How Joseph Goebbels and the Ministry of Propaganda spread propaganda and supressed information (1933)
Hitler appointed Joseph Goebbles as head of the Ministry of Propaganda due to his vast understanding of manipulated communication.
Joseph Goebbels, Bundersarchiv Bild
"We Germans won a gold medal, the Americans three, of which two were Negroes. That is a disgrace. White people should be ashamed of themselves."
~ Joseph Goebbels (Writing about the Berlin Olympics)
Joseph Goebbels, Opernplatz, Berlin, United States Holocaust Museum
The former secretary of Joseph Goebbels, Brunhilde Pomsel, described her experience working with Goebbels.
"The only thing you can say about Goebbels is that he was an outstanding actor... No other actor could have been any better at performing the transformation from a civilised, serious person into that ranting and raving rowdy than himself. To experience him directly at a distance of 10-15 meters, someone whom you saw almost everyday who came into the office all smart and elegant, with a kind of noble elegance, and then to see him there raging like a midget. Well you couldn't imagine a greater contrast."
~ Brunhilde Pomsel
"Goebbels wielded enormous influence. Film, radio, theater, and the press largely fell under Goebbels’s jurisdiction...Goebbels also continued as head of the party’s propaganda apparatus that reached down to the local Nazi organizations"
"Within months of Hitler becoming chancellor, the Nazi regime destroyed the country’s free press. It shut down hundreds of opposition newspapers, forcibly transferred Jewish-owned publishing houses to 'Aryans,' and secretly took over established periodicals. Daily directives from the Propaganda Ministry’s Press Division dictated what could or what could not be published under punishment of reprimand, loss of position, or imprisonment. Oversight of radio, film, newsreels, theater, and music fell directly to the Propaganda Ministry, which used a combination of these media to sell Nazi ideology"(United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).
The autocratic nature of the Nazi government gave Hitler the ability to destroy the free press and make all information go through the ministry to be approved. This controlled German citizens’ exposure to free media and removed all opposition to himself and the Nazi Party.
The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Bittner Bilderdienst