The Serpent of
Germany
A single word is power; a sentence
is a trap; a speech is propaganda. Humans, by nature, are creatures ruled more
so by emotion than logic. They are
easily swayed by passions making their invention of speech their own
damnation. Blunt force easily fuels
hate, while sweetly, venomous words arouse blind seduction, thus making rhetoric
the ideal tool in the eternal power struggle of the world. Skill in the art of rhetoric was what allowed
Goebbels to rise to the limelight he desired (Goebbels: The Man Who Created
Hitler pg 15). With it, he came to
grasp Germany in his palm, and to dominate her people. Goebbels was not a superman-like character; instead,
he was a man that was once nicknamed "Little Joe": ugly and club
footed (Goebbels: The Man Who Created Hitler pg 15). However, his physical appearance did not
falter his run at power. He used his
words to maintain a greater power with intelligence than ever achievable by
blunt force. At the dawn of World War
II, Goebbels recognized the fact that Germany was a nation that had fallen from
grace after its previous humiliating defeat from World War I. It is at this point that Goebbels began his
assent to power, grasping his nation's shame as golden opportunity. He offered his nation a renewed sense of
confidence, uplifting her fallen ego with words dripping with honey. Joseph Goebbels sold a cycle of German
superiority to the people, appealing to honor and moral duty in Nazi
propaganda, exploiting the people's humiliation from Germany's defeat in World
War I.
Goebbels plays off the people's shame
from World War I to bind them to national patriotism, enforcing German
superiority. He conjures imagery with
the title of his speech: "Children with their Hands Chopped Off," to emphasize
German resilience. Germany has matured: no
longer an innocent child but a wise and strong nation. Goebbels immediately hits his audience hard
with shame from its previous defeat in World War I. He declares that "the results were
catastrophic. Germany was robbed of its
honor and its land," that "[Germany] [was] disarmed and robbed of [its]
merchant fleet and navy, and [its] colonies" ("Children with their
Hands Chopped Off" par 11). His
retrospection of Germany's previous humiliating defeat pains and tugs at his
audience's pathos as a painted image of Germany's fall from glory. This blow of humiliation sets the audience up
to willing accept any words of comfort to pacify its shame, making it now
easily influenced. Goebbels then offers
solace to his newly complacent and ashamed audience declaring that Germany's
defeat "did have one good result": the loss of blind trust and innocence
("Children with their Hands Chopped Off" par 12). Now Germany is no longer an innocent fool:
[Germany] has learned much from the past. Above all,
it has learned never to trust a treacherous foe. This lesson is deep in our
bones ("Morale as a Decisive Factor in War" par 14).
This excuse, of
an evident loss of trust, is used by Goebbels as the reason Germany has been
able to realize its true potential and strength. The hindrance of the "foe" has been
realized and the hard lesson of trust learned, thus "[Germany] is not as defenseless
today as [it] once [was]. Today [it has]
the most powerful army in the world" ("Children with their Hands
Chopped Off" par 17). Goebbels's
juxtaposition of "defenseless" in comparison to "powerful"
aids to further arouse national pride. In being beaten and shamed, Germany has realized
its true potential and strength, finally maturing while the rest of the world
has suffered lassitude and festered from basking in their arrogant glory of
earlier victory.
Goebbels's radiance of confidence in
his words erases doubt and offers reassurance to the people, compelling them to
believe and remain faithful to Nazi propaganda.
He ardently states "someone once said that he did not know which
people could be beaten to death, but he did know the German people had to be
beaten to life" (Resistance at Any Price" par 6). This juxtaposition offers a glorification of
the German people that rings with his audience: Germany only gains strength
from enemy assault, never faltering. These
words infuse his audience with passion for his propaganda. It feeds the people the will to rise from the
ashes of Germany's defeat in World War I and offers condolence for the necessity
of the previous failure for the rise of the greater now. He thus incorporates past failure as part of
the long road to a destined glory. Goebbels
also forces an idealization upon the German people preaching "whatever may
come, we will stand upright through all the storms, working and fighting" ("The
Higher Law" par 9). Here, hasty
generalization asserts the fact the whole of the German nation is firm in faith
of the Reich's cause. This centralization
of confidence calls for mass conformity of the German citizens whose conformed
faith feeds the propaganda in a relentless cycle. Knowing this key strategy, Goebbels constantly
feeds the flames of the undying German spirit: "Never will we surrender
our right to live in freedom and dignity as we ourselves wish" ("The
Higher Law" par 9). He then offers
another juxtaposition between the wants of the singular to his faith in the
nation. This juxtaposition states that
want of the singular to surrender now and be relieved of his current state of suffering;
yet, the singular will never surrender due to his faith that "final
victory will be ours. It will come
through tears and blood, but it will justify all the sacrifices we have
made" ("Resistance at Any Price" par 12). His chosen diction: tears and blood, ties
closely to the moral ideal of sacrifice of the singular for the all. Goebbels's words have turned his audience
into gluttons, fattened from the fantasy
of high morality and ideals. His strong appeal
to inborn moral obligation: the ethos of his audience, grasps his people in a hypnosis
of moral propaganda.
Furthermore, to emphasize the innate
honor of Germany, Goebbels paints a picture of shining morality, enforcing the
idea the Germany is above the brutality of the "uneducated" allies allowing
the people to gain a sense personal superiority. His speeches highly moral ideals that are
stated as a innate feature of the German propaganda. His words feature ideals like: "Peace
through victory! That is our slogan."
and "The truth is always stronger than the lie" ("Christmas
1941" par 15) ("The Racial Question and World Propaganda" par 27). These ideas are set in moral code applying to
any culture and his clear statement of these ideas in German propaganda
reassures the people's ethos and draws them in.
When one is told that the cause he is fighting for is definitely and
unarguably for a moral and good cause, a bond is forged within the soul that is
hard to break. Goebbels also brings to
emphasis of the honor of German warfare declaring how "[he] saw German
soldiers giving bread and sausages to hungry French women and children, and
gasoline to refugees to enable them to return home as soon as possible" ("The
Jews are Guilty" par 10). The
pleasantness of this honorable picture appeals to the pathos of the people
drawing them further in towards the German cause. However, using strategic climatic phrasing, Goebbels
does not increase to mention more pleasant German deeds. Instead he turns his words to the affects of
the high morality of the deeds of these German Soldiers. He follows with the idea that the enemy
victims, after receiving German aid and care that allows them to return to
safety, goes home only " to spread at least some of their hatred against
the Reich" ("The Jews are Guilty" par 10). This scenario of how "thanks" is
offered to the German soldier from
offers of aid stimulates outrage in the morality of German citizens. This blatant "betrayal" of good
intentions easily allowed Goebbels to draw increasing numbers of "moral"
people to Nazi Propaganda.
Goebbels, also, uses the allies
destruction of German cultural monuments to create a mutual sense of anger and
superiority among the German people. Goebbels
makes a clear statement regarding the reasons behind the avid destruction of
German monuments by enemy forces:
German or Italian cultural centers that were built
over centuries were reduced to soot and ashes in brief hours...this is evidence
of an historical inferiority complex that wants to destroy what the enemy is
incapable of producing himself ("Immortal German Culture" par 4).
He evokes
resentment and demonization of the allies due to their spiteful, jealous
destruction. Goebbels draws the inference
that in seeking to destroy German arts the enemy seeks to destroy the German
spirit, for "not only the buildings of our cities and cathedrals and
cultural monuments of Europe are falling into ruins, but also a whole
world" ("The World Crisis" par 8). The pathos of his audience is affected from
this statement as innate honor forces them to stand even taller against the
assault. Catharsis, from the unnecessary and tragic loss of irreplaceable
national treasures, also rallies the people in a rage that feeds Nazi
propaganda's fire. However, pride is generated
alongside rage by Goebbels's careful mention of destruction from envy. This pride is fed to the German people by the
hasty generalization that German art is superior to the point of purposeful destruction
by savage enemies, who destroy what they, themselves, cannot create:
Is it not interesting that the English leadership
has destroyed dozens of German theaters, while England itself does not have
even a single serious theater? And the Americans are not even worth mentioning ("Immortal
German Culture" par 5).
Goebbels's sarcastic
insult to the meagerness of artistic achievements of Germany's assaulters
rouses national pride. He draws a clear juxtaposition
between "[Germany's] eternal artistic accomplishments stand against
skyscrapers, cars, and refrigerators"; it is a comparison of aged,
aesthetic beauty verses cold, gray metal ("Immortal German Culture"
par 4). This juxtaposition of
unparalleled German art and its targeted destruction, caused by jealous spite,
allows Goebbels to play his people's ego and maintain a lasting grip on his
nation.
In all his speeches, Goebbels's
words ring that constant faith in German propaganda will insure all of Germany
an inevitably bright future. This clear
demand of faith in Germany is demonstrated in Goebbels's speech "The Year
2000" In this speech, Goebbels
takes a clearly retrospective view of the world, talking of it from the point
of view of the future. Though his predictions
could easily be called a bluff, Goebbels is careful to state "no one can
predict the distant future" ("The Year 2000" par 2). Instead, The careful phrasing of Goebbels's
words allows him to keep himself from being viewed as idealistic, instead,
factual as he states "there are some facts and possibilities that are
clear over the coming fifty years" ("The Year 2000" par 2). Goebbels's optimistic prediction creates the
future of the year 2000 to be an utopia for the German nation, drawing the
people's pathos in towards an idealized peace.
Goebbels use the idea of an utopia to bind the people's faith, stating
that "[they]...like Atlas carry the weight of the world on [their] shoulders
and [should] not doubt" ("The Year 2000" par 10). His statement appeals to the people's pathos
and logos, as he offers them a personal and societal award, for their actions
and faith in his propaganda will help to create an ideal utopia for
Germany. To further simple necessity of
faith to his audience, Goebbels makes a return to confidence:
Without wavering we know that a nation of brave men
and sacrificing women, with an obedient and devoted youth, a nation that is
risking its very existence in fighting for freedom, will gain it ("Morale
as a Decisive Factor in War" par 14).
Here, Goebbels
offers the idea faith will earn the people's ideal utopia; he becomes a
propaganda salesman. This blatant appeal
to pathos: the guarantee of a definite personal benefit, plays on the human
nature of greed and acts as a binding glue connecting him to his audience.
Through the whole course of World
War II, Josef Goebbels was able to hold the German population under a hypnosis
of faith and manipulation. Like the
biblical serpent of Adam and Eve, he captured Germany in a psychotic frenzy and
fed it with visions of superiority and honor.
Goebbels raised Germany's ego from its pit of shame, caused by defeat in
World War I, offering "redemption".
He was the serpent of Germany: a short, ugly man whose beauty in
language manipulated a nation to march under his hand. To hold well strung words at the tip of one's
tongue offers more power ever attainable by brute force. Words can reach out and consume one's soul with
unknown- silent- manipulation. The true
power holder is not one that harbors "high" morals of the god-like
Clark Kent but one who can manipulate submission to an unaware audience.
Works Cited
Goebbels, Joseph. "Children with
their Hands Chopped Off." Das Reich,
24 June 1939.
Goebbels, Joseph. "Christmas,
1941." Germany. 24 December 1941.
Goebbels, Joseph. "The Higher
Law." Das Reich, 24 September
1944.
Goebbels, Joseph. "Immortal German
Culture." 7th German Art Exhibition. Germany. 26 June 1943.
Goebbels, Joseph. "The Jews are Guilty."
Das Reich, 26 November 1941.
Goebbels, Joseph. "Morale as a Decisive Factor
in War." Das Reich, 7 August
1943.
Goebbels, Joseph. "The Racial Question and
World Propaganda." Nuremberg Rally. Germany.1933.
Goebbels, Joseph. "Resistance at
Any Price." Das Reich, 22 April
1945
Goebbels, Joseph. "The World
Crisis." Das Reich, 17 December
1944.
Goebbels, Joseph. "The Year
2000." Das Reich, 25 February
1945.
Reimann Victor. Goebbels: The man who created
Hitler. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company INC, 1976.
Works Consulted
Goebbels, Joseph. "Churchill's
Trick." Das Reich, 1 March 1942.
Goebbels, Joseph. "German Women."
Women's Exhibition. Berlin. 18 March 1933.
Goebbels, Joseph. "Youth and the
War." Germany. 29 September
1940.
Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum. 6 January, 2011.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007429
Knopp, Guido. Hitler's Henchmen. Phoenix
Mill, Thrupp-Shroud-Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000.
Trueman, Chis. History Learning Site. 21
April 2012.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/treaty_of_versailles.htm
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