Goebbels Speaks after the 1944 Assassination Attempt on Hitler

Goebbels used the 20 July 1944 attempt on Hitler's life to assert that God had preserved his life and that new weapons would shortly transform the war. His speech was delivered on 26 July, six days later.

Goebbels meets with Hitler shortly after the assassination attempt

My Talk on Nazi Propaganda at the Harold Deutsch Roundtable

Back in November 2023 I gave a lecture to the Harold Deutsch Roundtable in Minneapolis on Nazi propaganda that is avilable here. My talk starts at 16:15.

Rudolf Hess and Complainers

By mid-1934 Nazism's initial popularity was showing cracks. People complained about unsolved problems and abuses by Nazi party leaders. in June 1934 Rudolf Hess, then next-in-line to Hitler and head of the party chancellery, gave a speech to the Gau Essen party rally dealing with complainers. He is not happy.

Luther and Hitler 1933

 I would like to know more about this poster.  It was issued in 1933 on the 450th anniversary of Luther’s birth.  I do not know anything more than that, and would welcome enlightenment.

The translation: “Hitler’s battle and Luther’s teaching are the German people’s sure defense.”

Goebbels on Hitler’s Takeover (1933)

Today I’m adding Goebbels’s article “The Miracle” published four days after Hitler’s takeover on 30 January 1933.

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.

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. 

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.”

Nazism and Cities

Lyric Hughes Hale has an interesting piece in the Huffington Post titled “The Global Politics of Cities” which uses the German Propaganda Archive to discuss the role of cities.  She notes that Mao Zedong and Hitler both saw cities as places of depravity. She uses an educational poster from the GPA showing the deleterious effects of a growing urban population.

She concludes:

“My bottom line: urbanization is a political process. Most of us are urbanites, and for most of us, urbanization has meant modernization and economic progress. But have we reached a new plateau, a place where we have reached the limits of the economic benefits of urban growth? How will the politics of cities evolve?”

Letters to Adolf Hitler

A variety of German archival material ended up in Russia after World War II. Henrik Eberle’s Letters to Hitler (Malden, MA: Polity, 2012), based primarily on material in the Moscow archive, is an example.  It is an edited and condensed version of a book originally published in Germany in 2007.  The book includes a wide range of letters to Hitler.

The book also recommends the German Propaganda Archive (p. 202) as a good site for those wanting further information.

A 1938 Painting of Adolf Hitler Surfaces

One of the benefits of my work is that people frequently write me asking for information about something in their possession.  One of the most interesting of those comes from a woman whose father, a B-17 pilot, found this remarkable painting while visiting the bombed-out remains of the beer hall in Munich where Hitler had held many of his early meetings.  I have added it to the page of Nazi paintings of Hitler.

I am not familiar with the artist, one F. Thiele.  I welcome information from anyone who know more about the artist or this painting.

Three New Images: Two Posters and Hitler Art

Alexander Historical Auctions kindly gave me permission to include three images from their recent catalog.  Two are of interesting posters I’ve not seen before.  These posters are now on the poster page covering 1933-1945.

1933 Nazi Leaders

Poster Advertising the SS Weekly

The next image is what they are confident is one of Hitler’s later paintings, dating to around 1920.  There are a lot of fake Hitler paintings in circulation, but they are an established firm that knows what it deals with, so the chances are they are correct.  

A good general summary of Hitler’s paintings from a 1998 article reprinted by Snyder’s Treasures, another dealer in such items.

A 1937 Oil Painting of Adolf Hitler

There were enormous numbers of paintings of Hitler during the Third Reich.  The annual Greater German Art Exhibition in Munich generally had several.  This one comes from the 1937 exhibition, and is the work of Heinrich Knirr (another of whose Hitler oil paintings is also on the GPA. It comes from Die Kunst im Dritten Reich, the glossy art magazine published by the Nazi Party.

This and other art pieces depicting Hitler are available on the Hitler portraits page.

Paintings from Hitler’s Personal Collection

I have a page of Nazi war art on the GPA.  One of the paintings is by Franz Eichhorst.  It was titled “Remembrance of Stalingrad.”

A Nazi  art magazine Kunst dem Volk considered it a masterpiece:

“The pale colors, the splendid presentation, and the solemnity of the moment are emphasized in this picture, which has an almost monumental character. Although the painting demonstrates the artistic understanding of the painter and also his mastery of drawing, one forgets it all because of the artist’s splendid work, accepting it as obvious and given. That is probably the best that a painting can do.”

It turns out that the painting ended up in Hitler’s personal collection and disappeared after the war.  It was just found in a Czech monastery along with six other paintings.

Nazi Pamphlet “Hitler to Brüning” (December 1931)

I’m gradually adding translations of material from before 1933.  Today, I’m posting an interesting pamphlet titled Hitler to Brüning. It’s the text of Hitler’s response to Chancellor Brüning’s emergency decree of early December 1931, which among other things banned political uniforms, meetings, and insignia.  Brüning at the time lacked a parliamentary majority and was maintained in power by Reich President Hindenburg, who under the Weimar Constitution had the authority to permit that.

It is an interesting example of Hitler’s rhetorical style — and was at the time persuasive not only to his Nazi followers, but probably to many others as well.

Another Fabricated Hitler Quotation

Although there is no shortage of quotations from Nazi sources that demonstrate its evil, people occasionally invent quotations that sound like what they think the Nazis would say to support a point.  I have a page on false Nazi quotations that looks into such matters.

Today I’m adding a quotation found in more than 1,700,000 web pages and a fair number of books.  Hitler is alleged to have said: “What luck for rulers that men do not think.” I’m not absolutely certain is it a fabrication, but I’m almost sure.  It isn’t in Mein Kampf, nor the published edition of Hitler’s speeches.  No one I can find who cites it provide a source. One book cited by several others provides the quotation, but no source.

But it sounds like what people think Hitler would have said, so it keeps spreading.

More on a Bad Translation of Mein Kampf

In 2009, one Michael Ford published a bad translation of Mein Kampf, which I discussed in an earlier post.

What I find astonishing, although it is typical of Internet discussions, is that those who for some reason like his translation accuse me of making up Ford's mistakes.

Well, I suppose it is time to make the evidence available. I've started a page that demonstrates errors in Michael Ford's translation. If anyone is interested, I'll add to the page as time goes on.

A 1936 Nazi Reading Primer

I've collected several basic reading primers over the years. Two were already on the GPA. Today, I'm adding material from a 1936 primer titled Hand in Hand for the Fatherland. It has particularly interesting Nazi treatments of death and of exactly what being a German means.

German City Maps from 1938

This is an experiment to see if anyone finds it useful. I have a street atlas of Germany from 1938, which I find interesting because it shows how streets and public squares were re-named all over Germany in honor Hitler and other Nazi potentates. I've added the maps for Berlin, Frankfurt, Hanover, and Nuremberg. If you have a city you'd particularly like to see a map of, let me know.

I've since added, by request, Munich to the list.

In the case of Nuremberg, for example, the illustration below shows that the main square was named for Hitler. I've also included a clip of the Nuremberg Party Rally grounds.

The Center of Nuremberg

The Party Rally Grounds

The Case of the Curious Translation of Mein Kampf

Ordinarily, I post items here that relate directly to the German Propaganda Archive. This is one of the occasional exceptions.

Two months back, I was reading the Wikipedia article on Mein Kampf. According to said article, the finest translation was that by one Michael Ford. That interested me. I know a lot about Mein Kampf, and I had never heard of it. I looked into it. Ford, as it turned out, had self-published the translation, then using the anonymity offered by Wikipedia, and in violation of its policies, had inserted the high praise. I removed those edits. When he discovered that a month or so later, he tried to re-insert his praise of his own book, but the violations of Wikipedia policies were so clear that others promptly reverted his edits as fast as he made them. He's given up on that, at least for the moment.

Then I want to amazon, where I found the book was selling well, in part due to a number of 5-star reviews that appeared suspiciously soon after the book’s publication last summer. He had also published a book that promoted his translation, claiming he had the only “correct” translation, one that remedied all sorts of previous errors. Mr. Ford is clearly a master of self-promotion. He is, by the way, a self-described entrepreneur whose other books include how to avoid being scammed on eBay and finding a job if you are a felon. Despite my requests, he has not provided any information on his background that would make one likely to trust his ability to translate Mein Kampf, which is a challenge even for experienced translators.

I posted a negative review, pointing out some typical howlers in translation that he had committed. If you are curious, look up my review on amazon. To date, Mr. Ford simply repeats that his version is the only “correct” one, and claims that it is the standard translation. For obvious reasons, he cannot provide the names of significant scholars in the field who agree with him.

In the meanwhile, Mr. Ford has won the support of a band of “historical revisionists” who are involved in web sites that try to appear as “objective” scholarly sites, though a quick read reveals their nature. I do not think Mr. Ford himself has such tendencies — but he is happy to accept the support of anyone who approves of his work, as best as I can tell.