"At least when I was in grade school, we learned the very basics of how the Third Reich came to power in the early 1930s. Paramilitary gangs terrorizing the opposition, the incompetence and opportunism of German conservatives, the Reichstag Fire. And we learned about the critical importance of propaganda, the deliberate misinforming of the public in order to sway opinions en masse and achieve popular support (or at least the appearance of it)."
"While Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels purged Jewish and leftist artists and writers, he built a massive media infrastructure that played, writes PBS, "probably the most important role in creating an atmosphere in Germany that made it possible for the Nazis to commit terrible atrocities against Jews, homosexuals, and other minorities." How did the minority party of Hitler and Goebbels take over and break the will of the German people so thoroughly?"
Paramilitary violence, opportunistic conservative politics, and crises such as the Reichstag Fire enabled the Nazi Party's ascent in early 1930s Germany. Systematic propaganda and media control under Joseph Goebbels marginalized Jewish and leftist cultural voices while manufacturing mass consent or the appearance of support. A massive state media infrastructure normalized dehumanizing narratives and facilitated persecution of Jews, homosexuals, and other minorities. Post-war scholars interrogated how a minority party eroded civic resistance and mobilized people to allow or participate in mass murder. Social-psychological research, including The Authoritarian Personality, examined individual predispositions that made people receptive to authoritarian appeals.
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