Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic

Chapter 3: HIERARCHIES

3 Hierarchies MMMM On 30 March 1945 Joseph Goebbels was complaining to Adolf Hitler about ineffective propaganda produced by Otto Dietrich and Robert Ley.1 Goebbels never quite succeeded in persuading Hitler to grant him the full authority he craved. Unlike the GDR’s propaganda, which had clear lines of authority, Nazi propaganda displayed organizational confusion. Party and state were intertwined in bewildering ways, with half a dozen or more leading Nazis struggling for influence. I begin with a survey of their respective and overlapping jurisdictions, then turn to the clearer structure of GDR propaganda. Symphonies and Discords Control over the Third Reich’s propaganda was divided between party and state. Some matters were the responsibility of the party, some of the state; some were shared. This did not mean that there were two approaches to propaganda. The Nazis used state structures but made plain who had the power. The “leadership principle” in practice meant that those who could get power had power as long as Adolf Hitler did not intervene. To understand 57 the Nazi system, one must know who actually had what power when, not in theory. The major players in Hitler’s propaganda system were Joseph Goebbels, Otto Dietrich, Robert Ley, Alfred Rosenberg, Joachim Ribbentrop, Philip Bouhler, and Max Amann. All save Ribbentrop were party Reichsleiter, of whom there were sixteen in 1933. Each theoretically had direct access to Hitler.2 Consistent with Hitler’s practice of assigning several people to the same area, their respective areas of authority were shifting and overlapping . The boundaries between party and state were equally unclear. The results are suggested by Table 1. Hitler could and did intervene in any area, and other leading Nazis sometimes claimed authority as well. In most significant areas of propaganda , at least two leading Nazis had say. Sometimes that say came by virtue of simultaneous party and state positions. The results of organizational uncertainty were at times almost comical. Goebbels and Dietrich each issued daily directives to the German press. Their directives did not always agree. One day in 1940, each gave a speech that he instructed the press to carry as the lead story, putting editors in an unpleasant predicament.3 Hitler once locked them together in a railway car with instructions not to leave until they had made peace. They left with an agreement that neither took seriously.4 The Propaganda and Foreign Ministries each maintained a club for foreign correspondents in Berlin. A Swedish journalist noted that the food and service were better at the Foreign Ministry’s club. He also observed that being in the bad graces of one ministry often put one in the good graces of the other, useful for a foreign correspondent who was doing his or her duty.5 While Goebbels and Ribbentrop were fighting for control of international propaganda, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and Rosenberg won control of propaganda in the East.6 There are good summaries of the intricacies of the Nazi propaganda system , the best being Jay Baird’s and Robert Herzstein’s.7 I am interested here in the general structure of the system, not in the full details of the infighting and rearrangements over time. What Michael Balfour writes about the disputes between Goebbels and Dietrich is true of the system as a whole as well: “[T]he relative positions of Goebbels and Dietrich were continually changing, so that no statement can be made about them which is valid for the period as a whole.”8 Nazism viewed the world in Darwinian terms, but its internal politics were only semi-Darwinian. Extinction was difficult (Hitler was usually loyal to his intimates), but fading into relative 58 Chapter Three impotence was a constant threat. However, as we shall see, the infighting did not have a great impact on the nature of the propaganda that actually was produced. I shall begin with Joseph Goebbels, the central figure who made propaganda almost from the day he joined the party in 1924. Hitler sent him to Berlin in November 1926, where he developed an effective propaganda system that greatly increased both the visibility and membership of the Hierarchies 59 TABLE 1. Nazi Propagandists Area State Control Party Control Newspapers Goebbels Goebbels Dietrich Dietrich Ribbentrop Amann Magazines Goebbels Goebbels Ley Amann Films Goebbels Goebbels Books Goebbels Bouhler Rosenberg Amann Public Meetings and Goebbels Goebbels Ceremonies Rosenberg Ley Foreign Propaganda Goebbels Goebbels Ribbentrop Rosenberg Theater...