Thursday, March 31, 2011

German Foreign Office Propaganda from 1941

In the convoluted system of Nazi propaganda, all sorts of people and offices produced propaganda, sometimes to the considerable annoyance of Joseph Goebbels. One interesting outlet was the Deutsche diplomatisch-politsche Korrespondenz, something of a mimeographed press release that was a semi-official  service of the German Foreign Office.  It was intended primarily for the press.   I’m adding translations of three of the issues from 1941.  The first, dated 10 October 1941, earned the wrath of Joseph Goebbels, since it claimed that the campaign in Russia was essentially over and that Russia had collapsed.  That turned out not to be entirely accurate.  Goebbels would have preferred to hold back claims of complete victory until complete victory had been attained.  The second is a completely misguided analysis of British politics.  The third was issued after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but before Hitler’s declaration of war on 11 December.

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