Nazi Views of American POWs

I have a page on Signal, the illustrated Nazi magazine that was issued in over twenty languages.  Every now and again I expand that page. Today I am adding an interesting article from August 1944, shortly after D-Day.

The cover  is captioned: “Europe’s liberators have arrived.” A French woman, rather well dressed under the circumstances, is fleeing the ruins of a town destroyed by the Allied invasion.

The article reports conversations with recently captured American and English soldiers.  The basic Nazi argument was that German soldiers were so superior both in ability and will as to be able to overcome the Allied superiority in mere numbers.  This article makes that point: Allied soldiers are stupid cannon fodder with no idea of what they are fighting for.

Training Nazi Propagandists

By 1939, the Nazi propaganda apparatus faced a challenge.  Experienced propagandists now had important jobs and new ones had to be trained.  The propaganda leadership was discussing how to do that.  There had to be practical training. As Goebbels said, one could no more produce propagandists by theoretical lectures than one could teach swimming on dry land.

In an article I’m adding today, the Gaupropagandaleiter of East Prussia outlines his methods. Forty new propagandists were sent out with ten experienced ones for 2-3 day stints in towns and villages, where they gained experience and guidance.

The article was published in the party’s monthly for propagandists.  Many other articles from Unser Wille und Weg are also available on the GPA.

1933 Anti-Semitic Poster

A friend of the site provided this poster from March 1933. It’s not clear if it was issued before or after  the 28 March 1933 call by the Nazi Party for a nation-wide boycott.

A translation is available.

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.