How did Propaganda Affect Economy during Nazi Regime

Propaganda was one of the most influential and essential tools used by the Nazis to alter the beliefs and attitudes of the German people. At its most basic, propaganda is biased or misleading information circulated via some form of mass media with the intent of promoting a political agenda or viewpoint. Propaganda is communicated through via  several outlets including television, radio, movies, newspapers, and posters. Propaganda use expanded greatly during the fascist rule in Germany. It impacted many people all around the world including Jews in Poland as well, not only in Germany. During the Nazi Regime, which lasted between 1933 and 1945, multiple government officials altered the way that the German citizens saw the economy of Germany. German government sources  achieved this alteration of the economic viewpoints by incriminating the Jewish people living in Germany for the downfall of the economy and exploited the German people's desperate need to end an economic collapse.

          The hate crimes toward Jews  began once several propaganda posters were published and put on display blaming the Jews for the crippling of the economy. Posters depicted the Jewish people as money hungry and greedy. They also depicted them as if they acquired their money illegally, when in reality, when World War I broke out, a majority of banks and large companies were controlled by Jewish people. Hitler then used these lies and wrong information against the Jewish community to infuse into the Germans minds.  The first necessity was to spread our ideas among as many people as possible. Propaganda should go well ahead of organization and gather together the human material for the latter to work up. I have never been in favour of hasty and pedantic methods of organization, because in most cases the result is merely a piece of dead mechanism and only rarely a living organization (Hitler, 1925, page 23). He incriminated the Jews by stating that they were the cause of Germany losing the war, as well as blamed them for the economic downfall of Germany.

Because of this misinformation put out against Jewish people, they were looked down upon by the German people. An example of a propaganda anti-Semitic poster is the image on the cover of Der Ewige Jude or The Eternal Jew. This image shows a man with a handful of gold coins, which suggests greed. To the left of the bad Jew there is a map of Russia, indicating that Jews are to blame for the greed in capitalism and communism as well. The whip placed in his hand implies that they are violent people . . Due to these lies put out against them, Jewish people lost many of their economic rights in Germany and well as in Poland such as the loss of allowances and exemptions for having children, and they were forced into the highest tax bracket regardless of what their income was ( Boissoneault, 2018).

           Propaganda isn't always used towards hate and discrimination. Sometimes it is needed to help strengthen a society and assist in realizing what is actually going on within their government and or economy. In the 1930's Germany was hit buy a major economic recession following the disastrous war. An example of this is the propaganda poster labeled as ARBEIT, FREIHEIT UND BROT or work, freedom, and bread. This infamous poster displays a Nazi man handing out tools to many German people, who are desperately trying to grab the tools. Following the extravagant losses to Germany after the war, millions of civilians were unemployed. The Nazis had promised the German people that they would do whatever they could to help Germany become successful, unlike the other people running against Hitler in the 1930's. This poster was published to gain support from the public to support the Nazi regime. The United States Holocaust Memorial museum states that The Nazi regime used propaganda effectively to mobilize the German population to support its wars of conquest until the very end of the regime.

Cite this page