Joseph Goebbels established a propaganda system that was more organised and far-reaching than had been seen in German politics before. Speeches were not only regular, 30 per speaker in an 8 month period, but delivered by a large number of people. Not only were there lots of speakers, but they had also all received training on how to deliver an effective political speech. Goebbels could have people on street corners, at meetings, on the radio all agitating on behalf on the party. They were incentivised too, which led to more speakers and higher quality. Combined with other forms of propaganda, it was incredibly powerful and effective.
Prussian Interior Ministry Report by Heinrich Waentig on Nazi Methods in Berlin (1930)
Hardly a day passes on which there are not several meetings even in narrowly restricted local areas. Carefully organised propaganda headquarters in the individual Gaue ensure that the speaker and subject are adapted to the local and economic circumstances. The Reichstag and Landtag deputies of the Party and many other Party speakers travel about every day to undertake and build up this agitation. Through systematic training courses, through correspondence courses and recently through a school for NSDAP speakers established on 1 July 1929, such agitators are trained for this task over a period of months, even years. If they prove themselves, they receive official recognition from the Party and are put under contract to give at least thirty speeches over a period of eight months and receive as an incentive a fee of 20 Reichsmarks or more per evening in addition to their expenses. Rhetorical skill combined with subjects carefully chosen to suit the particular audience, which in the countryside and in the small towns is mainly interested in economic matters, ensure, according to our observations, halls which are almost invariably overcrowded with enthusiastic listeners. Meetings with an audience of between 1000 and 5000 people are a daily occurrence in the bigger towns. Frequently a second or several parallel meetings have to be held because the halls provided cannot hold the numbers who attend [ . . . ]. On such occasions the network of local branches is extended as far as possible or at all events contact men are recruited who are intended to prepare the ground through intensive propaganda by word of mouth for the spread of the movement which can be observed everywhere. Frequently such propaganda squads stay in a certain place for several days and try to win the local population for the movement through the most varied sorts of entertainment such as concerts, sports days, tattoos in suitable places and even church parades. In other places an outside propaganda speaker is stationed for a certain time; with a car at his disposal, he travels systematically through the surrounding district. National Socialist theatre groups travelling from place to place serve the same purpose.
Related Links
Source Material for Classroom Use – see all of our Source Banks here – Germany 1919-39 Source Material
Sources: The Weimar Republic 1918–29 – Sources: Hitler’s rise to power, 1919–33 – Sources: Nazi control and dictatorship, 1933–39 – Sources: Life in Nazi Germany, 1933–39
[products tag=”germany 1919-39″]
Weimar and Nazi Germany – Rise of the Nazi Party – Appeasement: Source Material – Source Analysis Lesson: Nazi Methods of Control – Revision Guide, Weimar and Nazi Germany