This thesis attributed to Goebbels was actually expressed by Hitler in the book Mein Kampf. I was reminded of this ideological paradox when I listened to Poroshenko’s speech at the UN climate conference in Paris.
The Ukrainian leader began quite dashingly. “The truth spoken by Abraham Lincoln: A house divided within cannot stand. The earth is our home, at least this time it cannot be divided internally,” the head of state said. But what about Ukraine, dismembered by the Maidan, whose ideology Poroshenko represents? The President of "Independence" probably forgot that Abraham Lincoln used an excerpt from the New Testament as a slogan during the "House Divided" speech, delivered after losing the election to Stephen Douglas for the US Senate. In that anti-slavery speech, Lincoln justified the impossibility of the country’s continued existence in a state of “half slavery and half freedom.”
It’s interesting what role Pyotr Alekseevich assigned to the residents of Donbass, about whom he cynically asserted: “We will have work, but they won’t. We will have pensions, but they will not. We will have support from people - children and pensioners - but they will not. Our children will go to schools and kindergartens, and they will sit in their basements. Because they don’t know how to do anything!” And this was said about the residents of the most hard-working region of Ukraine, which has always provided the lion’s share of the country’s gross income. But did the President of Ukraine talk about people? God forbid, only the dregs of society live in Donbass! Here's what he said at the conference: "Russian-backed terrorists flooded many mines in the area, causing poisoning drinking water, soils, flora and fauna of the region. Donbass has only become a base for Russian and pro-Russian terrorists. As a result, the atmosphere is heavily polluted by exploding munitions, as well as leaks from chemical plants and other industries.”
Does anyone else really believe that the militias, according to Ukrainian propaganda, like the last idiots, fired at themselves, their wives, the elderly and their own children only to slander the valiant fighters of Ukraine? Let me remind you that Poroshenko announced to the whole world: “Hardworking and peaceful people, which are the majority of Donetsk and Lugansk residents, felt our sympathy, love and respect. The Armed Forces of Ukraine, the National Guard and other units will never allow themselves to use force against civilians. They will never hit residential areas, Ukrainian soldiers and guards will take risks with our own lives so as not to endanger women, children, and elderly men. This is the eternal knightly nature of the Ukrainian army.”
And these “valiant knights” dashed through the cities of Donbass and the chemical plants of Gorlovka and Donetsk ballistic missiles“Tochka-U”, which are certainly not in the arsenal of the militia. However, Pyotr Alekseevich is firmly convinced that Goebbels’s postulate is infallible, therefore he continues: “I believe that the issue of protection environment in the circumstances of this conflict should not be left without adequate reaction from the community. This issue will be, among others, the focus of our activities, our events that are carried out by the UN system, as well as the UN environmental program.” I really want to believe that the world community will “adequately react” to Poroshenko’s lies and to the truth, which the Ukrainian president is actively trying to hide under the sheep’s clothing of his fiery speech.
Having gained courage, the Ukrainian president is already pounding his chest with his fists, talking excitedly about the great mission of reviving the ecological cleanliness of Ukraine, entrusted to him, as the most democratic of all the country's leaders: “We are pursuing this goal, despite the scale of the problems that Ukraine now has in the form of the upcoming restoration of Donbass, this is the restoration of infrastructure, industrial enterprises, railways, oil pipelines, gas pipelines and water pipelines, as well as social infrastructure.” As a resident of Donetsk, I can confirm that Poroshenko does not waste words. IN Lately“repair teams” actually began to arrive in Donbass. Only for some reason they move on tanks and armored personnel carriers, accompanied by howitzers and multiple launch rocket systems. Apparently Pyotr Alekseevich decided to take an adult approach to the issue of restoring the region.
The President of Ukraine held short meetings with the presidents of Austria, Latvia, Romania and the prime ministers of Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Greece. Poroshenko called on the leaders of these countries to extend sanctions against Russia due to its failure to comply with the Minsk agreements. Did you think that the Ukrainian president came to the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change COP21 to talk about the environment? Somehow it’s not like that! Taking advantage of the chance when they could no longer ignore him, from a high international rostrum Pyotr Alekseevich again hurried to transfer everything from his sore head to his healthy one. Only the Ukrainian leader forgot that the OSCE representatives present in Donbass had already reported that it was the Ukrainian side that initiated the breakdown of the Minsk agreements.
Representatives of the French media were quick to give their assessment of Poroshenko’s speech.
“Despite the fact that I understand what a difficult situation Ukraine is facing, this (speech) is an epic failure,” the Faz Politic journalist wrote on Twitter.
“Poroshenko showed terrible taste by using the terrorist attacks in Paris to draw attention to Ukraine. It’s untrue and disgusting,” a journalist from France 24 expressed his emotions. “Ukrainians have suffered a terrible fate, but it’s even worse to have a president who goes to any lengths to gain the sympathy of the world,” he added.
“Poroshenko made a tactless remark, trying to use the terrorist attacks in Paris to draw attention to Ukraine,” a Mashable journalist described the actions of the Ukrainian president.

Finally, I would like to ask a question: what do you think about Goebbels’ thesis and what the President of Ukraine expressed at the UN climate conference in Paris?

Most of all, I don’t like writing about Navalny’s “creativity,” but sometimes I can’t ignore it. The last time I wrote about his “analysis” regarding the Olympics in Sochi. If you walk along, you can see a very clear and detailed analysis about how Navalny takes numbers out of thin air and blatantly lies. This time, our public “figure” may have smoked something, but his information does not stand up to criticism, he came up with a whole “murder”!

We are talking about the scandalous film “The Seagull. Crime drama." In it, the authors accuse the sons and other people from the environment of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation of all mortal sins. Among others, it is said that in 2002, in order to please the economic interests of Yuri Chaika’s son Artem, the director of the Verkhne-Lena River Shipping Company, Nikolai Paleny, was killed, whose death the killers allegedly presented as a suicide. It’s normal, after 13 years, to call suicide a murder, only Navalny is capable of this. Do you know why murder and not suicide? In particular, it was indicated that the hands of the corpse were tied and this is supposedly one of the important pieces of evidence in the murder version.
13 years later, journalists found district police officer Vladimir Kashko, who was inspecting the garage in which Paleny hanged himself.

Yes, he really was brought from hands tied. But this was done at the request of the deceased’s wife, says the district police officer. “It was the wife and the guard of the garage cooperative who found Paleny’s body, after which they called the police. When I examined the body and the scene of the incident, where, by the way, there were no signs of a struggle, I realized that I was dealing with a suicide, of which I had seen quite a lot, and I called the duty department and called the funeral service so that it would deliver the corpse for examination - FE. When the ritualist arrived and the body was removed from the noose and placed on a stretcher, the arms began to dangle and fall to the floor. Before they stiffened, the wife of the deceased asked to tie his hands; they were placed on his chest and secured with a cord so that they would not fall apart. I remember this well. After this, the body was sent to the morgue.

Other eyewitnesses also confirm that the hands were tied at the request of the wife. Mr. Navalny is probably not aware that bodies are often brought to the morgue with their arms fixed so that they do not dangle during transportation. However, "Than more monstrous lie, the more willingly they will believe in it.”

Although this time, behind Navalny is businessman William Browder, who initiated the adoption in the United States of the anti-Russian “Magnitsky list”, which includes law enforcement officers, officials and politicians in order to apply American sanctions to them. The customers are American, but the methods have not changed - lies, lies and lack of facts...

Below - 10 popular quotes about the USSR and the Third Reich. Their “authors” never said this, but in essence the quotes are correct. And those to whom they are attributed often acted exactly this way throughout their lives.

1. “The bigger the lie, the sooner they will believe it.”(J. Goebbels).

Goebbels never said this. Hitler wrote this about the role of Jews and Marxists in the defeat of Germany in the First World War (Mein Kampf, Chapter 10): “These gentlemen proceeded from the correct calculation that the more monstrously you lie, the sooner they will believe you.” True, although Goebbels never said such a phrase, he acted as Minister of Propaganda exactly in accordance with this motto. By the way, there really is one aphorism, the author of which is Goebbels, the phrase has firmly entered the Russian language, but no one knows who invented it. "Everything ingenious is simple"(J. Goebbels, article “Twenty Advice to a Dictator and Those Who Want to Become One,” 1932)

Paul Padua. "The Fuhrer Speaks" (1939).
As Albert Speer said in last word in Nuremberg: " With the help of such technical means as radio and loudspeakers, independent thinking was taken away from eighty million people..."

2. "USSR - Upper Volta with missiles"(Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of Germany in 1974-82)

There is no evidence of where or when he said this. The fact that Schmidt is the possible author of this aphorism was first mentioned in a 1993 book written by a group of American Sovietologists. This is given there as an assumption, and with a characteristic caveat: “If Schmidt had come to such a discovery during the time of Brezhnev, he could only have shared it with his wife, late at night and under the covers...”. This is a hint that West Germany during Schmidt’s time was not in a position to be so hostile to the Soviet Union. 500 thousand soldiers, 8,000 tanks and a number of missiles of all types were in the GDR, one might say, under Schmidt’s windows.

Most likely, the authors of the aphorism are Western journalists. Perhaps it was first publicly voiced by Financial Times journalist David Buchan in the article “Soviet Export of Technology” dated September 14, 1984. Be that as it may, the phrase became a catchphrase, because accurately reflected the essence of the USSR: military power to the detriment of everything else.

Igor Myasnikov. "Program "Time"(1978).
Painting from 1978. At this time, the USSR produced 200 intercontinental and more than 1,000 cruise missiles, 10 nuclear submarines, and 1,500 combat aircraft per year. In year! There was also a struggle with America for influence in Angola and Nicaragua. What the “Time” program told these people in the hut about.

3. “No person, no problem”(I.V. Stalin)

Another version of the same aphorism: “We don’t have irreplaceable people.” Alas, Stalin did not say anything like that. Both phrases were invented by Soviet writers. “There is a person - there is a problem, there is no person - there is no problem” - this is from Anatoly Rybakov’s novel “Children of the Arbat” (1987). And “there are no irreplaceable people” - from Alexander Korneychuk’s play “Front” (1942). Moreover, Korneychuk, a Ukrainian Soviet playwright and 5-time (!) laureate of the Stalin Prize in the field of art, was also NOT the author of this aphorism. He only translated into Russian the slogan of the times French Revolution 1789-94 The Commissioner of the Convention, Joseph Le Bon, responded with this phrase to a petition for pardon from an aristocrat.

In 1793, the Viscount de Ghiselin, arrested for political unreliability, asked to spare his life, since his education and experience could still be useful to the Republic (as he thought). To which the Jacobin commissioner replied: “There are no irreplaceable people in the Republic!” It is interesting that two years after that, in 1795, other revolutionaries sent Commissar Le Bon himself to the guillotine. Well, there are no irreplaceable people!

Egil Veidemanis. "Butovo. NKVD execution range. 1937-1938."(2003)

4. "Stalin took Russia with a plow, but left with an atomic bomb"(Winston Churchill).

Churchill never said that. Although on the basis of the military alliance of 1941-45. really treated Stalin with respect. Even in the Fulton speech on March 5, 1946, which began " cold war"The West and the USSR, Churchill said: “I deeply admire and honor the valiant Russian people and my wartime comrade Marshal Stalin.” This, however, did not prevent Churchill from accusing the USSR of instilling communism and tyranny in the same speech. Eastern Europe. By the way, the expression “iron curtain” came from this same speech.

As for the phrase about the plow and atomic bomb, its true author is the Stalinist Nina Andreeva from St. Petersburg, the author of the sensational article “I Can’t Give Up Principles” in her time (Soviet Russia newspaper, March 13, 1988). She cited it as a "Churchill quote." The quote turned out to be false, but its essence corresponds to the facts.

Most likely this is a variation on the theme of the article about Stalin in the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1956, which was written by Sovietologist Isaac Deutscher: “The essence of Stalin’s truly historical achievements is that he took Russia with a plow, and left it with nuclear reactors. He raised Russia to the level second industrial developed country peace. This was not the result of purely material progress and organizational work. Such achievements would not have been possible without a comprehensive cultural revolution, during which the entire population attended school and studied very hard."

Vitaly Tikhov. "Stakhanovka plant named after OGPU"(1930s).
Everything was. You can't erase a word from a song. And factories, and Stakhanovka, and the OGPU. By the way, the plant named after. OGPU is now OJSC LOMO. Privatized in the 1990s. Works. Now it is owned by three families (one of them is former minister Klebanov), as well as guys from the former MMM voucher fund. Well, good. Even though they were three families, they came to a bright future.

5. “I thought that I would die of old age. But when Russia, which fed all of Europe with bread, began to buy grain, I realized that I would die of laughter” (Winston Churchill).

For the first time, the USSR began purchasing grain from the West on a large scale (more than 1 million tons) - in 1963. The scale grew and in 1984 reached 46 million tons. Churchill died in 1965, having lived to 90 years. Indeed, in his lifetime, he found Russia the world's largest exporter of grain (1900-1913), and saw the beginning of the reverse process - how the USSR began to turn into the world's largest importer of bread. There is only one problem: Churchill did NOT say this.

Vasily Borisenkov. "In the Cabbage Fields"(1958).
People in city clothes collect cabbage in the fields. In the USSR, there was a custom, unknown in Western countries, of driving townspeople to the village in the fall to collect vegetables. Students were forcibly involved in agricultural labor (for 1-2 months, the price of the issue was expulsion); schoolchildren, employees of city enterprises, etc. could be taken out for a day or two. And yet, throughout the history of the USSR there were queues for food in stores.

Alexey Sundukov. "Queue"(1986)
Queues were generally a signature feature of the USSR. A sad and painful sight... The disappearance of food queues in Russia after 1991 is the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.

6. “Don’t spare the soldiers, the women are still giving birth!”(Marshal Zhukov).

Zhukov did not say this. Here again is the case when the “author” of the quote did not utter such words, but in fact acted exactly like that. The true author of "Women Are Still Giving Birth" is unknown. According to one version, it was Field Marshal Apraksin during the battle with the Germans at Gross-Jägersdorf (1757, Seven Years' War). The general refused to send cavalry to attack, allegedly saying: “They pay gold for horses, but women still give birth to soldiers.” According to another version, it was the wife of Nicholas II who wrote in a letter to the Tsar dated August 17, 1916. The Tsarina complained to her husband about the Minister of War Bezobrazov, who, in her opinion, mediocrely destroyed the guards units at the front:

“He criminally destroyed your guard... This should not go unpunished. Let him suffer, but others will benefit from this example... I regret that I did not talk about this more persistently at headquarters, and not with Alekseev, yours.” prestige would have been saved...The generals know that we still have many soldiers in Russia, and therefore they do not spare lives , but these were superbly trained troops and it was all in vain.”

The letter itself does not say anything, except that Queen Alix interfered in military affairs, even to the point of attempting to give instructions to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief (Nicholas II) and the Chief of Staff of the Headquarters, General Alekseev. As for “women are still giving birth” - in her letter she just regrets such methods of waging war. The generals know that there are a lot of people in Russia, so they do not spare the soldiers and kill them in vain... It is likely, given the subsequent revolutions, that the words of the empress were changed for propaganda purposes, the meaning was changed to the opposite (instead of condemnation - approval), and so the phrase went to the people.

Denis Bazuev. "Stop!"(2004)
Series of paintings "Battle for Leningrad" contemporary artist. D. Bazueva. In 1941-42 Soviet troops near Leningrad they constantly launched attacks, trying to break the blockade. Some German machine gunners are said to have gone crazy...

7. "The Franco-Prussian War was won by a German schoolteacher"(Otto von Bismarck).

A popular phrase with the implication that a nation superior to its enemy in education and general culture, wages war more effectively. However, Chancellor Bismarck did not say this. This was said by a professor of geography from Leipzig, Oskar Peschel, and not about the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), but about the Austro-Prussian War (1866), in which the Germans also won. In July 1866, Oskar Peschel wrote in one of his newspaper articles: “...Public education plays decisive role in the war... When the Prussians beat the Austrians, it was a victory of the Prussian teacher over the Austrian schoolteacher." This attention to learning was retained by the Germans later. The Russian officer in Tsarist Russia I studied at a military school for 2 years, as long as the Germans have a sergeant major.

Emil Scheibe. "Hitler at the Front"(1943).
This is how the Germans painted themselves. It’s somehow doubtful that anyone here could go crazy from the number of people shot with a machine gun...

8. “When I hear the word “culture,” my hand reaches for a gun.”(Hermann Goering).

Sometimes also attributed to Goebbels. But neither one nor the other said this. This is a phrase from the play "Schlageter" by playwright Hans Jost (1933). Hans Jost was a Nazi, winner of the NSDAP Grand Prize for art, and SS Gruppenführer. After World War I, the victorious Allies occupied the Rhineland for a time - the main industrial area Germany. The country capitulated, the monarchy collapsed, the Kaiser fled, everyone reconciled. But there was one fanatic, Albert Schlageter, a former front-line officer. who continued to fight. He was derailing French trains. He was caught and shot in 1923.

Nazi propaganda made a hero out of this Rhineland partisan. In Hans Jost's play, he discusses with his friend whether it is worth spending time on studying (getting involved in culture) if the country is under occupation. The friend replies that it is better to fight than to study and that at the word “culture” he releases the safety of his Browning. And from this phrase, after a number of creative revisions, Goering’s “quote” was obtained.

Kukryniksy. "End"(1947-48).
These guys will now need the Browning for another purpose.

9. "Russia is a prison of nations"(V.I. Lenin).

In the USSR, this phrase was often used in propaganda to compare Tsarist and Soviet Russia. There is an empire where non-Russian nationalities were oppressed, here there is a voluntary union and friendship of peoples. Lenin actually used this aphorism in his works, but he was not its author. But who the author was was not advertised in the USSR. Because it could inspire bad thoughts.

Author - Marquis de Custine, book "Russia in 1839", describing Nicholas Russia (from the time of Nicholas I) with the murderous characteristics of the Russian political system and the Russian people as a whole. In short: Russia is not Europe, a state of general lawlessness and “pyramidal violence.” That is, the bosses oppress the people, the bosses are higher up, and at the top is the king, who had everyone in mind, since his power is sole and irremovable. The rich here are not fellow citizens of the poor... The bureaucracy is monstrous (“a land of useless formalities”). “The police, so quick when it comes to tormenting people, are in no hurry when they turn to them for help...” And so on. Tsapki, Evsiuk and Serdyuk, and the universal Sveta from Ivanovo. This is the picture by the Marquis de Custine.

The Marquis's book about his travels in Russia in 1839 was a huge success in Europe. Almost the same as the previously published book by another Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, about his trip to the USA (“Democracy in America”, 1835). Only de Custine came and spat, and Tocqueville, on the contrary, sang defamations of the USA: the Anglo-Americans as a nation were originally born in freedom, equality, where their successes and great future come from, etc. Zbigniew Brzezinski once said that to understand Russian-American relations it is enough to read only 2 books: de Custine about Russia and de Tocqueville about the USA.

Wojciech Kossak. "Circassians in Krakowskie Przedmieście"(1912).
This is the 1863 uprising for an independent Poland. Suppressed by Russian troops. The role of the Russians (judging by the painting by the Polish artist) was played by certain persons of Caucasian nationality. A wild horde of Circassians in hats and Orthodox cross the flag flies through the city, crushing European-looking people. It is interesting that Polish recruits were called up by Russia to participate in Caucasian War. One barrack of the prison of nations pacified another and vice versa. Well, whatever you want. There is no other way to build an empire from Warsaw to Alaska.

10. "Who are these gentlemen Nazis? - Murderers and pederasts"(Benito Mussolini).

I also thought it was Mussolini. In 1934 in Austria, local Nazis killed Chancellor Dollfuss (an opponent of the Anschluss), with whom the Duce had a good relationship. Well, Mussolini threw out this phrase in his heart. In fact, it was said in an editorial in the newspaper "Il Popolo di Roma" ("The People of Rome"), which was the mouthpiece of the Fascist party in Italy. It sharply condemned the murder of the chancellor and said that the criminals were connected “with murderers and pederasts in Berlin.”

This was an allusion to Ernst Roehm, the leader of Hitler's stormtroopers, who was homosexual (and many people around him were too). This was the sharpest attack by Italian fascists against their German colleagues in the entire history of their relationship. Mussolini, himself a former journalist, controlled the policy of Il Popolo di Roma, and of course, the editorial about “murderers and pederasts” from Berlin could not have come out without his knowledge. However, there is no evidence that he personally wrote this article.

In the photo: gay pride parade in London June 27, 2013 During the “Night of the Long Knives” in 1934, Hitler eliminated Rehm and his gay stormtroopers, and later all homosexuals in the Reich began to be sent to concentration camps. But here’s a paradox: the SS uniform that Hugo Boss once sewed still inspires and excites gays all over the world.

Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen). Gay comics(1962)
This is the world's most famous author of gay graphics. Finnish artist who gained recognition in America in the 1960s. In 1941-44. fought in the Finnish army against the USSR. At that time, German troops were stationed in Finland. As the artist himself admitted, he had with the Germans sexual relations and the German uniform excited him wildly. No, I don't want to say that I'm an artist Tom of Finland- This is the personification of Finland's behavior in the Second World War. No, he just liked the uniform.

https://www.site/2014-10-29/desyat_pravil_gebbelsa_kotorye_rabotayut_i_seychas

“We are not seeking the truth, but the effect of propaganda!”

Goebbels' ten rules that still work today

70 years ago, on October 29, 1944, Joseph Goebbels celebrated his last birthday. Goebbels is perhaps the most famous “classic of propaganda” in the history of mankind, “ creative heritage» which is relevant and in demand to this day. Suffice it to say that it was Goebbels who came up with the technique that is widely used by modern advertisers. When he became editor-in-chief of the National Socialist newspaper Der Angriff (Attack) in 1927, he first placed the cryptic message “Attack with us?” on billboards. The second poster proclaimed: “We attack on the 4th of July!” Finally, the third explained that “Attack” is a new weekly publication. As history has shown, this was the most “vegetarian” innovation of the future “classic”.

“The worst enemy of propaganda is intellectualism”

Soon appointed Reichsleiter of Propaganda, Goebbels formulated fundamental professional postulates, here are the main ones:

- “guns and bayonets are nothing if you do not have the hearts of the nation”;

Capturing the masses is the only goal of propaganda;

To achieve this goal, any means are good, the main thing is that the propaganda is effective;

Accordingly, in addition to “white”, truthful information, it is necessary to use “gray”, that is, half-truths, and “black” - outright lies: “we are not seeking the truth, but the effect”;

Moreover, “the more monstrous the lie, the more willingly they believe in it” and the faster it spreads;

“Propaganda should appeal more to the senses than to the mind.”

And so that the crowd does not have any doubts, the “messages” should be primitive, without details, at the level of a monosyllabic slogan: “the worst enemy of propaganda is intellectualism”;

In other words, “propaganda should influence the feelings more than the mind,” and therefore be bright and catchy;

For the best assimilation of the message, “we must speak in a language understandable to the people,” and even in different languages- one for the capital, another for the province, one for workers, the other for employees;

Extol the leaders and people, constantly maintaining a high degree of ideological pathos and hysteria;

To endlessly repeat propaganda chatter: it’s hard not to succumb to its magic if an increasing number of people around you believe in it.

Researchers of Goebbels’ activities tell how skillfully he used the “Nemmersdorf incident,” when during the offensive in East Prussia in October 1944, Red Army soldiers shot 11 German civilians. Goebbels's propaganda machine unleashed an epic panorama of atrocities Soviet soldiers, who allegedly raped, and then mutilated and killed more than 60 German women. The falsified “photos from the scene of the tragedy” hammered into the citizens of the Reich: do not give up!

"One people, one Reich, one Fuhrer"

Goebbels was one of the first to understand that an idea will be absorbed by the population much better if it is personified in the images of heroes and enemies, which it is not a sin to invent. This is how the “martyr, National Socialist Christ Horst Wessel” appeared. Well, thanks to the efforts of “Dr. Goebbels,” the Fuhrer, naturally, became God the Father: “He has no of great importance, what we believe in, the main thing is that they believe. A people without religion is like a person without breath.” The “god-maker” Goebbels himself admitted: “My party is my church.”

The author of a three-volume biography of Hitler, Joachim Fest, cites a case when, during the election campaign of 1932-33, Goebbels deliberately delayed his speech so that the sun would come out from behind the clouds just at the moment of Hitler's appearance. Those elections were crowned with the triumph of the Nazis, and the religious Goebbels, amazed by church rituals as a child, along with millions of compatriots, received a new deity: “One people, one Reich, one Fuhrer.” “When the Fuhrer speaks, it acts like a divine service,” the Reich Minister thanked on the day of Hitler’s 53rd birthday.

« To the German people there is no need to know what the Fuhrer intends to do, he does not want to know it.”

The elections of 1933 went down in history for another circumstance: Hitler and Goebbels were almost the first to resort to modern means of transport, primarily aviation, “covering” up to three dozen cities in a week. Goebbels generally paid the closest attention to technical innovations. By 1939, thanks to the installment sales program, 70% of German families listened to the radio (in 1932 this was three times less), “radio points” were located in enterprises and in in public places. At the same time, television was emerging, and Goebbels dreamed of a “miracle” when “a living Fuhrer would enter every home”: “We must be with the people every evening after working day and explain to him what he did not understand during the day,” Goebbels set the task. At the same time, in his opinion, broadcasting should be limited to news, speeches, sports reports and entertainment programs: “The German people have no need to know what the Fuhrer intends to do, they don’t want to know.”

These problems were (and are) being solved by the next generations of propagandists, who, following their “teacher,” realized that television is an unsurpassed supplier of ready-made, integral, controlled images that you cannot argue with. And Goebbels managed to use TV to cover the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Need I explain that his skill turned the Olympics into a grandiose “exhibition of achievements” of Hitler’s Germany.

Lessons from the Bolsheviks

Goebbels's propaganda and organizational talents emerged in full force with the Nazis coming to power in January 1933. Having become a minister, Goebbels used another powerful resource - repressive. The role of internal and external “enemies of the people”, guilty of all problems of the state and society and subject to merciless extermination, was reserved for liberals, Jews and Bolsheviks (by the way, before meeting Hitler, Goebbels was not an anti-Semite, he treated Russians with respect, extolling Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and recognized the Bolsheviks as his mentors; and indeed, the products of Bolshevik and Nazi propaganda have striking similarities).

A month and a half after the Nazis came to power, fires from the list of banned books began to burn throughout Germany.

Already in March 1933, fires from the list of prohibited books, including the same Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, began to burn throughout Germany. To deal with dissent forever, censorship was introduced, independent publications were closed, journalists were declared civil servants, “enemies” were expelled from editorial offices, from cinema, literature, painting, and science. Those who were lucky were saved in emigration, the rest of the “degenerates” ended up in prisons and concentration camps, such as Theodor Wolf, editor-in-chief of the liberal newspaper Berliner Tageblatt, who at one time imprudently rejected fifty articles by the then unknown Goebbels.

“During the 12 years of the existence of the Third Reich, not a single worthy work of art was created in the country, not a single talented book was written,” notes publicist Yuri Veksler living in Germany (in fairness, let’s mention the legendary documentary filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl). But how could this confuse Goebbels, whose goal was to capture the hearts of “average Germans”?

“He became the first victim of his propaganda”

The apotheosis of Goebbels’s activity is called a two-hour speech on “total war to a victorious end,” which he delivered in February 1943, after the defeat at Stalingrad (according to a historical story, upon leaving the podium, the speaker coldly said: “It would have been an hour of idiocy if I had shouted: “Throw yourself out of the window,” they would do that too). However, no efforts of Goebbels saved the Reich, the Fuhrer, himself, his wife Magda and six children from disaster.

None of Goebbels' efforts saved either himself or his wife Magda and six children.

Having believed in Hitler’s supernatural abilities, not only the masses, but also members of the “inner circle” lost the ability to critically perceive reality, isolated themselves from messages that spoke about the true state of affairs, and indulged in complacent illusions. As the German publicist and playwright Rolf Hochhuth writes, in his diaries of 1945, Goebbels claims that the Fuhrer will yet accomplish a “war-deciding feat.” “He became the first victim of his propaganda,” writes Hochhuth.

They say that in the area near the Reich Chancellery, where Soviet soldiers discovered the burned corpses of Hitler and Goebbels, they subsequently set up a children's playground.