Created by Beckett Kavanagh, Alex Sutton, & Milo Dubois

Introduction

Our topic is Nazi propaganda and Censorship. Throughout this project we have attempted to capture how effective the use of propaganda by the Nazi’s was in convincince the public of their horrid antisemitic ideals. Our main focus for this project was researching and telling the story of how the everyday citizens of Germany were swayed to believe and perpetuated the Nazi’s philosophies.

The Power of Propaganda

Propaganda – defined by the Miriam Webster dictionary as, “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person” It has the power to convince citizens of ideas, viewpoints, and philosophies, regardless of their extremity. Over the years, propaganda has been implemented throughout history for many unique purposes; promoting nationalism, military service, indoctrination, but the World War 1 and Weimar Republic eras were some of the peak dates as propaganda in Europe expanded and different ideologies battled.

The Nazi party was incredibly talented at producing effective propaganda, which is one of the reasons they were able to win support for their party and commit their horrible, murderous actions, without public scrutiny. To fully get a picture of how the Nazis used propaganda to spread their politics and suppress Jewish voices, first one needs to understand how the Nazis rose to power. After the end of WW1, the allied powers drew up the Treaty of Versailles, meant to punish Germany for WW1. It comprised many social, economic, and military penalties for Germany. As a result, the Weimar Republic, the government founded in the wake of the Treaty, was in shambles and the economy was a mess. The people were very displeased with the Weimar government, and elections were held in 1932, which the Nazi party won due to their convincing promises on a brighter future. With the first uses of propaganda by the Nazi Party, they subtly spread their messages, but as time went on, they continued to make it more and more extreme, until the point where they were fully depicting their next moves.

These simple posters and forms of propaganda could easily sway the opinion and influence the minds of the people. After the war was over some of the Germans and the others who were influenced by the Nazis realized how heavily impacted by the propaganda they were, and those who observed it, were able to reflect and understand just how truly they were influenced.

After the 1932 elections, Hitler had bold plans to conquer Europe and “preserve” the Aryan Race. Any people standing up against these goals would be a hindrance to these plans. So, in 1933, the Nazi party established the Reich Ministry of Propaganda and Entertainment, a branch of the government solely concerned with convincing the German people of the Nazi ideas. Joseph Goebells was appointed the head of this new branch of the government. This ministry had a sole goal, to brainwash the people into believing Hitler. The initial steps they took were more about restricting the rights of the citizens, rather than convincing them outright. In 1934, they made it against the law to speak ill of the Nazi government.

The Reich Ministry created laws and policies that made it so all media consumed by the German public perpetuated stereotypes about Jewish People. Starting in 1933, The only books allowed were those which agreed with the Nazi point of view, many other books burned publicity and all other books were consequently banned from the public. Nazi Propaganda posters could be found all throughout the streets, while radios and loudspeakers would constantly blast Nazi propaganda throughout streets and houses. Additionally, Media that expressed anti-Nazi ideology were redacted. Editing and deletion of radio, newspapers and the theater performances were commonplace. The Reich Ministry also had their own films created such as, 1935’s “The Triumph of the Will”, which made Hitler out to be a hero and the “savior of Germany”, and 1940’s the Eternal Jew, which depicted Jews as a hindrance to society, who were only focused on sex and money. Other propaganda was used to influence the youth of Germany to indoctrinate them into joining the Hitler Youth. A youth program run by the Nazis to instill hate and teach the young people of Germany the Nazi Ideology, in order to diminish opposition and denial.

Joseph Goebbels also introduced a theory that is now commonly associated with the saying “big lie”. Goebbels wrote the following paragraph in an article on January 12th, 1941, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such a time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

This quote perfectly sums up the Nazi’s ideologies around propaganda, that if you surround people with falsities and perpetuate these falsities enough, you will be believed.

At this point in the Nazi Regime, propaganda and censorship was in full swing. One of the most consequential aspects of this propaganda was its ability to convince people, everyday citizens of Germany, even those he didn’t vote for or believe in the Nazi ideology, that Jews were bad and enemies of the state. Margret Lamper, who was a child during the Nazi regime remarked, “These children were his playmates for six years, and all of the sudden they would beat him up and call him terrible names”, about the sudden change of attitude towards Jews.

There were also other types of propaganda which celebrated the violent actions of the German people against Jews. This poster represents one of these advertisements which invited those to celebrate the results of the night before, referring to the violent event “Kristallnacht” or “The Night of Broken Glass”. However, it wasn’t just hate filled propaganda posters and censorship used to depict Jews as animals, they also used propaganda to create a higher feeling in their people. One of the ways they did this is through the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. They used this event to show off their “superior” Aryan race. These Olympics were deliberately calculated to display the “superior athleticism of the Master Race”. Through all these acts, the German people were left with little alternative to the Nazi story. They were blinded by the desire to become a great and powerful nation once more, even at the expense of the Jewish people. Due to propaganda, Germans didn’t question the regime and their actions, which ultimately allowed for the forced removal and deportation of Jews and other undesirables from their society and their eventual fate of annihilation. It was also a powerful tool when combined with the intense and passionate feeling of the German people to become a “great nation” again, but with the expense of millions of lives being lost.

Nearing the end of the war, Germany fell as Joseph Goebells ended his life on May 1, 1945 right after Hitler committed suicide on April 30, of that same year. Due to the fact that they ended their lives, it brought the German army to a halt as they had no other option than to surrender. This caused them to do so just a few days after the death of Goebells, May 1, 1945. However, even after the war, the propaganda still had an impact on the minds of the German people regarding the Jews.

It is important to remember Nazi propaganda, not as a means of celebrating the masterminds behind these horrible, inhuman actions, but as a way of becoming a more active population that won’t let such atrocities be committed again. Propaganda is an incredibly dangerous tool. Throughout the Nazi Regime, Hitler was able to commit mass atrocities, because he had gained the support of the German people through propaganda. Many of these people didn’t originally vote for the NSDAP in 1932, or even truly want the values and ideals that the party promoted. However, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda was able to brainwash the public into thinking that the horrible, anti semitic acts of the Nazi party were justified. We live in a more opinionated world than ever before. Social media allows anyone to say anything they want, and have that message be viewed by millions, most of the posts, memes, videos, and political messages have hidden meanings and words used to influence you into believing whatever their message is.

Let us leave you with this question, how are you impacted by bias and media in your everyday life?

Before you take in or be influenced by information, think critically about the authenticity and factually of the content.

Bibliography

https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/posters2.htm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zn8sgk7/revision/3 / Control through propaganda and censorship
URLhttps://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda#h127
https://iwitness.usc.edu/testimony/2353?search=Nazi%20propaganda&category=testimonies&from=%2Fsearch
Nazi propaganda and censorship. (n.d.). https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda-and-censorship
https://iwitness.usc.edu/testimony/2353?search=Nazi%20propaganda&category=testimonies&from=%2Fsearch

Artifact Statement

Covered Hope

Our artifact is called “Covered Hope.” It is a reminder of how the Nazis used propaganda and censorship to change the way people thought about Jews. At first, it was a struggle to come up with ideas for the propaganda. We wanted to put propaganda on a piece of cardboard and paint it to symbolize a brick wall, with Nazi propaganda over it, exhibiting how German citizens were impacted by propaganda in their everyday lives. There was a problem with the idea: it was not very symbolic, so we returned back to the drawing board and started again. Eventually, we came up with an amazing idea. Our artifact takes place after Kristallnacht, where people vandalized and broke into thousands of Jewish-owned stores. German citizens are defacing the Star of David with propaganda. Our goal was to create a very dark setting so that it would draw attention to the gold star at the center, which is the most important part of our artifact.

We wanted our artifact to make the viewers feel sad and contemplative about how even the everyday person can have a profoundly negative impact just by following along with what the ideas and actions of the majority are. So, we laser-cut the Star of David and spray-painted it gold. We chose to use the star and cover it with propaganda to show the suppression of people’s points of view. We also chose to not fully cover the star as a means of showing how propaganda and the hateful German public could never entirely silence and oppress the Jews.

We wanted the background to be black so the star would be the center of attention. We 3-D printed out speakers and put them at the top of the artifact to show the constant bombardment of propaganda every day, not just visual propaganda. We also added other details to make the scene of our artifact look like a German street. We did this to further represent how the impacts of propaganda were constant, everywhere, and unavoidable. We furthered this point by putting string lights around the scene. This shows how the German people were overtly antisemitic, and that it wasn’t frowned upon. We put German citizens on the ladder, hanging posters to show how antisemitism was not just coming from the government but from the citizens as well.

The main message of our artifact was to show the impact of propaganda, how it suppressed people’s voices, and how the propaganda united people for the wrong reasons.

Personal Reflections

My Journey

Studying the Holocaust.

Beckett Cavanaugh, Class of 2025

As it turns out, being put in a group of three proved to be a valuable lesson in teamwork. My group got together and we decided we wanted to do Nazi propaganda. I was assigned to work on the artifact in my group. I am much better at hands on work then on iPads so I was ecstatic. The first day we got down to the Ilab Alex was sick which meant that we had a two person group. Alex stayed out for two days. Milo and I had to pick up slack. As it turns out teamwork, critical thinking and cooperation were the three things that saved my group from missing deadlines and messing up the documentary as well as our artifact.

Last minute changes, absences made our project hard to complete. But our efficiency and teamwork made it easy to complete. It was two days before the museum and I was expecting to be absent the day before it. I had to hurry in finishing the artifact so that my group was all set for the next day and the day of the museum. I started by putting up lights with Milo to make the artifact shine more. Surprisingly the lights were one of the hardest parts of the artifact. We hot glue it then it falls, we hot glue it then it falls over and over again. Finally we got it to stick but that took a good chunk of our period.

Later on in the period Milo and I went out to spray paint the Star of David and the cardboard. The star was exceptionally hard because we needed to spray paint the back black without getting it on the star, but Milo came up with the good idea of taping over the star so it will stay clean. We taped up the star and covered it all in black. Then taped the background and spray painted the gold making the star look big and bright.

The museum ended and I ended up having a great time. Watching everyone’s faces as they passed our artifacts filled with awe, anger and sadness. Looking back, this project has given me a deeper understanding of the Holocaust and what it was. My classmates helped me grow as a writer and researcher, by providing feedback and support.

Change and Teamwork

Milo DuBois, The Fenn School, Class of 2025

We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.
~Dolly Parton

The Holocaust Project was about to start after learning about World War I and the Weimar Republic in Justice since the end of Winter Break. At this point, I had heard a few tidbits here and there about the project, mainly from those who did it last year. During our first Justice class, we were assigned into groups. I was placed in a group with Alex and Beckett. The majority of groups were groups of four, but we were a group of three, so we knew from the get-go that everyone was destined to do more work. Then, we were informed that the project would be comprised of two elements: a documentary and an artifact. In the next class, we were assigned our topic, “Nazi Propaganda and Censorship”. We decided then that Beckett would lead the charge on the artifact, Alex would spearhead the documentary, and I would shift between the two, helping out when needed. I was thrilled with this, as I found both aspects of the project quite interesting. Throughout this project, the skills of teamwork, collaboration, and adapting to change were vital.

It was the eve of the opening of the Holocaust museum, the final afternoon of work, the last chance to make any changes, and my group was feeling satisfied with our final product. At the corner of our table, Alex was hunched over his phone, adding the final background images and audio to our documentary, which was in its final stages. Just as everything was going so well, life decided to throw us curveball after curveball. As the hand on the clock ticked and tocked farther away from the start of the period, it became increasingly clear that Beckett, who was mainly focusing on the artifact, wasn’t going to be there. At first, we thought, “Oh well, the artifact is done, so it doesn’t really matter.” Then, as if on cue, Mr. Kraai told me that we had to finish spray painting the back of our artifact, which, at the moment, was still bear cardboard. I went outside, armed with a dirty can of black spray paint, thinking that was going to be the only hurdle. However, much to my dismay, when I returned, I was met with the bigger issue: Mr. Burgess informed us that we had to add a new element to our artifact in order to reduce the amount of negative space on the sides. I almost immediately thought of adding a quote, which would have to be laser cut. The laser cutter failed the first print, and we had to rearrange the location of the quote to improve visibility, but in the end, the artifact was finally finished.

When I was met face-to-face with all those necessary changes, I was understandably overwhelmed, especially because the person who had done most of the work in the area of the artifact was absent. However, there was no other choice but for me to persevere and get the project done because Alex was busy finishing the documentary, an equally important part of the project. Having to adapt to feedback with little time was hard but necessary. I had to step up to finish the artifact; otherwise, it wouldn’t have been done. Throughout the project, there were also many moments when teamwork was required, such as writing the script for the documentary, a long and daunting task that became infinitely easier when worked on by two instead of one. During the whole project, when confronted with difficult tasks and challenges, we had to come together to overcome them.

If given the chance to change something for the better, take it.

And improvement is guaranteed.

Perseverance & Preserving Memory

Alex Sutton’s Holocaust Project Experience

Alex Sutton, The Fenn School, Class of 2025

A bend in the road is not the end of the road… unless you fail to make the turn.
~Helen Keller

Aftering learning basics about the holocaust, my group and I, consisting of Milo and Beckett, were tasked with launching into an in-depth project surrounding the topic Nazi Propaganda and Censorship. We decided that I would be the main creator of the documentary; a role that I was at first hesitant about, but some came to realize that I was chosen for that role for a reason. Since we were a three man group, we could not have two and two split off to work, instead we had to have major players on each side and one shifting between the two. That person being Milo, as Beckett started the major work on the artifact.

To start the documentary process, me and my co creator Milo, began to write the script. After two days of hard work, we managed to make a creative and effective script as well as have it be checked over by a teacher, fixing our minor flaws. While we went through that process, our entire group came together to create a unique overarching idea for our artifact. We settled on a Star of David in the middle of a street covered by Nazi Propaganda. I thought to add more to the project by putting lights and bystanders walking by to create a deeper and more realistic artifact.

Nearing the end of the project, I had to scramble to find all of the images and video footage required for the documentary. Spending a lot of in class time as well as late nights at home to create an informative and engaging documentary for our audience.

Propaganda & Censorship