HI136 The History of Germany Lecture 13

1. HI136 The History of GermanyLecture 13 Manufacturing Consent: Propaganda and Resistance

2. Economic Revival • Respected financier Hjalmar Schacht appointed President of the Reichsbank (1933-39) & Minister of Economics (1934-37) – demonstrates the Nazis need to keep big business on side. • Schacht given virtual dictatorial powers over the economy. • Public works to get people back into employment. • Sept. 1934: ‘New Plan’ introduces state control of trade & currency exchange. Bilateral trade agreements with South America and the Balkans. • By 1935 Germany had a trade surplus, unemployment was down to 1.7 million and industrial output had risen by 49.5% Hjalmar Schacht (1877-1970)

3. Public Works Reichsautobahnen Year km total • 1935 108 108 • 1936 979 1087 • 1937 923 2010 • 1938 1036 3046 • 1939 255 3301 • 1940 436 3737 • 1941 90 3827 • 1942 34 3861 • 1943 35 3896 Total: 3896

4. Source: John Hite & Chris Hinton, Weimar and Nazi Germany (2000)

5. Education and Youth • ‘Co-ordination’ of education system • ‘Politically unreliable’ teachers sacked. • Curriculum brought into line with Nazi ideology. • Youth Organizations: • Deutsches Jungvolk (German Young People, DJ) – Boys aged 10-14. • Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) – Boys aged 14-18. • Jungmädelbund (League of Young Girls) – Girls aged 10-14. • Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls, BDM) – Girls aged 14-18.

6. Work and Leisure • Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF, German Labour Front). • Kraft durch Freude (KdF, Strength through Joy). • National Sozialistische Frauenschaft (NSF, National Socialist Womanhood). • Deutsches Frauenwerk (German Women’s Enterprise, DFW).

7. “I view the first task of the new ministry [of Propaganda] as being to establish co-ordination between the Government and the whole people . . . It is not enough for people to be more or less reconciled to our regime, to be persuaded to adopt a neutral attitude towards us, rather we want to work on people until they have capitulated to us, until they grasp ideologically that what is happening in Germany today is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.” Josef Goebbels, 15 March 1933

8. Themes • Anti-Semitism • Anti-Bolshevism • Awakening of the German people • Superiority of the Aryan race • Mastery of Central Europe (Lebensraum) • Volksgemeinschaft (People‘s community) • Hitler myth

9. Broadcasting • 1933: Reich Radio Company established – a single state broadcaster controlled by the government. • 1932: Only 25% of German households owned a radio. • Volksempfänger (People’s Receiver) • By 1939 70% of German families have access to a radio, and announcements broadcast by loudspeakers in public places. • ‘Radio Wardens’ make sure that people tune in to Nazi propaganda.

10. The Press • Control of the press harder to achieve. • Germany had nearly 5,000 different daily newspapers in 1933. • Eher Verlag (Nazi publisher) bought up papers – it owned 2/3 of the German press by 1939. • The Government controlled news stories at source through the state news agency, DNB. • ‘Editor’s Law’ (Oct. 1933) made editors personally responsible for content. The lounge at the German press club in Berlin, with a picture of Hitler on the Wall.

12. The Nazi Calendar • 30th January – The Seizure of Power • 24th February – The refounding of the Party (1925) • First Sunday in March – Heroes Remembrance Day • 20th April – Hitler’s Birthday • 1st May – National Day of Labour • Second Sunday in May – Mothering Sunday • September – Annual Nuremberg Party Rally • 9th November – Munich Putsch (1923)

15. Above: Working Maidens by Leopold Schmultzer (1940) Left: Sculpture by Josef Thorak (1937)

16. Nazi Cinema

17. Opposition in the Third Reich (Sample) • Organising a coup • Attempting to assassinate Hitler and other leaders • Going on strike • Helping victims of Nazism • Spying for foreign governments • Deserting from the armed forces • Committing suicide • Emigrating • Distributing anti-Nazi leaflets • Underachieving in the workplace • Publicly criticising the regime, telling anti-Hitler jokes • Listening to American jazz and the BBC • Not giving the Hitler greeting • Refusing to join Nazi organisations • Reading banned Nazi literature

18. George Elser (1903-1945) Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)

19. Hans Scholl (1918-1943) Sophie Scholl (1921-1943)

20. Plots against Hitler, 1938-45 • May-September 1938: Army plot to depose Hitler. • November 1939: George Esler attempts to assassinate Hitler during the annual commemoration of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. • 13 March 1943: Attempt to blow up Hitler’s plane. • March 1943-March 1944: Various military plots to assassinate Hitler orchestrated by Colonel Henning von Tresckow and General Friedrich Olbricht. • 20 July 1944: Plot to kill Hitler with a bomb planted in his military headquarters in East Prussia.

21. Colonel Claus Schenck von Stauffenberg (1907-1944), in real life (left) and as played by Tom Cruise (right)

22. The Historiography of Resistance • Ongoing debate on the nature, extent and effectiveness of the resistance. • Used to legitimize post-war states • East German historians presented Communist resistance as the only anti-Fascist force in Germany. • West German historiography concerned with accusations of ‘collective guilt’ & presented resistance as based on high moral and ethical values, the individual standing up against tyranny. • 1960s: Hans Mommsen – argued that national-conservative resistance rooted in the anti-democratic right of the 1920s. • 1970s: Peter Hüttenberger & Martin Broszat – resistance in everyday life. • Broszat – Resistenz (immunity): people retain their moral & ethical values without actively challenging the regime. • Mommsen – Widerstandpraxis (Resistance Practice): resistance was a process encompassing different forms of dissent as individuals came to reject the regime in its entirety. • Ian Kershaw – Two approaches to the study of resistance: Fundamentalist (dealing with those committed to the overthrow of the regime) and Societal (dealing with dissent in everyday life).