ABSTRACT
A popular joke current in Berlin in March 1945 compared Goebbels’ Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda to the orchestra of a sinking ship. Not surprisingly, a propaganda weapon as important as the newsreel was subject to strict military and governmental control before being released. War reporting was the responsibility of the Propaganda Kompanie Einheiten which was established in 1938 as a compromise between the competing interests of the Reichskriegs-ministerium and the RMVP. There can be little doubt that stylistically the Deutsche Wochenschauen depicting the blitzkrieg are impressive examples of film propaganda. The impact of Stalingrad on the morale of the German people cannot be overestimated. A more critical approach to the oversimplified picture of the success of Nazi propaganda is to be welcomed. Nevertheless, one is still left with the feeling that it was only the series of unrelieved military disasters in the war that undermined propaganda, not the nature of the Nazi ideological message itself.
