Europe in the Year 2000:: And Other Essays, including “The Art of Propaganda”
Europe in the Year 2000
And Other Essays including
The Art of Propaganda
Joseph Goebbels
Europe in the Year 2000
And Other Essays including “The Art of Propaganda”
Joseph Goebbels
First published in German 1928–1945
Translated and annotated by Frances Dupont
Ostara Publications
http://ostarapublications.com
CONTENTS
Introduction to Joseph Goebbels
The Art of Propaganda: Speech to the Political Education Seminar of the NSDAP, Berlin, January 9, 1928.
The Racial Question and World Propaganda: Speech, Nuremberg Party Day Rally, 1933
The Battle in the Pharus Hall: Extract from the book Kampf um Berlin (1934).
Mimicry: Lead article from Das Reich magazine, July 20, 1941.
The Führer as a Speaker: Extract from Adolf Hitler. Bilder aus dem Leben des Führers (1936).
A Unique Age: Lead article in Das Reich magazine, 23 May 1940.
German Women: First speech as Minister of Propaganda, 1933
The Radio as the Eighth Great Power: Speech at the opening of a radio exhibition, August 18, 1933.
The Coming Europe: Speech to Czechoslovakian artists and journalists, Berlin, September 11, 1940
The Jews are Guilty!: Radio address, 16 November 1941.
The War and the Jews: Lead article in Das Reich magazine May 9, 1943.
The Creators of the World’s Misfortunes: Lead article in Das Reich magazine, 21 January 1945.
The Year 2000: Lead article in Das Reich magazine, February 25, 1945.
Resistance at Any Price: Lead article in Das Reich magazine, April 22, 1945.
Introduction to Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (October 29, 1897–May 1, 1945) was Reich Minister of Information (called “Propaganda” in those days) from 1933 to 1945.
Unable to participate in the Great War because of a deformed right leg, he devoted his early life to academic studies and earned a PhD from Heidelberg University in 1921 with a doctoral thesis on nineteenth-century literature of the Romantic school.
While working as a journalist, he came into contact with the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (NSDAP) in 1923 during the French occupation of the Ruhr, and joined the party the following year. His intelligence—reputedly the highest in the party, topping even Adolf Hitler himself—saw his rapid rise through the ranks and, in 1926, Hitler asked him to take on the difficult job of winning “red” Berlin for the party.
His struggle to win over the Communist Party-supporting masses in the German capital became legendary, and by 1928 his efforts had succeeded in growing the party from a handful of people into one of the city’s largest parties. This achievement was all the more remarkable because it was attained in the face of violent and murderous opposition from the Communists and the active partisan suppression of the party by the Jewish police chief of Berlin.
His prominence and unquestioned propaganda ability ensured that when the NSDAP came to power, he was appointed Propaganda Minister. In this position he created an information ministry and media output which helped build and sustain German loyalty to the Hitler government to the very end.
Goebbels committed suicide in 1945, just one day after Hitler.
The Art of Propaganda
Speech to the Political Education Seminar of the NSDAP, Berlin, January 9, 1928.
My dear fellow party members!
Our theme this evening is hotly disputed. I realize that my viewpoint is subjective. There is really little point to discussing propaganda. It is a matter of practice, not of theory. One cannot determine theoretically whether one form of propaganda is better than another. Rather, that propaganda is good that has the desired results, and that propaganda is bad that does not lead to the desired results. It does not matter how clever it is, for the task of propaganda is not to be clever, its task is to lead to success.
I therefore avoid theoretical discussions about propaganda, for there is no point to it. Propaganda shows that it is good if over a certain period it can win over and fire up people for an idea. If it fails to do so, it is bad propaganda. If propaganda wins the people it wanted to win, it was presumably good, and if not, it was presumably bad. No one can say that your propaganda is too crude or low or brutal, or that it is not decent enough, for those are not the relevant criteria. Its purpose is not to be decent, or gentle, or weak, or modest; it is to be successful. That is why I have intentionally chosen to discuss propaganda along with a second theme, knowledge. Otherwise, our discussion this evening would be of little value. We have not gathered to discuss lovely theories, but rather to find ways of practically working together to deal with our everyday challenges.
What is propaganda, and what role does it have in political life? That is the question of greatest interest to us. How should propaganda look, and what is its role in our movement? Is it an end in itself, or only a means to an end? We must discuss that, but we can do that only when we begin with the origin of propaganda itself, namely the idea, then move to the target of propaganda, namely people.
Ideas in themselves are timeless. They are not tied to individuals, much less to a people. They rest in a people, it is true, and affect their attitudes. Ideas, people say, are in the clouds. When someone comes along who can put in words what everyone feels in their hearts, each feels: “Yes! That is what I have always wanted and hoped for.” That is what happens the first time one hears one of Hitler’s major speeches. I have met people who had attended a Hitler meeting for the first time, and at the end they said: “This man put in words everything for which I have been searching for years. For the first time, someone gave form to what I want.” Others are lost in confusion, but suddenly someone stands up and puts it in words. Goethe’s words become reality: “Lost in silent misery, God gave someone to express my suffering.”
Some kind of idea is at the beginning of every political movement. It is not necessary to put this idea in a thick book, nor that it takes political form in a hundred long paragraphs. History proves that the greatest world movements have always developed when their leaders knew how to unify their followers under a short, clear theme. That is clear from the French Revolution, or Cromwell’s movement, or Buddhism, Islam, or Christianity. Christ’s goal was clear and simple: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He gathered his followers behind that straightforward statement. Because this teaching was simple, crisp, clear, and understandable, enabling the broad masses to stand behind it, it in the end conquered the world.
One then builds a whole system of thought on such a brief, crisply formulated idea. The idea does not remain limited to this single statement, rather it is applied to every aspect of daily life and becomes the guide for all human activity — politics, culture, the economy, every area of human behavior. It becomes a worldview. We see that in all great revolutionary movements, which begin with a clear, crisp, understandable, all-encompassing idea. They spread more and more and become a mirror of life that reflects all activities of the peoples, and indeed in a particular way.
Then one can say that a person has a worldview—not because he knows a lot or has read a lot—but because he sees all of life from a certain standpoint, and measures everything by a certain standard. I am a Christian when I believe that the meaning of my life is the heavy responsibility to love my neighbor as myself. Kant once said: “Act as if the principle of your life could be the principle for your entire n
ation.” I am a National Socialist not when I want this or that from politics, rather when I consider all aspects of daily life. I must act in all things by putting the good of the whole above my personal good, by putting the good of the state above my personal good. But then I also have the guarantee that such a state will be able to protect my personal life. I am a National Socialist when I see everything in politics, culture or the economy from this standpoint. I therefore do not evaluate the theater from the standpoint of whether it is elegant or amusing, rather I ask: Is it good for my people, is it useful for them, does it strengthen the community? If so, the community in turn can benefit, support and strengthen me. I do not see the economy as some sort of way of making money, rather I want an economy that will strengthen the people, make them healthy and powerful. Then too I can expect that this people will support and maintain me. If I see things in this way, I see the economy in National Socialist terms.
If I develop this crisp, clear idea into a system of thought that includes all human drives, wishes and actions, I have a worldview.
As an idea develops into a worldview, the goal is the state. The knowledge does not remain the property of a certain group, but fights for power. It is not just the fantasy of a few people among the people, rather it becomes the idea of the rulers, the circles that have power. The view does not only preach, but it is carried out in practice. Then the idea becomes the worldview of the state. The worldview has become a government organism when it seizes power and can influence life not only in theory, but in practical everyday life.
Now we must consider who is the carrier, the transmitter, the guardian of such ideas? An idea always lives in individuals. It seeks an individual to transmit its great intellectual force. It becomes alive in a brain, and seeks escape through the mouth. The idea is preached by individuals, individuals who will never be satisfied to have the knowledge remain theirs alone. You know that from experience. When one knows something one does not keep it hidden like a buried treasure, but rather one seeks to tell others. One looks for people who should know it. One feels that everyone else should know as well, for one feels alone when no one else knows. For example, if I see a beautiful painting in an art gallery, I have the need to tell others. I meet a good friend and say to him: “I have found a wonderful picture. I have to show it to you.” The same is true of ideas. If an idea lives in an individual, he has the urge to tell others. There is some mysterious force in us that drives us to tell others. The greater and simpler the idea is, the more it relates to daily life, the more one has the desire to tell everyone about it.
If I believe that the nation must be governed by the principle that the common good comes before the individual good, I will tell it to those to whom it applies. As soon as I realize that this principle is not only of a transcendental nature, but that it applies to daily life, I have the need to tell it to those in the economic world. And if I see it applies to culture as well, I have the need to tell it to those people involved in cultural activities. The great masses will never be won simply by such a sentence; it must cast its shadow over all areas of human life.
You see how an idea spreads and becomes a worldview, and how the bearer, the individual, reaches out to form a community, and how an organization, then a movement grows from the individual. The idea is no longer buried in the heart and mind of an individual. Now there are four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, eighty, a hundred, and ever more. That is the secret of ideas; they are like a wildfire that cannot be restrained. They are like a gas that seeps through everything. Where an idea finds entry, it enters, and soon that person is influencing others. The others cannot stop it. They may believe they can stop the fire by force. They may even be able to do so for two, or ten, twenty, or fifty years. But that is not significant in the larger course of world history. It is irrelevant if something happens today or tomorrow, or even years in the future.
It is possible to slow an idea by force for a certain period of time. In reality, however, that advances the idea, for force drives out that which is weak. The elements that do not really belong, collapse. Suddenly, the individual becomes a community, a movement, or if you prefer, a party.
Each movement begins as a party. That does not mean it has to follow the methods of parliamentary parties. We see a party as a part of the people. As an idea spreads, becoming a worldview that spreads to the community, the community will want to give the idea practical form. The party will feel the necessity to organize. Someone will suddenly have the idea: “You think the way I think. You are working over there, I am working here, and we know nothing of each other. That is absurd. It would be better if we worked together, if I did my part and you did yours. Would it not be good if we met every month and talked?” That is an organization. Gradually, a strong organism develops, a party ready to fight for its ideals. A party that does not want that will indeed continue to preach its ideals, but will never bring them into reality.
A recent example may help. Our movement is often accused of losing its character as a movement. We are accused of taking the vast, broad and ever-moving system of thought of the folkish movement and forcing it into a Procrustean bed. We supposedly had to chop of the legs of the movement that stuck out, eliminating important parts of the folkish idea. National Socialism is only a surrogate for the real movement, some say. In fact, the folkish movement ran aground on this matter. Each declares his own particular interest central to the folkish movement, and accuses anyone who does not share his views as being a traitor to the cause. That is the way the folkish movement was before the war. If someone had been able to take this great idea — and the folkish idea was greater than the Marxist idea — and develop out of it a tightly disciplined political organization, then the folkish idea, not the Marxist idea, would have won on 9 November. Marxism won because it had a better understanding of political conditions, because it had forged the sword it would later use to conquer the state. If a folkish organizer had understood how to form a great movement — it is a question of life or death for our nation — the folkish idea, not Marxism, would have won, It was a worldview, but it did not understand how to form a party and how to forge the sharp sword that would have enabled it to conquer the state.
The state needs a worldview. Christianity also conquered the state, and in the moment that it conquered the state it began to carry out practical political activity. You can with justice claim: “Yes, but at the moment Christianity took over the state, it began to cease being Christian.” That is the tragedy of all great ideas. At the moment they enter the realm of this life of sin, of the all-too-human, they leave the heavens and lose their romantic magic. They become something normal. We are not discussing whether or not one can change the nature of life. Things have gone on this way for millions of years, and will go on in the same way for millions more. You will have to ask a higher power why that is so. At the moment an idea takes practical form, it loses its angel’s wings, its romantic mystery. If someone had had the courage to strip the folkish idea of its romantic mystery, if one had taken account of the hard facts, it would not look as romantic today as it does to some dreamers. But it would have kept millions of German children from starving. For me, it is more important that a nation lives than that an idea remains as pure as possible in the heads of a few dreamers.
You can see that a movement needs an organization if it is to conquer the state — and it must conquer the state if it wants to do something of positive and historic significance. I have often met the kind of wandering apostle who says: “Well, everything you are doing is fine, but you really must also take a stand against foreign words in the German language.” And another comes along who says: “Well, everything you say is good, but you must have a point in your program that says allopathy[1] is dangerous, and you must support homeopathy.” If the movement were led by such apostles, the Jew would end up in charge. The Jew would find something new every day until nothing was left. It is not the task of a revolutionary fighting movement to settle the dispute between al
lopathy and homeopathy, rather its task is to take power. The movement must have a program such that every honest fighter can stand behind it. Now, it is certainly true that the modern German cultural establishment produces every manner of nonsense. I know that this nonsense is poisoning the German national soul. There are those who say: “Something has to happen. You have to do something. If you want to fight the movie industry, you must build your own theater, even if it at first has only the most primitive equipment. And if you see that the children are being poisoned by what they read in school, you must begin to win children’s souls and give them the antidote.” My reply is simple: You can spend ten years giving the antidote to the poison that is produced by a badly led cultural establishment, but a single decree from the Ministry of Culture can destroy all your work. If you had spent that ten years winning fighters for the movement, the movement would have conquered the Ministry of Culture! Everything else is mere piecework.
If a movement wins political power, it can do those positive things it wants to do. Only then does it have the power to protect its accomplishments. At the moment a movement or party wins control of the state, its worldview becomes the state and its party becomes the nation. The nation is not the 60 million people who live in it. That is a confused mixture. One says yea, the other nay. That is not a nation. A nation is characterized by consciousness. Instinct alone is not enough. Only when I am aware that I am a member of the nation, when I am consciously a German, do I belong to the German people. The Great Elector did not say: “Think and remember that you are a German.” Rather, he said: “Consider well that you are a German.” Consideration is at the level of consciousness. Such consciousness belongs to the entire nation. Adolf Hitler rightly answered the court in Munich in this way when he was asked: “How could you think of establishing a dictatorship over sixty million with such a tiny minority?” His reply: “If an entire nation has become cowardly, and there are only a thousand left who want something great, and who have to power to transform the state, then these thousand people are the nation.” If the others let a minority conquer the state, then they must also accept the fact that we will establish a dictatorship.