Another 1941 Speech by Gauleiter Eigruber

I had a little time this afternoon so I translated another speech by Gauleiter August Eigruber, this one on the invasion of the Soviet Union. It was given two days after Hitler ordered the attack.  Like most German propaganda at the time, Eigruber saw the invasion as a brief interruption in the war against England.

I’d be interested in following Eigruber’s rhetoric as the war went on, but this is the last speech in the book of his speeches that I am working from.  As the Austrian ANNO project continues to add digitized newspapers as the 70-year copyright limit is reached I may be able to find more speeches.

A 1941 Speech by Gauleiter Eigruber

I am gradually adding material by the various Nazi Gauleiter, that party’s regional bosses.  This material is not particularly easy to find.  I recently got a copy of a book of speeches by Gauleiter Eigruber of the Linz area (Oberdonau), and will likely add several of his speeches.

Today I add a speech from January 1941 to the propagandists in his area.  We tend to think of Nazi propaganda as well organized and developed, but about 10% of the citizens of his district had never ridden on a train, and many still had no electricity.  They depended on battery-powered radios to listen to Nazi broadcasts.  Propaganda required face-to-face contact and rather primitive tools.  Gauleiter Eigruber, for example, recommends the one-two punch to knock people telling political jokes to the ground.

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.

Update on a Blacklisted Book

After some further investigation, this is what seems to have happened.  The Chinese publisher of my book Bending Spines sent out some copies to a major Chinese mail order company.  After those had been shipped, they got a call from a government official instructing them not to ship any more.  Apparently, they were not ordered to recall the copies already released.  Perhaps as many as a thousand copies are thus “in the wild” in China.  It is anyone’s guess if and when the government may change its mind and allow further distribution.

Bytwerk Book Banned in China

My book Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic has been translated into French and Chinese.  The Chinese edition appeared in July, and Chinese contacts tell me that was banned shortly afterward by the Chinese government.

I’m trying to get more details, which I will post here as I learn them.  Apparently the book’s discussion of totalitarianism and propaganda did not meet the approval of the Chinese authorities.

UPDATE:  The book remains available in Hong Kong.

Two Advertising Flyers for “Der Stürmer”

A friend of the site provided these two promotional flyers for Julius Streicher’s Der Stürmer a while back, which it took me a while to get around to adding.

They look to be from the mid-1930’s, and I am sure were part of a larger set.  If you happen to have others in the series, I’d appreciate images.

Nazi Press Directives on the Invasion of the Soviet Union

For another purpose I’ve been looking through the Zeitschriften-Dienst again.  It was a weekly newsletter for magazine editors with instructions on how to cover the news.  I thought it would be interesting to trace instructions on the Soviet Union, beginning at the high point of Nazi optimism, October 1941, and ending in mid-January 1942.  It's interesting to see how the system responded when victory did not occur as rapidly as expected.