Goebbels on Depravity in Berlin

Today I’m adding an article from January 1928 in which Goebbels claims that the center of Berlin is a den of iniquity that the Nazis will clean up once in power.

The image is the dust jacket  to a later collection of essays in which the article is reprinted.

My Hitler/FDR Talk Now Available On-line

CSPAN was quick to put my talk on the rhetorical duel between Hitler and FDR on their site.  It is available here:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?416204-1/franklin-d-roosevelt-adolf-hitler

My Talk on FDR and Hitler on CSPAN3

CSPAN 3 is carrying my talk to the New York Military Affairs Society of last October

on the following schedule:

• Dec 18, 2016 | 8:00pm EST | C-SPAN 3

• Dec 19, 2016 | 12:00am EST | C-SPAN 3

• Dec 24, 2016 | 11:45am EST | C-SPAN 3

• Dec 25, 2016 | 4:45am EST | C-SPAN 3

It will probably eventually be available soon the CSPAN website as well.

Nazi Christmas Speech for Wounded Soldiers (1944)

The Nazis developed a large array of rituals and ceremonies.  There is a fair amount of material on them on the GPA.

Today I’m adding a model speech used by party leaders all over Germany to give to wounded soldiers for Christmas 1944.  The war situation was grim by then, but party leaders are told to assure soldiers that victory will be theirs.

The speech comes from Die neue Gemeinschaft, a periodical that provided party leaders with material to use on ceremonial occasions.  There were a lot of those.  Besides traditional holidays like Easter and Christmas, there were the party holidays (e.g., Hitler’s birthday, the anniversary of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch), as well as Nazi rituals of birth, coming of age, marriage, and death.

"Good" and "Bad" Examples of Nazi Stage Decorations

The Nazi put enormous effort into rituals and ceremonies.  The annual Nuremberg Rallies are only the most prominent examples.  The party provided a lot of material to party propagandists for organizing such events.  Considerable material on this is available on the GPA.

Today I am adding five photographs showing “good” and “bad” examples of the stage decorations for such events.

This one, for example, shows a “well-decorated” meeting hall for Advent ceremonies.  Note that there is no suggestion of a Christian element.

Goebbels Suggests Killing Allied Airmen

In 1943 as German air defense capacities declined, Goebbels began suggesting that German civilians kill captured Allied airmen.  He didn’t directly ask them to do so, but suggested that it was understandable if they took such actions.

Today’s addition to the German Propaganda Article is an article titled “A Word about Enemy Air Terror,” dated 27 May 1944.  Unlike most articles on the site, it was published in the Völkischer Beobachter, the Nazi Party’s daily newspaper, rather than in Das Reich.  It was also sent to the party’s speaker corps.  It surely encouraged them to make similar suggestions to the audiences they addressed. In the end, about 350 Allied airmen were killed by German civilians.

I'm Speaking in New York on October 14

If you live near New York City and are curious about what I look like, I’m giving a lecture on the evening of Friday, October 14.

I’ll be looking at the trans-Atlantic rhetorical duel betweeen Franklin Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler between 1937 and 1939.


  

The Thieves at Ostara Publications Lose

I have temporarily, at least, been the victor in my battle against Ostara Publications, which shamelessly stole my material.

Both amazon and lulu.com have removed their plagiarized publications.

I shall see if they behave after this.

Progress against the Crooks at Ostara Publications

My last post mentioned that I had filed a complaint with amazon against Ostara Publications, which has shamelessly stolen my work.  Amazon is good at dealing with plagiarism and has removed the publication that steals from my translation of Wolfgang Diewerge’s nefarious Nazi pamphlet The War Goal of World Plutocracy, as well as two other Ostara publications.

That leaves only lulu.com, where for some reason Ostara published a second version of the stolen material. I’ve filed the appropriate complaint and expect lulu will remove it soon.

For the benefit of those curious, here are the e-mails from Ostara that makes the astonishing claim that their alleged ”translators in Germany” somehow came up with translations identical to mine:

All e-mails dated May 10, 2016:
========================================================

Dear Sir, 

Thank you for the quick response, 

We must however confirm that all our Third Reich-era translated works -- which, we point out, are far more extensive than the two items you mention -- have been acquired and prepared by ourselves, and that nothing has been taken from your website. 

For example, we note, upon looking at your website, that our translation of the series of "Unser Hitler" speeches contains all the texts, whereas your website's collection is incomplete. 

You will therefore appreciate that we cannot remove our legitimate work from sale. 

Yours sincerely,Richard WilliamsSenior Editor

==============================================================

I responded:

It is remarkable that your “paid-for” translator in Germany translated things in exactly the same way I did.  For example, compare “The Art of Propaganda” which is the first item in your Europe in the Year 2000” with this page that has been on my web site for years:

  http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb54.htm

They are identical.  The chance of two people translating the same passage in an identical way is vanishingly small.  

Compare what you wish. You have reprinted large amounts of my material.  If you do have a translator in Germany, he or she cheated you by providing you with my material.

Please remove it from sale.

==================================================================

Ostara’s response:

 Dear Sir,

Thank you for your email.

We are unaware of which website to which you refer, but whatever it may be, please be assured that we have taken nothing from it and used our own paid-for translators in Germany.

Kind regards
Richard Williams
Senior Editor

Rather amusing, no?

Ostara Publications Steals Again

Back in May I noted that Ostara Publications had stolen my material and republished it without any credit to me.  When I wrote to them, they made the astonishing claim that they had hired a translator in Germany who just happened to translate things in exactly the way I did.

What does one say about such effrontery?

Well, amazon removed those items, apparently, since they are no longer for sale.

I broke down and bought a copy of another of their books.  Sure enough, it plagiarized my translation of  the Nazi propaganda pamphlet The War Goal of World Plutocracy. 

I filed the appropriate complaint with amazon.  If they follow their policies, they will remove the item.

More Directives for Propagandists

Thanks to the Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen I’ve added four new issues of the Redner-Schnellinformation, an irregular newsletter for the Nazi Party’s speakers.  There is no complete collection of these anywhere that I have been able to find, so I am always happy to discover new ones.  These deal with a variety of topics and provide interesting insight into the focus of the propaganda system at various times.

 The new material includes one issue of the successor to the newsletter, the Redner-Schnellbrief, which contained much less material.  I suspect it was because the staff at party propaganda headquarters had been reduced (and sent to the military), so there was less time to prepare material.

One of Goebbels’s Less Effective Articles?

Goebbels wrote a weekly essay for the prestige publication Das Reich.  Most articles (and speeches) were later reprinted in one of three collections published during the war.  Goebbels was very careful in what he wrote and rarely had to eat his words.

Still, there were essays that didn’t get reprinted.  Sometimes he may simply have thought them not up to his usual standards.  Other times, they might prove uncomfortable given developments.  Today I’m adding one of the essays omitted from his books.  Titled “Where Do We Stand,” it may have seemed a tad too optimistic four or five months later when the book appeared.

A Goebbels Article from March 1945

Today I’ve added a March 1945 essay by Goebbels titled “Look Confidently to the Helmsman!” The war situation was dreadful and Goebbels had nothing to say but empty words that Germany would somehow gain victory if only Germans kept fighting.  It is not one of his better efforts — but then there was little he could say.

He does recycle his marathon runner image used a few weeks before in a major speech.  Other nations were as exhausted as Germany, he claims.  The war is like a marathon, and if only Germany can keep up the pace other nations will fall by the wayside.

P. G. Wodehouse in Germany

Those who admire P. G. Wodehouse, which should be about everyone, may be interested in an article I recently published in Plum Lines: The Quarterly Journal of The Wodehouse Society, Summer 2016.

Wodehouse’s books were published by the Tauchnitz Verlag, which had a long history of issuing English editions of British and American authors for Continental readers.  They published many of Wodehouse’s novels, including some that included brief, but critical mentions of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

It turns out that Tauchnitz simply cut awkward passages.  The article looks at what disappeared in the editions published in Germany.  If you are interested and aren’t a member of The Wodehouse Society, drop me a note and I can provide a copy.

More Information Bulletins for Nazi Speakers

Goebbels was only the top of the Nazi propaganda apparatus.  It extended down to every corner of the country.  Speakers were a major part of the system.  They could be mobilized on short notice, and could be a little more open about some issues than the press.

They needed to be informed, and the party’s Reichspropagandaleitung put out a variety of publications to assist speakers.  The one I find most interesting is the Redner-Schnellinformation (Speaker Express Information) which provided them with material they were expected to put to immediate use.  Although the material had nothing all that confidential (despite the claims that it was “strictly confidential”), it provides a window into the specific content of Nazi propaganda at various times.

The first issue I’ve seen is from September 1941, although since that is #19 there were numerous earlier issues. The last issue I’ve seen is from February 1944. 

Today I’m adding six new issues, including interesting ones on the Russian murder of thousands of Polish officers at Katyn, training sessions for party members, and the loss of Sicily.

I have now translated all the issues I have access to (with two exceptions that I think of less interest).  Should you know of others I’ve not yet found, please let me know.

Two New Early Goebbels Articles

I’ve added two more articles by Goebbels from Der Angriff. The first is a 19928 article titled “Why Do We Oppose the Jews?” The second (also 1928), titled “When Hitler Speaks,” is another example of Goebbels’s attempt to present Hitler as a superhuman figure.

Thieves

One of the less pleasant aspects of my work is plagiarism.  Any number of people, often neo-Nazis, plagiarize my material.

An interesting recent example is Ostara Publications, a scurulous Britsh outfit that has stolen a lot of my material, offering it in various publications available on amazon.com, among other places.

When I wrote them asking to “cease and desist,” I got the following fascinating responses:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your email.

We are unaware of which website to which you refer, but whatever it may be, please be assured that we have taken nothing from it and used our own paid-for translators in Germany.

Kind regards
Richard Williams
Senior Editor

When I responded that is was highly improbably that their “paid for’ translator in Germany would translate things exactly as I did, I got this response:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for the quick response.

We must however confirm that all our Third Reich-era translated works -- which, we point out, are far more extensive than the two items you mention -- have been acquired and prepared by ourselves, and that nothing has been taken from your website.

For example, we note, upon looking at your website, that our translation of the series of "Unser Hitler" speeches contains all the texts, whereas your website's collection is incomplete.

You will therefore appreciate that we cannot remove our legitimate work from sale.

Yours sincerely,
Richard Williams
Senior Editor

I pointed out that the missing speech in my translations of Goebbels’s “Unser Hitler” speeches was in fact published in one of my books.  I have yet to receive a response.

What is astonishing is the sheer idiocy of the claim that their supposed translator in Germany would translate things in exactly the way I did.

Well, I’ll post more as things develop.

A 1932 Nazi Pamphlet

I particularly like to add ephermera to the site, items that may have had mass distribution at the time but have largely disappeared.

Today I’m adding a pamphlet from the first round of the 1932 German presidential election, titled Adolf Hitler: German Worker and Front Soldier.  It was issued by the party’s propaganda office in Munich and surely had an enormous distribution.

It gives a brief biography and attempts to demonstrate Hitler’s leadership by a variety of examples. 

Gauleiter Eigruber's Final Appeals (April 1945)

Those marvelous Austrians in charge of ANNO who are putting the full runs of newspapers on-line have just gotten to adding 1945.  That gives me the chance to add the four  final speeches by Gauleiter Eigruber, the first a speech on 10 April 1945, then on  15 April 1945, then on 20 April 1945, and finally an appeal on about  26 April 1945.  They urge people to hold out until the end. They didn’t have to wait long for that end to come.

A Lot of New Material on the Nazi Speaker System

I have a particular interest in the lower levels of the Nazi propaganda system.  A significant part of that was the speaker corp that delivered the Nazi message to people throughout Germany.  These speakers needed to be informed  — and kept from saying the wrong things.

Today I’m adding a dozen or so editions of the Redner-Schnellinformation, an irregular publication for speakers. Some are from the beginning of the crisis on the Eastern Front.  Others deal with how to treat foreign leaders, how to present Rommel’s victories in Africa, or what to say to women.

This material was done in haste, often in response to immediate events.  Mistakes sometimes occur.  For example, in #24 (4 January 1942) speakers are instructed:

We have a political interest in distinguishing clearly and intentionally that part of the American continent, namely North America, that is waging war against us from the other countries of the American continent. Avoid, therefore, speaking of America as the enemy, but rather always heed the fact that our enemy is not all of America, but rather onlyNorth America or the United States of North America, or the USA. Speakers should be sure to clearly distinguish these terms.

Issue #26 (21 February 1942) followed these instructions.  However, they were forgotten by issue #28 (14 March 1942), in which there is this passage:

Given the continuing attempts through using reports of German losses in the East, through lying reports of vast armaments capacity in America, through political agitation in the occupied territories and in the neutral world, etc., they try to create the impression that they have not been affected by the results of the war and that we have no chance of final victory. 

I also added two essays by Joseph Goebbels from Das Reich that speakers were instructed to use as the basis of their speeches: “What is Sacrifice” and “A Word to All.”

Goebbels Compares Russian Tanks to Hannibal's Elephants

During the last months of the Third Reich there was abundant evidence that the war was lost.  Still, Germans kept fighting to the very bitter end.  Goebbels’s weekly articles in Das Reich are particularly interesting.  He wasn’t stupid.  He knew the war was lost, and he didn’t have good arguments any longer.  About all he could do was argue that the Allies would destroy Germany, so Germans might as well go down fighting, and that since military situations had changed in the past, they would in April 1945, too.

This article, titled History as a Teacher,  makes an interesting comparison between Hannibal’s elephants and Russian tanks.  After all, the elephants terrorized those who encountered them, yet Rome won in the end.  So, too, would tanks be overcome.