. According to this new national community, social, religious, and regional cleavages would disappear. The regime expected “national comrades” to sacrifice time, wages, and even their lives for the racial state.
Not all Germans could be members of the national community; only ethnic Germans could be part of it. The Nazi vision of the national community enjoyed genuine mass appeal. Many Germans were willing to overlook the glaring abuses of the Third Reich to support this vision. They turned a blind eye to the horrific effects of Nazi racism and antisemitism.
Creating a National Community
The Propaganda of Exclusion
Propaganda helped to define who belonged to the national community and who did not. The Nazis excluded some groups from membership on racial grounds, including Jews, Black people, and Roma and Sinti (Gypsies). They viewed persons with disabilities as a threat to the German gene pool.
The Nazis deemed others unfit because they dissented from the political and behavioral norms demanded by the state. Political opponents, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and men who engaged in same-sex activity fell into this category. It was possible for such Germans, if they were of good racial blood, to enter the national community if they changed their behavior.
An SA member instructs others where to post anti-Jewish boycott signs on a commercial street in Germany. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
Roma and Sinti (Gypsies)
Nazi officials built on centuries of popular prejudices in their campaigns against the Roma and Sinti by identifying them as racial and social outsiders who were prone to crime. Those undesired people were commonly described as vagrant, dishonest, and non-European. The Nazi state subjected Roma and Sinti to discriminatory laws, to so-called scientific studies, and to mandatory police registration. Police officials segregated them in special encampments or sent them to concentration camps.
In the 1940s, Nazi Germany carried out a mass murder of Europe’s Roma and Sinti by gassing or shooting an estimated 250,000 to 500,000.
This February 1939 article from the Nazi Party’s legal office publication is titled, “Vagabonds: New Ways of Combating the Gypsy Plague.” Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin / Art Resource, New York
Gay Men
The Nazi government sought to regulate the private lives of the German population. It expected all racially and biologically acceptable Germans to produce healthy offspring. The Nazis viewed gay (homosexual) men as a danger because they did not add to the German birthrate. Nazi propaganda portrayed homosexual men as degenerates and as corrupters of German youth.
The regime strengthened an existing law (paragraph 175 in the German penal code), which prohibited male same-sex activity. Police arrested some 100,000 men caught in or suspected of same-sex behavior. The SS (Schutzstaffel) imprisoned between 5,000 and 15,000 of those men in concentration camps.
This page from the antisemitic weekly Der Stürmer (March 1936) denounced these Jewish men as “corrupters of youth,” “race defilers,” and homosexuals. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
Voices of the Excluded
Following the Nazi takeover of power in Germany and later in Austria, German and Austrian Jews quickly went from being full-fledged citizens to outcasts. They witnessed the power of Nazi propaganda and its impact on their neighbors and former friends.
The following accounts are from Holocaust survivors who, as children in Nazi Germany, experienced the desire to belong and the pain of being excluded from German society.
Cover for the program of the Degenerate Music exhibition, 1938. The Nazis denounced jazz as “primitive” and racially alien to the German people. They identified it with Black and Jewish people.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of bpk-Bildagentur
Anti-Jewish Propaganda and Nazi Policy
Beginning in 1933, the Nazi German government implemented far-reaching anti-Jewish policies that evolved from segregation to forced emigration. With time, Nazi policy became more radical. In 1941, Nazi Germany chose mass murder to solve the “Jewish Question. Nazi propagandists aided in this process by playing on centuries of anti-Jewish prejudice. They denounced Jews as a parasitic, non-European “race.”
The Nazis blamed Jews for Germany’s loss in the World War I, for cultural decline, and for economic misery. In Nazis’ minds, the Jews conspired to control the world, and Nazi propaganda spread fear and hatred of Jews. Although many Germans disapproved of anti-Jewish violence, public dislike of Jews extended far beyond the Nazi Party.
The Nuremberg Race Laws
German chart explaining the Nuremberg Race Laws
Museum recreation
Antisemitism served as a core element of Nazi ideology. Yet defining who was or was not a Jew proved to be challenging. Nazi Germany initially used terminology such as Aryan and non-Aryan in legislation and policies aimed at excluding German Jews from society. This approach was imprecise and offended foreign diplomats from non-European countries. It impeded efforts to enforce anti-Jewish policies, because the definition of Jewish was unclear.
On September 15, 1935, the Nazi regime passed new racial legislation that established definitions of who was German and who was considered a Jew. It also set up categories for persons of mixed blood, or Mischlinge. The legislation restricted eligibility for German citizenship to those who were ethnically German or of related blood—namely non-Jewish Europeans. The Nazis considered Jews to be racially alien and not European. They later applied those laws to Roma and Sinti (Gypsies) as well as to Black people.
This new Nazi racial policy prohibited marriage and sexual relations between Germans and Jews. It dictated who could marry, have children, hold particular jobs, and—ultimately—live.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
People wait in line during opening ceremonies for The Eternal Jew exhibition in Munich, 1937. Bundesarchiv
Germans view a segment of The Eternal Jew exhibition entitled, “The Jew has typical, external features.” Bundesarchiv
Tools of Antisemitic Propaganda
Exhibitions
The Nazi regime bombarded Germans with antisemitic propaganda. In 1937, Joseph Goebbels opened the Eternal (Wandering) Jew exhibition in Munich. The show depicted “the Jew” as a foreign, destructive force in Germany. More than 400,000 visitors attended the exhibition in Munich during its two-and-a-half-month run. The show then traveled to Vienna, Berlin, and other cities.
For the Future
Indoctrinating Youth
From the 1920s on, the Nazi Party tried to reach German youth and educators. It created groups for young people, students, and teachers. By January 1933, the Nazi Party had recruited tens of thousands of students along with thousands of young teachers.
In 1933, the Nazi regime purged the German civil service. This policy removed Jews and persons deemed politically unreliable from teaching positions. The state banned or dissolved independent youth groups. In January 1933, the Hitler Youth had only 50,000 members. By the end of the year, membership had risen to more than 2 million; by 1936, it had reached 5.4 million. Membership in the Hitler Youth became mandatory for German boys in 1939.
A Hitler Youth instructor teaching the definitions of “race” laid down by the Nuremberg Laws. Hohenelse, Germany, 1937. Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Scherl, Munich, Germany
The Nazis exploited technology in German classrooms and in Hitler Youth meetings. They created filmstrips for young audiences. The materials were laced with Nazi ideology, and titles included Germany Triumphs over Jewry; Healthy Life; and Healthy Family, Healthy Nation. Accompanying booklets provided teachers and Hitler Youth leaders with instructions on lecturing about this content.
Filmstrip projector and canister used by the Nazi Party to distribute propaganda. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Nazis promoted the idea that all German youths, male and female, had to serve Hitler and the national community, which meant fulfilling gender-specific tasks. The League of German Girls educated its charges in needlework, cooking, and physical fitness as preparation for motherhood. Boys in the Hitler Youth engaged in militaristic training through sports such as boxing, fencing, and shooting.
Propaganda posters created for German youth. “You Too Belong to the Führer,” 1937 (left). “Youth Serves the Leader: All 10-Year-Olds into the [Hitler Youth],” 1939 (right). Staatsarchiv Bremen, Germany and Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.
German children reach out to Adolf Hitler as he enters Berlin's Olympic Stadium. August, 1936.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of bpk-Bildagentur
Propaganda Minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels speaks to German university students to commemorate the burning of "Un-German" books, May 10, 1933.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
A Party of Youth
In contrast to many of its political rivals, the Nazi Party’s leadership was comparatively young. Hitler was 43 years old when he became the German chancellor. He was the youngest politician ever to hold that post. Joseph Goebbels was only 35 years old when he took charge of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Many others in the new government were in their late twenties or early thirties. The Nazi Party presented itself as a movement of youth, vigor, and strength that was capable of forging a new Germany.
Toys and Games as Propaganda Tools
Antisemitic game, Juden Raus! (Jews Out!)
Museum recreation
Board games produced by private German companies often reinforced the regime’s policies and goals. Juden Raus! (Jews Out!) was a board game in which players competed to collect as many Jews as possible and send them to Palestine. The players rolled the dice, and if they landed on a circle that represented a Jewish business—they collected a cone with an anti-Jewish stereotype on it, which was then placed on top of the player’s token.
The game ended when one player had collected six “Jews.” The game promoted Nazi Germany’s policy of forced Jewish emigration.
AJC Center for Jewish Research, NewYork (left photo by Michael Priest Photography)
Cover of the Nazi newspaper Illustrated Observer devoted to the Dachau concentration camp. December 3, 1936.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Deceiving the Public
Nazi Concentration Camps
Soon after coming to power in 1933, Nazis rounded up those they deemed to be “enemies of the Nazi state,” mainly political opponents. They sent those enemies to hastily organized concentration camps such as Dachau. To hide the brutality that went on there, local and national German newspapers printed deceptive articles about the camps.
This article about Dachau in the Nazi-owned Illustrated Observer justifies the camps’ existence. It refutes rumors about violence against prisoners. To influence international opinion, the SS arranged carefully managed visits for US reporters and American diplomats. The visits were meant to demonstrate that the prisoners were well treated and being reeducated for productive lives.
By the late 1930s, the Nazi concentration camp system had expanded throughout Germany and German-incorporated Austria. In the 1940s, the Nazis established thousands of camps in German-occupied territories in Europe and North Africa.