The propaganda of the Nazi regime that governed Germany from 1933 to 1945 promoted Nazi ideology by demonizing the enemies of the Nazi Party, notably Jews and communists, but also capitalists and intellectuals. It promoted the values asserted by the Nazis, including Heldentod (heroic death), Führerprinzip (leader principle), Volksgemeinschaft (people's community), Blut und Boden (blood and soil) and pride in the Germanic Herrenvolk (master race). Propaganda was also used to maintain the cult of personality around Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and to promote campaigns for eugenics and the annexation of German-speaking areas. After the outbreak of World War II, Nazi propaganda vilified Germany's enemies, notably the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States, and in 1943 exhorted the population to total war.
Antisemitic propaganda was a common theme in Nazi propaganda. However, it was occasionally reduced for tactical reasons, such as for the 1936 Olympic Games. It was a recurring topic in Hitler's book Mein Kampf (1925–26), which was a key component of Nazi ideology.
Early in his membership in the Nazi Party, Hitler presented the Jews as behind all of Germany's moral and economic problems, as featuring in both communism and international capitalism.[1] He blamed "money-grubbing Jews" for all of Weimar Germany's economic problems.[2] He also drew upon the antisemitic elements of the stab-in-the-back legend to explain the defeat in World War I and to justify Nazi views as self-defense.[3] In one speech, when Hitler asked who was behind Germany's failed war efforts, the audience erupted with "The Jews".[1]
After the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923, he moderated his tone for the trial, centering his defense on his selfless devotion to the good of the Volk and the need for bold action to save them; though his references to the Jews were not eliminated (speaking, for instance, of "racial tuberculosis" in "German lungs"), they were decreased to win support.[4] Some Nazis feared their movement lost its antisemitic edge, and Hitler privately assured them that he regarded his previous views as mild.[5] Hitler in Mein Kampf describes Jews as "a dangerous bacillus".[6]
Afterwards, Hitler publicly muted his antisemitism; speeches would contain references to Jews, but ceased to be purely antisemitic fulminations, unless such language would appeal to the audience.[7] Some speeches contained no references to Jews at all, leading many to believe that his antisemitism had been an earlier stage.[8]
Still, the antisemitic planks remained in the Nazi Party platform.[9] Even before they ascended to power, Nazi essays and slogans would call for boycotts of Jews.[10] Jews were associated with money-lenders, usury and banks, and were portrayed as the enemy of small shopkeepers, small farmers and artisans.[11] Jews were blamed for the League of Nations, for pacifism, for Marxism, for international capitalism, for homosexuality, for prostitution, and for the cultural changes of the 1920s.[12]
In 1933, Hitler's speeches spoke of serving Germany and defending it from its foes: hostile countries, Communism, liberals, and culture decay, but not Jews.[13] Seizure of power after the Reichstag fire inaugurated April 1 as the day fo