Anti-Semitism in the German media

In 1935, as the world was descending into war, German television viewers were treated to uplifting gardening, cooking and fitness programmes, fly-on-the-wall documentaries, celebrity interviews and news reports to tempt comparison with current broadcasting on UK daytime television.

Beating the UK and US in the TV race, Germany's party-approved coverage, compiled in a tiny studio in Berlin, reflected everyday life under the Nazis, a droll mixture of hidden propaganda and couch-potato TV. Legions of people performed fitness routines in unison and so-called 'anthropological' experiments demonstrated Aryan superiority.

To the Nazis' annoyance, the viewing figures for the Reich's party congress in Nuremberg were decidedly low. It was the 1936 summer Olympic Games that achieved the breakthrough among the general public, including those who massed to watch at 20 new television parlours installed for the big event.

The aim was for all Germans to have their own Volks-TV to witness the wonders of the National Socialist world, but with the outbreak of war, money was redirected to arms manufacture. TV turned to practical tips and feel-good shows to prevent demoralisation among the troops. However, in 1944, as bombing raids became more frequent, the national radio and television organisation ceased operation.

Media message

For all its (then) state-of-the-art broadcasting, the everyday tone of German television was a far cry from the orchestrated perfection of the weekly newsreels and other films that gave the Nazis another powerful medium to put across their message.

The doyen of Nazi film propaganda was director Leni Riefenstahl, although she later argued that her work was purely artistic. Commissioned by the Nazis to film the party's Nuremberg rally in 1934, the resulting Triumph of the Will (1935) is widely accepted as a masterpiece, the first film to portray the Nazi utopia. Riefenstahl's skilful cinematography and rousing music became powerful weapons for the Reich – with the glamorous presentation of the party, explanation of its policies became unnecessary.

In her defence, Riefenstahl claimed that she had been naïve about the Nazis when she made the film and had no knowledge of Hitler's genocidal policies. She also pointed out that Triumph contains 'not one single anti-Semitic word'. However, it does contain a veiled comment by Nazi demagogue Julius Streicher: 'A people that does not protect its racial purity will perish.'

Telling tales

'Give me a child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.' No one took this saying, attributed to the Jesuits, more to heart than the Nazis. They knew that portraying Jews as sub-human, as evil, as devils to 'Aryan' children was the best way to indoctrinate the public in the long term.

German children's storybooks, at school and at home, were filled with anti-Semitic references. Among them were picture books published by Der Stürmer, owned by Julius Streicher.

In Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud bei seinem Eid! – Don't Trust a Fox in a Green Meadow or the Word of a Jew! – two powerful images are juxtaposed in the same way that Leni Riefenstahl used romantic images of German youth in her films. A fox schemes to trap its prey while a Jew swears a deceitful oath under the Star of David. By linking the two, the author makes an association with Jews and the distrust of foxes that is common in German folklore. One section reads: 'Like a fox, he slips about. So you must look out.'

Another story, Der Giftpilz – The Poisonous Mushroom – begins:

Just as it is often hard to  tell a toadstool from an edible mushroom, so too it is often  very hard to recognise the Jew as a swindler and criminal ...

In it, the Jewish religious book, the Talmud, is rewritten to show that the Jews are learning how to enslave the Germans:

In the Talmud it is written: 'Only the Jew is human. Gentile peoples are not called humans, but animals.' Since we Jews see Gentiles as animals, we call them only Goy.

Some of the rhymes found in these books are hardly subtle, but were undoubtedly effective on children. One example from Der Giftpilz begins:

A devil goes through the land,
It's the Jew, well known to us
As a murderer of peoples,
A race defiler, a child's horror.

It ends with the lines:

Stay away from every Jew,
And happiness will come to you.

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