Lee Heidhues 8.17.2023
It’s 100 years since a struggling Nazi party in Weimar Germany discovered a powerful propaganda tool. Radio.
When Hitler came to power in January 1933 his propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels realized the power this new communication medium had to offer. During the Nazi’s 12 year reign of political terror, war and genocide the radio was an integral part of its destructive reign.
In the 21st century we have Donald Trump who is attempting to regain power with his non stop lies and distortions. Broadcast by his wholly owned propaganda machine ‘Truth Social’ and an often compliant mainstream media.
Self promotion and a compliant media are the same tools which aided Hitler’s rise to power and kept the public under his thrall until Nazi Germany collapsed in a pile of rubble in May 1945.
And Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 8.17.2023
When Adolf Hitler came to power in January 1933, radio then was similar to what the internet was in its early days: a powerful, new medium to disseminate information. A big difference: Radio was expensive. Having one could cost more than a month’s wage.
It ended the way it began: with propaganda and fake news. Hitler’s suicide, in his bunker in besieged Berlin, was kept from the public. Instead, his death was glamorously reported on May 1, 1945, as the result of fighting the Soviet invasion.
From early on, the Nazis recognized the propaganda value of radio. They would soon use it to influence Germany’s then 70 million people. Shortly after Hitler had become chancellor, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels compelled German manufacturers to sell cheap radio receivers.
The first model, the VE301, stood for Volksempfänger, and the date when Hitler became German chancellor: January 30th. The government set the price at 76 Reichsmarks, making it affordable for most households.
The discount paid off. At new the German Radio Exhibition in Berlin on August 18, 1933, 100,000 sets were sold. Until then, Germany was home to about four million households paying the public media license fee. By the middle of the war, that number quadrupled. The monthly fee of two Reichsmarks flowed to Goebbels’ propaganda ministry.
Propaganda, however, can only go so far. With Germany losing the war, Germans at home began to lose trust in their national radio. Many turned to foreign broadcasters, such as the BBC. Doing so was strictly prohibited, and those caught listening to “enemy stations” faced the penalty of death.
https://www.dw.com/en/nazi-radio-propaganda-turns-100/a-66551137
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