An East German Textbook’s Explanation of the Berlin Wall

On a recent visit to Germany I picked up some East German history textbooks, which make interesting reading. I've posted one textbook’s account of the necessity of the Berlin Wall.

Völkischer Beobachter Front Pages

I've gotten a start on a long-term project: Posting the front pages of the Völkischer Beobachter, the Nazi Party’s daily newspaper, for the war years. It is an interesting way to follow the trajectory of the war, beginning with victories in Poland and ending in disaster.

Since there are 1500 or so issues this will take me a while, but if you check the page occasionally new months will be added.

The Great Translation Movement and Me

I recently learned of the Great Translation Movement, a fascinating project begun shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. An anonymous group is posting translations of Chinese material, approved by government censors, but not intended for international distribution.

It turns out that according to an article in The Atlantic, my book Bending Spines: The Propagangandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Repupblic, had at least some influence on the originators of the project.

Can I say that I am delighted, minor though my part in this great project may be?

Goebbels Boasts of Electoral Success

Hitler did not win the German presidential election of 10 April 1932, but did well enough to make Goebbels write a boasting article titled "The Rising Tide."

Two Articles from Unser Wille und Weg (1935)

I’ve added two 1935 articles from Unser Wille und Weg, the monthly for propagandists. The first concerns how to make propaganda to farmers, the second criticizes Germans who were only outwardly National Socialists. For those interested in Unser Wille und Weg, issues from 1934 until the final issues in 1941 are available on Google Books.

The Red Plague (1930)

I’ve got a peculiar fondness for Fritz Reinhardt, who appeared in my first published article as the founder of a Nazi correspondence school that trained public speakers. Today I’m adding part of a pamphlet titled The Red Plague, a 1930 attack on the Social Democrats. I’d started out intending to translate the whole pamphlet, but the economic language is tough going so I'm not doing it all.

A Request

I began the German Propaganda Archive in 1996, the earliest days of the Internet. It has grown over the years and I haven’t always kept up with the latest developments in HTML coding. For a while the pages were not mobile friendly, which Google punishes by moving pages down in ranking. Well, I've just completed a major updating of the coding, and chances are good that I missed something in the process. If you find any pages that don't work, please leave a comment. Also, I always welcome reports of typos or errors. This is a one-person operation. I proofread and spellcheck pages, but things always slip past. Should you see anything that needs correcting, I will again appreciate a comment to that effect.