Question

Explain why Nazi propaganda was effective in creating a hatred for Jews. - GK Q&A

Answer 1

• Media and language was used with great effect and care by the Nazi regime.
• Their various practices were described using highly deceptive terms.
• In the official communication of Nazis, they never used words like ‘murder’ or ‘kill’.
• Disinfections, selection, euthanasia (for the disabled), final solution (for the jews), were the terms used to denote mass killings.
• ‘Disinfection-areas’ were the term used to describe the gas chambers, which had fake showerheads and looked like bathrooms.
• When people were deported to gas chambers, the term used by Nazi was ‘evacuation’.
• To popularise the worldview and win the support of the regime, the media was used carefully.
• Leaflets, slogans, posters, radio, films, visual images, were used to spread the Nazi ideas.
• Those groups who were identified as the enemies of Germans were described as evil, abused, mocked and stereotyped in posters.
• Liberals and socialists were represented as degenerate and weak.
• To create hatred for Jews, propaganda films were used, they were attacked as foreign agents who were malicious.
• Jews who were orthodox were marked and stereotyped, they were shown wearing kaftans and sporting beards, however in reality they were a highly assimilated community and it was difficult to differentiate German Jews through outward appearances.
• Movement of Jews were compared to that of rodents, they were referred to as pests, rats and vermins.