Building Confidence in German Victory (August 1943)

Today I’m adding the last in my current supply of issues of the Redner-Schnellinformation, irregular bulletins issued to Nazi speakers by the Reichspropagandaleitung.  Earlier in 1943, the Nazis had suffered defeats at Stalingrad and in North Africa.  The news in August 1943 had not gotten better.  Germans were understandably wondering how Germany could still win the war.

This issue tells speakers to be optimistic, to tell their audiences that Germany had every requirement for victory on its side.  However, it was remarkably vague about what that might mean.

On Cuts in the German Meat Ration (1943)

Of late I’ve been adding material intended for the guidance of Nazi speakers.  Today’s item is from May 1943, and explains the necessity for a cut in the meat ration.  This was a delicate matter to present to the public.  The Nazis used a variety of methods.  First, the issue was mentioned in newspaper articles.  Then the party’s speaker corps presented the case directly to audiences throughout Germany.

It is also interesting to consider the context.  Speaker directives both preceding and following this one dealt with a major anti-Semitic propaganda campaign that was going on in May 1943.

New Issues of the Wochenspruch der NSDAP

The GPA has a page on the Wochenspruch der NSDAP, a weekly poster with quotations intended to be inspiring.  They were posted in public places throughout Germany. According to Nazi sources, about 500,000 were issued each week. After about mid-1940, they were issued by the Reichspropagandaleitung, the Nazi Party’s propaganda office.  Before that, many were issued by the individual Gau propaganda offices, which makes tracking them rather difficult. The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in Leipzig, for example, has only scattered holdings of the early issues.

A collector often provides me with scans of ones I have not seen before.  Today, I am adding four new ones to the page.  The most interesting is this one:

It has a particularly nasty anti-Semitic text (translated on the page — look for the one dated December 12, 1938 from Gau Saarpfalz).

I have three issues of the Wochenspruch for sale should you be interested.

Nazi Speaker Advice on the Importance of Oil

Today I’m adding advice to Nazi speakers that quotes an article by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes on the threat of the Axis dominating world oil supplies, and thereby winning the war.  It was a standard Nazi propaganda tactic — realizing that the German public did not entirely believe Nazi propaganda, the propaganda system looked for other ways of persuading people that Germany’s chances for victory were good.  It’s interesting to compare this directive with the one issued a month earlier that I added a few days back ordering speakers not to suggest in any way that victory was near.  This one is consistent — it suggests victory will happen, but makes no promises of how soon.

Icke’s article was published in the 15 August 1942 issue of Collier’s. 

The Nazis had no easy way to get current American periodicals.  I assume this one was secured in a neutral country like Spain or Portugal, which explains why the issue is dated six weeks after Ickes’s article appeared  in the U.S.

Don't Build False Optimism (August 1942)

Today I’m adding another issue of the Redner-Schnellinformation issued by the Nazi Party’s Reichspropagandaleitung. It went to the party’s corps of speakers throughout the country. This one dates to August 1942, the last point at which from the Nazi perspective the war was going well. The summer offensive had gained a lot of territory, and the public was longing for an end to the war that year.  Speakers were ordered to avoid encouraging that thought in any way.  It was far better to announce victories once they had actually been won rather than to build false hopes that, when dashed, would damage morale.

Speech by Gauleiter Robert Wagner (29 March 1939)

I’ve been working on a project that has me wandering through German newspapers, and occasionally encounter speeches by Nazi Gauleiter, for which I have a small but growing page on the GPA.  Yesterday I came across a late-March 1939 speech by Robert Wagner, Gauleiter of Baden.  It was delivered just after Hitler had taken over Bohemia, Moravia, and the Memel District (although he had claimed the previous September that the Sudetenland was “my last territorial demand in Europe”).  It displays the height of Nazi confidence in Hitler — he seemed completely irresistible. Wagner basically tells his audience that Germany is going to do what it wants, despite the “lies” that the rest of the world may spread about a Germany that is only after its rights.

Bildbericht der Woche (1939)

The Bildbericht der Woche was a weekly film strip issued by the Nazi Party’s propaganda office, the Reichspropagandaleitung.  It was intended for use in the countryside or neighborhood meetings where people were less likely to attend a movie theater to see the weekly newsreel.  About 1575 copies were produced each week in 1941.

This is #12, issued in late March of 1939 just after Hitler had taken over the rest of Czechoslovakia and bullied Lithuania into returning the Memel district, which had been lost under the Treaty of Versailles.  The speaker presenting the show would have had a text to read explaining each picture, which I unfortunately do not have.  Should you be able to identify any of the pictures more precisely than I have been able to do, kindly let me know.