TRIAL OF THE MAJOR WAR CRIMINALS BEFORE
THE INTERNATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL NUREMBERG
14 NOVEMBER 1945 – 1 OCTOBER 1946
PUBLISHED AT NUREMBERG, GERMANY
This volume is published in accordance with the direction of the International Military Tribunal by the Secretariat of the Tribunal, under the jurisdiction of the Allied Control Authority for Germany.
VOLUME II: OFFICIAL TEXT
IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
PROCEEDINGS
14 November 1945 – 30 November 1945
FOURTH DAY: Friday, 23 November 1945
MAJOR WALLIS: This document book and the accompanying brief is entitled “Propaganda Censorship and Supervision of Cultural Activities.”
During this period one of the strongest weapons of the conspirators was propaganda. From the outset they appreciated the urgency of the task of inculcating the German masses with the National Socialist principles and ideology. The early utterances of Hitler and his fellow conspirators evidenced full recognition of the fact that their power could endure only if it rested on general acceptance of their political and social views.
Immediately following their accession to power, the Nazi conspirators instituted a determined program for wholesale organization of the masses by seizing control of all vehicles of public expression. The wide-spread use of propaganda by the powerful machine thus created became a key device in establishing control over all phases of the German economy, public and private. They conceived that the proper function of propaganda was to prepare the ground psychologically for political action and military aggression and to guarantee popular support of a system which was based on a permanent and steadily intensified application of terror and aggression both in the sphere of domestic politics and foreign relations.
To attain these objectives, propaganda was used to create specific thought patterns designed to make the people amenable to the aims and program of the Nazis and to foster their active participation therein to the greatest’ extent possible. The nature of this propaganda is within the judicial purview of the Court. As Goebbels put it, it was aimed at “the conquest of the masses.” Its intended effect was the elimination of all serious resistance in the masses.
To achieve this result, as will be shown later in the evidence, the Nazi conspirators were utterly unscrupulous in their choice of means, a total disregard of veracity that presented their case purely from the standpoint of political expediency and their conception of national self-interest. Inasmuch as propaganda was the means to an end, “the conquest of the masses,” it required different strategy at different times, depending on the objectives issued and pursued by the Nazi conspirators at any given moment.
According to Hitler: “the first task of propaganda is the gaining of people for the future organization.”
The recruiting of people for enlistment in the Party and supervised organizations was the primary objective in the years preceding and immediately following the seizure of power. After the rise to power, this task was broadened to include the enlistment of the people as a whole for the active support of the regime and its policies. As the Reich Propaganda Leader of the Party and Reich Minister for Propaganda, Goebbels stated:
“Propaganda, the strongest weapon in the conquest of the State, remains the strongest weapon in the consolidation and building up of the State.”
The methods which they used to control this strongest weapon in the power of the state are set forth in a chart which I would like to call to the Court’s attention at this time, and would like to introduce in evidence as USA Exhibit Number 21.
As you will note from the chart, there were three separate levels of control within the German Reich. The first level was the Party controls, which are represented on the chart by the top block. And you will see that the Party through its Examining Commission controlled the books .and magazines, and issued books and magazines setting forth the ideology of the Party.
The second block, the Press Leader Division, supervised all publishers, headed Party newspapers and book publishers. The third block, Press Chief,-this office controlled the Press Political Office, the Press Personnel Office, and supervised Party treatment of the press and treatment of Party affairs in the press.
The center block, the Office of Propaganda Leader, had under its control not only the press, but exhibits and fairs, speaker’s bureaus, films, radio, culture, and other means of expression and dissemination of the ideology of the Party and its purposes.
The next block, Ideology, was devoted exclusively to the ideology of the Party headed by, the Defendant Rosenberg. It supplied all the training materials, prepared the curricula for the schools, and the indoctrination of the people into the ideology of the Party. On that same level is Youth Education, presided over by the Defendant Schirach, who had under his control the Hitler Jugend; and then there were the University Students and Teachers Division of the Party controls.
On the next level you have the controls that were exercised by the State, and reading from left to right you have the Propaganda Coordination, Foreign Coordination and Cooperation, the radio, which was under the control of the Defendant Fritzsche, film, literature, the German press, periodicals, theater, arts, other cultural things, and the Ministry for Education.
Then, in the last tier, what is known as the corporate controls.
These were under a semi-official control of both the Party and the State. These are the so-called cultural chambers. Their purpose was to have full control over the personnel engaged in the various arts and cultures, and engaged in the preparation and dissemination of news. First was the press-all reporters and writers belonged to that section. The next section is the arts, music, theater, film, literature, radio,-then going over into the Educational Branch the organization which the University teachers, the students and former corps members of the universities had to belong to.
By means of this vast network of propaganda machinery, the Nazi conspirators had full control over the expression and dissemination of all thought, cultural activities, and dissemination of news within the Reich. Nothing was or could be published in Germany that did not have the approval, express or implied, of the Party and State. The Defendant Schacht in his personal notes explains the effect of the killing of a piece of news in a totalitarian dictatorship. As he states it, it has never become publicly known that there have been thousands of martyrs in the Hitler regime.
They have all disappeared in the cells or graves of the concentration camps, without ever having been heard of again; and he goes on to say, “what is the use of martyrdom in the fight against terror if it has no chance of becoming known and thus serving as an example for others.”
EDITORIAL COMMENTARY OPINION:
The above transcripts even though being from a historical proceeding are a dated example from the proven past, as have been several other articles, outlines to the distinct path of controlling the population of a nation in the effort to deceive, manipulate and totally control what information you see, hear and are exposed to, so as to maintain absolute control.
The procedure no matter as to what name you assign the ideology, as the same end goal. Totalitarianism. By means of coercing, dividing and blinding the population and even bulling or threating of physical force.
Media and education play a large role in the propaganda scheme, non-reporting or misinformation of the facts, slanting or ignoring the truth, to favor one political party over another.
Teaching ideology in schools other than the basic skills of a civilized society, this is a form of propaganda. Building an impression in the youth of a nation, will determine how they will perform in that society.
As a Nazi once said ‘tell a big enough lie, often enough, and people will believe it for the truth’, or something close to that.
Thank you for taking the time to read this…..29th day of August in the year 2023
The Commentary Gazette® 