Nazi Propaganda

This card game was produced in 1935 and features 60 cards showing idealised images of Hitler and other high ranking Nazi officials. Each card is labelled with a number as letter (1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 1B, 2B, 3B etc.). After the cards had been shuffled and dealt, the aim of the game was to assemble each of these quartets.

Courtesy of The Wiener Holocaust Library.

This card game was produced in 1935 and features 60 cards showing idealised images of Hitler and other high ranking Nazi officials. Each card is labelled with a number as letter (1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 1B, 2B, 3B etc.). After the cards had been shuffled and dealt, the aim of the game was to assemble each of these quartets.

Courtesy of The Wiener Holocaust Library.

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Propaganda is information (often misleading, one-sided or false) that is used to promote a political cause or point of view. The Nazis used propaganda to encourage popular support for National Socialism and its ideas. They did this through a variety of different media, including radio, print (newspapers, magazines, posters, literature), popular culture (music, theatre), and film.

This educational resource uses contemporary source material to understand the use and implementation of propaganda by the Nazi regime, looking at case studies on: the ‘Hitler Myth’, Hitler’s ideals, antisemitism, the targeting of German youth, use of manipulation and the indoctrination of culture.

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Nazi Propaganda Worksheet/Lesson Resource

As well as using more traditional methods of propaganda, such as posters and pamphlets, the Nazis also utilized everyday objects such as stamps to spread their message. This is stamp, showing a German Wehrmacht soldier with the caption ‘Victory will be ours!’ was likely produced during the Second World War to encourage support for the war.

A mathematics exercise from a Nazi school textbook discriminating against disabled people. The exercise is titled ‘what is the cost of care for the hereditary sick?’. The exercise aimed to show schoolchildren in Nazi Germany that disabled people were a financial burden on the state.

To manipulate the public’s attitude towards Hitler, Goebbels engineered a propaganda campaign that would not only make Hitler appear heroic, but also kind-hearted, family-orientated and friendly. As part of this campaign, Hitler was often pictured playing or talking with children and mothers. This illustrated photobook, with a number of Adolf Hitler portraits, was compiled in 1935 and edited by Heinrich Hoffman, Reich reporter of the NSDAP, with a forward by Baldur von Schirach, youth leader of the Third Reich.

Manipulation was used in relation to the voting habits of German citizens. This is a ballot paper from the Reichstag elections of 1936.

This leaflet was posted into the homes of citizens ahead of the 1936 Reichstag election in Frankfurt. The leaflet asks people to raise the Nazi flag, and it states that those who do not betray both Hitler and Germany.

This book Der Pudelmopsdackelpinscher was published in 1940 by Ernst Hiemer. Hiemer was the author of several other antisemitic children’s books from Nazi Germany, including the infamous Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom). This book aimed to encourage racism by comparing Jews to other supposedly ‘inferior’ races.

This is the introduction to Der Pudelmopsdackelpinscher, published in 1940 by Ernst Hiemer. Hiemer was the author of several other antisemitic children’s books from Nazi Germany, including the infamous Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom). This book aimed to encourage racism by comparing Jews to other supposedly ‘inferior’ races.

The cover of the Der Giftpilz, an example of the Nazis’ anti-Jewish, antisemitic propaganda, written by Ernst Hiemer and published by Julius Streicher, a leading Nazi and the founder and publisher of the virulently antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer. Meaning 'The Poisonous Mushroom', this book is aimed at Aryan German children and alludes to how, just as it is difficult to tell a poisonous mushroom from an edible mushroom, it is difficult to tell a Jew apart from a Gentile.

This poster was used to advertise The Eternal Jew; the title of the 1937 exhibition of ‘degenerate’ art. The exhibition ran from the 8 November 1937 to the 31 January 1938, attracting over 400,000 visitors.

A Nazi Party poster which reads 'The Struggle for Germany'. Posters like this were key in creating the Hitler myth, portraying Hitler as a strong and patriotic leader who would save Germany.

This magazine page warns readers of the dangers of ‘racial pollution’. The text asks the reader to compare the two photographs, stating ‘The German future generation, like this or like this?' Next to this text someone has scribbled a phrase meaning 'shoot them' with two exclamation marks next to it.

Rallies, like the one pictured here, were an important way of spreading Nazi propaganda. This particular photograph was taken at a rally in Nuremburg in 1934.

A drawing by Gerda Nabe, a young German girl, in her school textbook. The drawing represents the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jews of their German citizenship -making them stateless in their own country- and banned them from marrying ‘Aryans’.