Jazz was banned from German broadcasting as soon as the Nazis came to power in 1933. Yet throughout World War II, American jazz and swing were core components of the Third Reich's propaganda. Jazz classics such as W.C. Handy's famous St. Louis Blues, their lyrics neatly tampered with, came over the airwaves, alongside the famous Germany Calling programmes directed at Britain and allied forces around the world.

The sheer magnitude of the Holocaust has commanded our attention for the past sixty years. The extent of atrocities, however, has overshadowed the calculus Nazis used to justify their deeds. According to German wartime media, it was German citizens who were targeted for extinction by a vast international conspiracy. Leading the assault was an insidious, belligerent Jewish clique, so crafty and powerful that it managed to manipulate the actions of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Hitler portrayed the Holocaust as a defensive act, a necessary move to destroy the Jews before they destroyed Germany. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, and Otto Dietrich’s Press Office translated this fanatical vision into a coherent cautionary narrative, which the Nazi propaganda machine disseminated into the recesses of everyday life. Calling on impressive archival research, Jeffrey Herf recreates the wall posters that Germans saw while waiting for the streetcar, the radio speeches they heard at home or on the street, the headlines that blared from newsstands. The Jewish Enemy is the first extensive study of how anti-Semitism pervaded and shaped Nazi propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust, and how it pulled together the diverse elements of a delusionary Nazi worldview. Here we find an original and haunting exposition of the ways in which Hitler legitimized war and genocide to his own people, as necessary to destroy an allegedly omnipotent Jewish foe. In an era when both anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories continue to influence world politics, Herf offers a timely reminder of their dangers along with a fresh interpretation of the paranoia underlying the ideology of the Third Reich.

The "Divide and Conquer" pamphlet published by the U.S. Office of War Information (O.W.I.) in 1942 is a unique example of government attempts to warn Americans during World War II about the dangers of Nazi propaganda and to help them identify and guard against enemy disinformation. The instructional brochure, transcribed and republished by the Cold War Radio Museum for the first time in several decades with an extensive introduction by international journalist, broadcaster, writer and propaganda expert Ted Lipien, also offers interesting lessons for today's propaganda wars with their clandestine and overt operations undertaken by authoritarian governments of countries such as Russia and China to influence and subvert U.S. political and electoral system. "He knows that prejudice in any form plays his game," the wartime guide to Nazi propaganda warned Americans about Hitler's motives. "Before Hitler attacks any country, his agents carefully sow seeds of hate and disunity, turning people against their own governments, governments against their allies, class against class."It could have been easily a comment on the current aims of the Kremlin's propaganda or the behavior of some politicians, both foreign and domestic, who engage in fear mongering and subversion of democratic elections. Ted Lipien shows how this expose of Nazi propaganda is still highly relevant for today's information wars.In 1942 Americans received the warning that Hitler wanted "To destroy our national unity [and] create unrest in all groups of the population." The alert was undoubtedly timely and based on solid evidence although it was less obvious that such Nazi subversion was producing the desired effect of changing American minds as it did when used against some of the European nations. In America, Hitler's propaganda was said to be "trying to set capital against labor, White against Negro, Catholic against Protestant, Christian against Jew." The warnings about Hitler's intentions were true, but there was little evidence presented in the U.S. government pamphlet mailed out to American households that Nazi propaganda was achieving its ends among Americans. Similarities with some of today's propaganda, however, are immediately apparent in the 1942 brochure and make for a very interesting and enlightening reading of this historical document reprinted for the first time in many years.In the first months of the war with Japan and Nazi Germany, the Roosevelt Administration became concerned about Japanese and German propaganda attempting to to influence American public opinion. In articles reminiscent of some of the media reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election campaign, Americans were told that German and Japanese propaganda radio broadcasts were interfering with the U.S. electoral process. Even though the "Divide and Conquer" pamphlet was strictly about resisting the influence of Nazi ideology, it still offers valuable lessons for identifying attempts at interference from any ideological perspective and any government or media source. This includes the Russian State now headed by an ex-KGB officer President Vladimir Putin. He has shown himself to be an expert in the use of propaganda, disinformation and subversion. Many of the Nazi propaganda techniques described in this booklet have not changed and are now being used with the help of new digital technologies against the United States and other democratic nations. Ultimately, there was not much difference between the evils of Fascism and Communism and their respective propaganda. While "Divide and Conquer" presented and warned against only one type of propaganda, we can still draw today many valuable lessons from this 1942 U.S. government document.

Madman, tyrant, animal—history has given Adolf Hitler many names. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), often called the Nazi bible, Hitler describes his life, frustrations, ideals, and dreams. Born to an impoverished couple in a small town in Austria, the young Adolf grew up with the fervent desire to become a painter. The death of his parents and outright rejection from art schools in Vienna forced him into underpaid work as a laborer. During the First World War, Hitler served in the infantry and was decorated for bravery. After the war, he became actively involved with socialist political groups and quickly rose to power, establishing himself as Chairman of the National Socialist German Worker's party. In 1924, Hitler led a coalition of nationalist groups in a bid to overthrow the Bavarian government in Munich. The infamous Munich "Beer-hall putsch" was unsuccessful, and Hitler was arrested. During the nine months he was in prison, an embittered and frustrated Hitler dictated a personal manifesto to his loyal follower Rudolph Hess. He vented his sentiments against communism and the Jewish people in this document, which was to become Mein Kampf, the controversial book that is seen as the blue-print for Hitler's political and military campaign. In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes his strategy for rebuilding Germany and conquering Europe. It is a glimpse into the mind of a man who destabilized world peace and pursued the genocide now known as the Holocaust.

A book examining the strange terrain of Nazi sympathizers, nonintervention campaigners and other voices in America who advocated on behalf of Nazi Germany in the years before World War II. Americans who remember World War II reminisce about how it brought the country together. The less popular truth behind this warm nostalgia: until the attack on Pearl Harbor, America was deeply, dangerously divided. Bradley W. Hart's Hitler's American Friends exposes the homegrown antagonists who sought to protect and promote Hitler, leave Europeans (and especially European Jews) to fend for themselves, and elevate the Nazi regime. Some of these friends were Americans of German heritage who joined the Bund, whose leadership dreamed of installing a stateside Führer. Some were as bizarre and hair-raising as the Silver Shirt Legion, run by an eccentric who claimed that Hitler fulfilled a religious prophesy. Some were Midwestern Catholics like Father Charles Coughlin, an early right-wing radio star who broadcast anti-Semitic tirades. They were even members of Congress who used their franking privilege—sending mail at cost to American taxpayers—to distribute German propaganda. And celebrity pilot Charles Lindbergh ended up speaking for them all at the America First Committee. We try to tell ourselves it couldn't happen here, but Americans are not immune to the lure of fascism. Hitler's American Friends is a powerful look at how the forces of evil manipulate ordinary people, how we stepped back from the ledge, and the disturbing ease with which we could return to it.

This book, first published in 1983, brings together leading world experts on film and radio propaganda in a study which deals with each of the major powers as well as several under occupation. By examining each nations’ propaganda content and comparing its various strands of output designed for different audiences, the historian is provided with an important source of a nation’s official self-image. Total war forced governments to formulate goals consistent with the received national ideology in order to support the war effort. To this extent, much of the domestic propaganda was directed towards stimulating the population to make sacrifices with promise of a new world if the peace were won.