More Material from Gau Sachsen

Two days back I posted an item from Gau Sachsen.  I decided to add the rest of the material I gathered from a recent visit to the German National Library in Leipzig.

It consists of seven issues of a newsletter to propagandists and one issue of advice for propagandists holding evening discussion meetings with party members. The party members were expected to use the material in their conversations with friends and work mates.  A particularly interesting aspect to the material is its reliance on enemy newspapers and magazines.  By the end of the war Germans had decreasing confident in their own media, which steadily predicted final victory even as German forces steadily retreated.  Unused to material in their press that did not support the party line, such material was persuasive (and often taken out of context).

Nazi Caricatures on Stalin and the USSR

I’m adding pages of Nazi caricatures on the USSR and Joseph Stalin.  With the exception of the period between August 1939 and June 1941, the Soviet Union was always a target of Nazi propaganda. The Soviets, in fact, were much worse than the French, British, and Americans, as they were under the rule of an evil competing ideology.

1942: Soviet Offensives Fail

1944: Soviets as Monsters

The perspective changed over time. In the 1930’s, Nazism presented the Soviet Union as a land of mass butchery (for which there was more than adequate evidence).  Once the war began, the Soviets were a threat not only to their own citizenry, but to the entire world.

More Hitler Youth Training Material

I’ve added three more covers of Die Kameradschaft, the bimonthly for leaders of Hitler Youth Groups. These  are excellent examples of what Nazism wanted to inculcate in the youth. If you’re a grad student looking for a dissertation topic, there’s one in here, I think.

This 1936 issue is titled “Race is Fate,” and has a variety of material aimed at teaching kids Nazi racial theory.

And this one has to do with the evils of Bolshevism.

New Covers from Lustige Blätter

Lustige Blätter was a weekly magazine of humor and satire. I already have quite a bit of visual material from the magazine on the site, but am occasionally adding more. Today, I added two covers from 1941.