1. Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Key words:
Propaganda
How did the Nazis persuade the Germans that the Jews were “undesirable”?
To identify Jewish stereotypes from Nazi propaganda To analyse why propaganda was so effective

2. How might propaganda encourage people to accept murder:
A process…4 steps:
Make real people into a stereotype
Separate the stereotype from any positive ideas
Associate the stereotype with negative ideas
Increase the seriousness of the negative ideas
These are the 4 steps that make genocide possible. As you go through this PowerPoint you will see how the propaganda builds gradually on existing measures, evolving the seriousness of the threat presented by the Jewish presence in German society. Had Nazi propaganda gone straight for the jugular, as it were, it would have been resented as crude. This ‘subtle’ approach ensured the message was gradually assimilated.

3. Identify your enemy and create a stereotype1
The Jew’s Nose is bent at the tip, it looks like the figure 6”
Illustration from children’s book ‘The Poisonous Toadstool’
Identify your enemy and create a stereotype

4. A beer mat with the slogan:
“Whoever buys from a Jew is a traitor to his people”
Martin Gilbert
The Holocaust, 1987
Why is a stereotype important? 1) Because stereotypes don’t have feelings that you have to worry about 2) Because stereotypes are different from the real Jew that runs your local tailors, or lives down the road from you, so it’s easier to imagine they’ve done something wrong 3) Because stereotypes can be everywhere (even where real Jews were not), which makes the threat seem like it is everywhere
The person you hate is no longer the individual who lives next door or is your local tailor but a universal enemy – easier to hate than someone you know
Adult version – beer mats being ubiquitous in Germany of course!

5. Separate the stereotype from everything good (i.e everything German!)2
Separate the stereotype from everything good (i.e everything German!)
Separating the undesirable from the desirable is a key step to ensure that people begin to choose who to identify themselves with – you’re either with us or against us is the very clear message
Discuss the contrast between the two images with students
‘The Poisonous Toadstool’, a Nazi Publication for children, as many of these images are
Jewish stereotype – bullet point

6. Nazi Propaganda Table - #1
"Behind the enemy powers: the Jew." Circa 1942.
Notice the german eagle in the background – very clearly associating this lovely family with germany!
The second poster is from the war. The caption reads, "Behind the enemy powers: the Jew." Circa 1942.

7. Now associate the stereotype with bad things, for example….3
“The Jewish Octopus”
-taking over German businesses; a very bad idea for Germans suffering from a recession as they were when Hitler came to power!
Now associate the stereotype with bad things, for example….
Now, the next step is to re-associate this ‘other’ with unpleasant attributes…
Once again, starting simply. Building on the european, historic mistrust of the Jews as unscrupulous (but successful) businessmen taking over German businesses

8. Now make the negative ideas worse and worse4
…The Jews are a threat to children
Now make the negative ideas worse and worse
Final step is to gradually increase the unpleasantness of the negative attributes, to raise the level of threat
Image - Standard ‘don’t talk to strangers’ type propaganda, but with the obvious stereotypical jew. No real insight as to intent, it just doesn’t look good. Once again, starting with the basics!

9. …The Jews are a threat to young women
Inge's Visit to a Jewish Doctor : "Two criminal eyes flashed behind the glasses and the fat lips grinned."
Once step further – although the message of sexual impropriety is similar to that of the previous image, the girl is older, therefore of more child-bearing age, so the danger of corrupting the blood even greater. She is visiting a doctor so this crime wont even be witnessed! The immoral jew is now also underhand and sneaking around being closed doors to perpetrate his crimes. Message is clear – this is now an unseen threat and therefore all the more necessary for people to be on their guard

10. How Jews Torment Animals :
…. The Jews practice ritual slaughter
Not for religious reasons but for fun!
How Jews Torment Animals :
"The animal fell once more to the ground. Slowly it died. The Jews stood around and laughed."*
Jewish Kosher practices had always aroused suspicion, because it is a distinctly non-christian activity. However, in this cartoon the Jews are portrayed as carrying this out not for religious dietary rules, but almost for fun. Its not too unbelievable – there are no grotesque grins, but the familiar image plus the wording, begins to create the impression in the viewer that this is something sinister. Note the horrified little german boys peering through the window!
Bullet point:
Why do you think this might be effective?
How believable is it?

11. Its not much of a leap to the imagination… from the idea of Jews as capable of these terrible crimes, to the idea of that the Jew is really so bad “it” should be destroyed for the good of German society…

12. Nazi Propaganda Table - #2
Front cover of a children’s book called
“The Poisonous Toadstool”
Bullet point what this image is trying to tell us about Jews, who to and why?
Classic image – poisonous toadstool. Obvious connotations to discuss

13. “When the vermin are dead, the German oak will flourish again”
Jews as rats
“When the vermin are dead, the German oak will flourish again”
And what do we do with parasites? Flush them out, destroy them. Discuss the construction of this image, with the powerful SS man in the foreground etc. If students have done work on political cartoons can discuss the methodology used – symbolism, sizing, placement, caption etc
Deutschland and the branches of what Hitler offers – trade, industry, welfare, society, family etc
Image from
Little Man, What Now?
Dennis Schowalter
Archon Books 1982

14. You might think I am reading into these images, ideas that weren’t really there. That is always a risk for historians - we see what happened and try to find the roots of it…the cause. So we should look at the words of the person in charge of creating the propaganda to see what he really intended:

15. “We want…to work on people…until they realise…that what is happening in Germany not only must be accepted, but can be accepted”
Outcome of all this…
Joseph Goebbels

16. What do these sources suggest about how attitudes have changed between the end of World War I (sources 1 and 2) and 1933 (Source 3)?
SOURCE 1:
A poster published in 1920 which explains that over 12,000 German Jews were killed fighting for their country in WWI. The poster is addressed to ‘all German mothers’.
SOURCE 2:
Jews and Germans killed during WWI were buried side by side. This graveyard is in Germany.
SOURCE 3: An exercise from a German textbook, 1933
“The Jews are aliens in Germany. In 1933 there were 66,060,000 inhabitants of the German Reich, of whom 499,862 were Jews. What is the percentage of aliens in Germany?”

17. Nazi Propaganda Table - #3

18. Summarize in 4 sentences.
4 – 5 – 1
How did the Nazis persuade the Germans that the Jews were “undesirable”?
Summarize in 4 sentences.
Reduce to 5 key words.
Now to 1 key word.