http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/propag.htm
Nazi Propaganda and Censorship
Once they succeeded in ending democracy and turning Germany into a
one-party dictatorship, the Nazis orchestrated a massive propaganda
campaign to win the loyalty and cooperation of Germans.
The Nazi Propaganda Ministry, directed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, took
control of all forms of communication in Germany: newspapers,
magazines, books, public meetings, and rallies, art, music, movies,
and radio.
Viewpoints in any way threatening to Nazi beliefs or to the regime
were censored or eliminated from all media.
During the spring of 1933, Nazi student organizations, professors, and
librarians made up long lists of books they thought should not be read
by Germans.
Then, on the night of May 10, 1933, Nazis raided libraries and
bookstores across Germany.
They marched by torchlight in nighttime parades, sang chants, and
threw books into huge bonfires.
On that night more than 25,000 books were burned.
Some were works of Jewish writers, including Albert Einstein and
Sigmund Freud.
Most of the books were by non-Jewish writers, including such famous
Americans as Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, and Sinclair Lewis, whose
ideas the Nazis viewed as different from their own and therefore not
to be read.
The Nazi censors also burned the books of Helen Keller, who had
overcome her deafness and blindness to become a respected writer; told
of the book burnings, she responded:
"Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas."
Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States protested the
book burnings, a clear violation of freedom of speech, in public
rallies in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis.
Schools also played an important role in spreading Nazi ideas.
While some books were removed from classrooms by censors, other
textbooks, newly written, were brought in to teach students blind
obedience to the party, love for Hitler, and antisemitism.
After-school meetings of the Hitler Youth and the League of German
Girls trained children to be faithful to the Nazi party.
In school and out, young people celebrated such occasions as Adolf
Hitler's birthday and the anniversary of his taking power.
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Harry
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