Adolf Hitler - His Manipulation of Propaganda and the Media

By Eva Kratochvil

When Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany, one of the first things he did to secure his power was to seize control of the media and make use of propaganda to spread his anti-semitic, racist, anti-communist and nationalist messages. Hitler saw how powerful a tool the media was and he used it to his every advantage in winning support from his people.

Adolf Hitler took the use of propaganda and media censorship so seriously that he hired Joseph Goebbels as his propaganda minister. Under the Nazi regime, Goebbels' task was to ensure that the German people were never exposed to material that was defamatory to Hitler and the Nazis, he was also in charge of making sure that Hitler's message was relayed to the German people in the most convincing and efficient way possible.

Goebbels worked with the SS and the Gestapo, Hitler's secret police, to hunt down and arrest anyone who would put out anything damaging to Hitler's regime. Under Goebbels the Nazis even went so far as to set up the Reich Chamber of Commerce in 1933. This organization's role was to regulate art, literature, music, film, radio and newspapers. Anyone who wanted to produce materials from these categories had to be granted membership first and the Nazis didn't just admit anyone. They were very selective of who would be given the rights to produce any type of media and they had to conform with Nazi views.

Hitler used propaganda in a variety of ways to rally the German people to him. He produced films in which the greatness of the Nazi state were displayed and others which sent out very explicit anti-semitic messages. One example of this is “The Eternal Jew”, in which the jewish people are depicted as an infestation of rats. This is a scene from the movie. It's message is very disturbing and shows the extend of Hitler's anti-semitism:

Hitler also targeted children through movies depicting the proper behaviour of a loyal Nazi. Hitler's aim in this was to train the next generation of Nazis to continue his work when he stepped down.

Another way in which Hitler and Goebbels used propaganda to their advantage was through posters depicting the Allied powers as monsters, jewish people as a plague on society and communists as hellish creatures. There were even posters glorifying the Nazi regime and displaying how Hitler turned Germany into a prosperous country. Goebbels even staged Nazi rallies and televised them to convince the German people of Hitler's popularity.

The Nazi regime censored all media in a variety of ways. The first was through the sale of the Volksempfänger, also known as the people's receiver, which was an inexpensive radio set that anyone could afford. It was the only radio available in Germany and its reception was so weak that it could not receive any signals from outside the country. Hitler used this to his advantage because it ensured that the German people were not getting any outside information and because he seized control of the media, he could have his messages broadcast all the time. He even had speakers set up in the streets so that whenever he gave a speech, it was always heard. He would also force all public places to play his speeches. Here is an example of Goebbels used Hitler's speeches were used:

Another way by which he censored the media was through a technique called “jamming”. This meant that he would purposely block the radio signals from other countries so that they would not be accessible to the people in Germany. He also forced outside reporters who were doing stories in German-occupied territories to submit their scripts to his officers so that they could see whether they were acceptable. If they found defamatory material in the scripts, they did not allow the reporter to go on air. 

The Allied Powers – Their Portrayal of Hitler in the Media and Their Use of Propaganda

By Eva Kratochvil

Coverage of Hitler and his regime was incredibly sparse prior to 1933. Before Hitler became chancellor, very little coverage was devoted to him. When he was finally elected to the position and his party gained a majority in the Reichstag, media coverage of Hitler increased greatly. It was not overly critical of him at first and US media did not devote a great many resources to his coverage, however the media in Europe highlighted the anxiety felt in those countries that bad things were to come. They feared that Hitler was up to no good.

The US media rarely criticized Hitler at first and when they did, it was never front page news. However he was constantly violating constitutional rights in Germany and murdering large numbers of people and the Europeans sensed that he posed a great threat to them. The sense that he posed a real threat was greatly reflected in European media coverage at the time.

The lack of domestic interest in the US on what was going on in Germany can be to blame for the lack of thorough coverage and investigative journalism on the Nazis. Because of this lack of interest, there were no real efforts made to deploy resources for coverage until Hitlers aims were made public.

After Hitler's election, the New York Times reported that what was going on in Germany was becoming increasingly important to America. This shows a trend in which US media coverage of Hitler and the Nazis increased because he had won a majority in the Reichstag where previously his party had only been a minority. The interesting thing is that the US media actually underestimated Hitler, while the European media remained weary and watchful of him.

Once Britain and France declared war on Germany, not only was the British media criticizing Hitler and the Nazis, but a slew of propaganda was used to promote the war effort and demonize the Nazis in the form of posters, news reels, films and much more. This is a Soviet newsreel showing how Hitler plans to take over the mother land:

The US media remained slightly uncritical of Hitler until they were forced to join the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbour. After they joined the war, the US used the media to criticize Hitler and they used propaganda to portray him as the “terrible Hun” coming to invade the western powers. They also called on a sense of patriotism through propaganda in order to encourage men to enlist and women to help the war effort at home.

Like propaganda in Europe, US propaganda came in the form of movies, posters, radio broadcasts and even children's cartoons such as the Looney Toons. One episode show Daffy Duck, fighting on the American side, as he hits a very exaggerated cartoon Hitler over the head with a hammer. In this way, it can be seen how the US even wanted to encourage children to hate and ridicule Hitler and the Nazis.

When Hitler died, his death was announced through German media and BBC radio was the first of the Allied media to broadcast the news to the rest of the world. When he died, Many US newspapers were reporting that congress was not entirely convinced that he was actually dead. Since Hitler's death the media has covered the alleged conspiracy surrounding his death. In some cases it was believed that he had never killed himself at all. The media still covers his mysterious death today trying to figure out what really happened to the infamous dictator.

 

World War II Propaganda



Moammar Gadhafi's use of the Media

By Stephanie La Leggia

For the last 42 years, Libya has been under the ruling of Colonel Moammar Gadhafi. Alongside his control over education, laws and military, Gadhafi attempted to influence and control the media. When the uprising against Gadhafi began in February, he put a media ban on reporters, keeping them away from the rebels and the chaotic reality of his country.             Gadhafi put much reliance on the media, trying to persuade people that he does not encourage violence and that his country is not in complete disarray.

Unfortunately for Gadhafi, trying to control foreign reporters and the country’s media backfired on him. When he invited reporters to Tripoli, he chose the drivers to show them around the city, exposing them solely to this superficial, cleansed spectacle. This plan did not work. By collaborating such a scheme, Gadhafi depicted himself as a desperate, vulnerable dictator ruling a chaotic and unorganized country. By allowing foreign journalists to report on Libya’s situation, reporters were able to see how much control the rebels has outside of Tripoli.

In March 2011, Gadhafi finally agreed to an extensive interview with BBC’s Jeremy Bowen. He attempted to persuade the public that “[his] people love [him]” and that “they would die to protect [him].” He never admitted to being aggressive and violent with the protestors. Gadhafi did not realize the changes that technology has brought forth. He can no longer dictate Libya the way he sees fit without other countries criticizing his methods of ruling. It is debatable whether he is lying or in denial.

Although Gadhafi adopted the role of a loving and non-violent dictator on BBC, he conveyed a different message to his people. He tried to inflict fear upon his people, using Libyan’s state television station, Jamahiriya, to threaten anti-Gadhafi Lybian with violence. Unfortunately for him, he was not successful for very long. The Arab League demanded the Arab Satellite Communications Organization (Arabsat) to block any channels that were devoted to Gadhafi. Two months later, in July 2011, NATO bombed three of the station’s satellite transmitters of a station used by the dictator.

           

In August 2011, rebel forces took control of Tripoli and Libya’s state television network. A spokesman for rebel alliance said, “"The revolutionaries stormed the television building … after killing the soldiers surrounding it. It is now under their control." Furthermore, they claimed they had capture Libyan state television anchor, Hala Misrati, a female journalist and Gadhafi loyalist. The Sunday before the invasion, Misrati creating a spectacle on television, waving a gun in the air and vowing to defend Gadhafi till death. She threatened the rebels and said: “You won't take the channel, Tripoli or all of Libya. I will protect my colleagues at the channel … We are willing to become martyrs." When Iman al-Obeidi’s story of being repeatedly raped by Gadhafi forces received media attention in May 2011, Misrati defended Gadhafi and called the Libyan woman a liar.

There are however, Libyan journalists who opposed Gadhafi's regime. Some have been killed, others detained, for reporting and exposing the violent crisis in the country. 

When the rebel forces scared Gadhafi out of Tripoli, he went into hiding and used a privately owned, Syrian-based television station in order to spread his propaganda. Al Oruba TV broadcasted two audio messages. The first targeted his loyalists in Al Oruba, asking them to fight for him and Libya until death. Gadhafi used his second message to inflict fear upon the rebels, demanding his loyalists to “cleanse Tripoli of the rats.”

With today’s technology, Gadhafi could not have had complete control over the media. This was clearly seen in the media coverage of Gadhafi’s death. In the final moments of his life, Gadhafi’s weakness and the true hatred of his people were exposed. Although some media stations did filter the images, the violent videos can be found anywhere because of the Internet and cell phone cameras. Many media outlets received complaints from viewers who believed that the media went too far in exposing such brutality. What makes this moment so historically interesting is the fact that every television network used videos taken from cell phones rather than footage from professional cameramen. Networks such as ABC and BBC defended their usage of the raw footage, believing that such video coverage is essential to good news.

Interview with Herbert Kruse

Sarah Volstad sits down with Herbert Kruse, who was a resident of Germany during WW2. Kruse discusses the media's control over the people during that time.

Hitler, Gadhafi and Propaganda

By Sarah Volstad

Hitler and Gadhafi differ on many levels.   They lived in different times, and in two very dissimilar socio-cultural milieus.  Still, many resemblances exist between both men, the most important being that they were powerful dictators who used the media for propaganda.
Hitler’s strongest tool for success was propaganda.  In fact, it is often said that propaganda was the Nazis’ most dangerous weapon during the Second World War. 
By the time Hitler’s Nazis turned Germany into a single-party dictatorship, they were well on their way to orchestrating an incredible propaganda campaign.  Under the direction of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Ministry took control of all forms of German communication to ensure that any ideology in any way opposing Nazi beliefs and the regime would be censored or eliminated.  To do this, Goebbels used many sophisticated and effective tools.  Books, often by Jewish authors, were burned in massive bonfires.  Reporters were strictly censored by German authorities. The Volksempfanger, or the “people’s receiver”, was the only radio available to the German people.  Newsreels were manipulated.  Loud speakers were installed in the streets. Even private communication was censored.  All grounds were covered to ensure complete control over the information people received.  Goebbels set out to prove that if lies were repeated frequently enough in mass media, people would begin to accept them as the truth.  Hitler himself took this one step further by writing in Mein Kampf:
“The chief function of propaganda is to convince the masses, whose slowness of understanding needs to be given time so they may absorb information; and only constant repetition will finally succeed in imprinting an idea on their mind."


Hitler was fully aware of what he was doing.  He was brainwashing his people, constantly feeding them ideas and information that would further him and his cause.  With little technology available in the 1930s and 1940s and strict Nazi censorship, the German people had no means of consuming objective, outside information.  They had little choice but to bite the bait.


While Gadhafi may have hoped to achieve success similar to Hitler’s, it would have been very difficult to do given the technology available to the Libyan people in 2011.  With computers, digital cameras, cell phones and the Internet, censoring all the information going in and out of a country is nearly impossible.  It would have been very difficult for Gadhafi to “brainwash” to the extent that Hitler did because Libyans were able to communicate and connect freely with the rest of the world.  With the click of a mouse, an email could be sent to friends and family around the globe describing the sorry state of politics in the country.  Due to technology, the world could see what was really going on in Libya.  This led to the creation of a coalition of NATO Allies and non-NATO contributors intervening to protect civilians under threat of attack in Libya. 


Gadhafi’s use of propaganda is evident.  In fact, Libya's state TV station was used to broadcast pro-Gadhafi propaganda since the unrest began in February.  Take this video for example:

Gadhafi made good use of Libyan state TV to promote himself.  His loss of the station in August is thought to have contributed to his demise.


Hitler was an intelligent man.  He knew that not all of his people agreed with the regime and Nazi ideology.  This is one of the reasons he felt it necessary to use such strong, widespread propaganda and censorship.  He needed to get people thinking like him and keep them in line. 


Gadhafi, on the other hand, seems to have been disillusioned about the way people felt about him.  In the famous interview with the BBC (posted above), Gadhafi’s message was that his people loved him.  “[My people] are supporting us.  They are not against us,” he is heard saying.  “They love me.  All my people with me.  They love me all.  They will die to protect me, my people.”  Perhaps he truly believed this.   Or perhaps he was using Goebbels’s method whereby he believed that repeating this phrase enough times could actually sway public opinion. If this was the case,it didn't work the way he hoped it would as he was ultimately captured, beaten and shot by his own people.

Media’s Coverage of the Deaths of Hitler and Gadhafi

by Stefano Mocella

It is not difficult to see the colossal differences between the media’s role in covering the deaths of Adolf Hitler and Moammar Gadahfi. With the deaths being 66 years apart, the first thing you would point to is the differences in technology between the two events. 

When Hitler died, initial reports were given by German radio. On May 1, the Reichssender Hamburg, a part of Deutchlandsender, announced that Hitler had commited suicide. Being that the news came out of Germany, there were a lot of doubts that it was true. Dwight Eisenhower said he had his doubts. News escaped outside of Germany due to newspapers and radio. However with the limits in technology and a lack of evidence to support it, nothing ever became 100 per cent clear. Even today, there are tons of theories and doubts as to how Hitler died. 

With Gadhafi’s death, it’s an entirely different story. This included actual video footage of Gadhafi’s body being devastated by the rebels who had killed him. News outlets showing the footage did not confirm the body being beaten, to be that of Gadhafi. They were cautious in reporting. BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera. Here is the BBC reporting on Gadhafi’s death, showing the images. The outlets described the images as gruesome, but in the same token, news outlets were reporting how the downfall of Gadhafi was a good sign for Libya. 

The video shown featuring Gadhafi’s death is obviously very graphic and there have been complaints about the footage being too graphic to be shown on TV. However this week, media regulator Ofcom ruled that the footage is not too graphic to be shown on TV. The BBC received hundreds of complaints, as did Al Jazeera, ITV News, and Sky News. The complaints were centred on the fact that the images were gruesome and were unverified pictures of Gadhafi. It makes you wonder how things would have been done had this sort of footage or information in general been available in Hitler’s case.

When discussing technology, we also must look at how people found out about Hitler’s and Gadhafi’s deaths. With Hitler, it was obviously through print and radio. In Gadhafi’s case, TV would be added to that list, but a good majority of people found out online, whether it was linking to a news site and seeing it, or finding out through social media, i.e Facebook, Twitter, etc…  The world knew within minutes that Gadhafi was killed, but with Hitler, we still aren’t sure about how he died, and even weeks after his death, there were doubts. It also took much longer for the news to reach the public because the fast technology that we have available to us today was not available in Hitler's time. It just shows how far broadcast journalism has taken the world in its coverage. 

Ultimately, the difference is that Hitler’s death affected all those involved in World War II. Gadhafi’s death mostly affected Libya and certain countries around Libya. The media in 1945 sometimes had trouble reporting without being biased, because an evil man had died and their countries were better off for it, so it’d be hard to stay objective. With Gadhafi, it’s a little easier to look at it from an outside perspective. The coverage will continue for Gadhafi and more things will happen in the Libya situation. With Hitler, you wonder if any more breakthroughs will be made, but due to the difference in technology, Gadhafi’s death will stand out in history as the death of a dictator which caught more information and visuals than any other in history. 

Turning Points with Hitler 

by Matthew Sousa

No one wanted war but when Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, other European countries felt they had to act. The result was six long years of World War II and it became a definitive and turning point in broadcast history.

In World War II most Americans received their information about the war from newspaper reports and radio broadcasts. They were allowed to form their image of war in their own minds. They were not confronted with the actual vivid imagery of battle and carnage of the conflict. For the most part the war was portrayed by the media in a positive and heroic manner in the print. This helped to create consensus of the American public in support of the war.

When Hitler took power in Germany he also took over the media, and he used it to shape a modern, civilized country to his ends. With full control of the national press his propaganda minister Paul Josef Goebbels developed sophisticated and very effective tools of propaganda to control public opinion in Germany, and even in other countries. Propaganda may be the most dangerous weapon developed in the Second World War.

He proved that if you repeat a lie often enough in mass media, most people will accept it as the truth.

Hitler's regime and death were turning points in broadcast because this man essentially started a world war that would come to be known as the living room war. This is a time when broadcast journalism, in the form of radio broadcasts, really came into its own, with figures such as Edward Murrow and Richard Dimbleby producing some of their best work during this time. This is when broadcast journalism truly began to be way more than just a bland way of getting news and could envision what was going on through the crafted words of radio journalists. Hitler and his second world war changed the face of radio journalism as we know it. 

Turning Points with Gadhafi 

by Matthew Sousa

Gadhafi’s death is a turning point because it took the world only hours to find out he had been killed compared to Hitler where it took seven days. 

His death created a huge media frenzy across the globe and technology allowed people to witness his death first hand. It was a clear demonstration of how cell phones became weapons of choice.  Cell phone videos add to a stream of information and make it harder to hide the truth.

When Gadhafi was killed by rebel forces in his hometown of Sirte, details of the hours and minutes that led up to his death began to surface.

Gadhafi's grisly final moments were captured on a grainy cell phone video that showed the former Libyan leader surrounded by a frenzied mob of rebels. Men are seen grabbing at him, propping him up, and pummelling him while he can be seen dazed, attempting speech and bleeding profusely.
Cell phones were used to capture footage of Gadhafi's last moments being dragged around by angry rebels, which quickly circulated around the world making this a turning point in broadcast journalism.  With advancing technology, citizen journalism is becoming increasingly important as simple bystanders can scoop a story that the press isn't there to witness.  In the hours following Gadhafi's death, major news networks like the BBC broadcast these graphic, grusome videos. In turn, this led many to question just how far the media will go for a story.  Did they go too far?  Were these images too gory to be broadcast on the 6 o'clock news?  Many thought so.

Modern technology has made it quick and efficient to spread news unlike the days of World War II. 

In a video that surfaced Gadhafi is heard repeatedly saying the phrase "Haram Aleiko," which is an Arabic expression that literally translated means "This is a sin for you." The phrase is generally used as a plea to convey the vulnerability of the victim.
His regime and death were turning points not only because modern technology made it faster and easier to access information, but we can see an insurgence of citizen reporting, which explains the grainy cell phone video cataloguing Gadhafi's death. They are reminiscent of a new kind of journalism.
The fatal shot that killed Gadhafi was reportedly fired by a young man donning a baseball cap with a Yankees logo. Afterwards he was photographed brandishing Gadhafi's vanquished golden gun. 

As news of the taking of Sirte and the death of Gadhafi spread across the globe, varying facts were reported by a number of sources. Reports indicated that he had been taken alive and was wounded in both legs, while others said that he was killed.

U.S. officials used reliable sources on the ground from many different sources to confirm the facts. The same facial recognition technology used to identify Osama bin Laden was used to confirm that the death photos in fact were of Gadhafi , the self-styled "King of Kings." 


 

Gadhafi’s Last Moments Caught on Video

An extremely graphic video that appears to show the capture of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, wounded but alive surfaced after he was killed. This technology was never been made available to the public during the days of Hitler’s dictatorship.

This picture indicates Gadhafi was still alive when he was captured hiding in a storm drain outside his hometown of Sirte where he had blood streaming down the side of his face. Rebels have reported that Gadhafi died of his wounds, but this video should raise questions about his actual cause of death.

 

Fun Fact: Gadhafi's Media Frenzy

Wherever Gadhafi went the media followed. In 2009, Gaddafi gave a speech at the UN General Assembly.  His speech was supposed to last for 15 minutes but it went on for one hour and a half.  During his speech, he accused the Security Council of being a terrorist organization comparable to al-Qaeda.  Then he demanded $7.7 trillion in compensation be paid to Africa from its past colonial rulers. After his absurd gestures and demands, his audience wasn’t very impressed.