Visual Propaganda During World War II: A Key Element of Communication and Persuasion on the Societies of Germany and the United States

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  Nazi Propaganda

Analysis Examples

     

            During World War II the Nazi’s were faced with a devastating problem. They had just come out of a great depression and had a destructive war on their hands. The problem being that they had to communicate with a nation to convince them that they would be able to win the war. The leaders were constantly using different methods of visual propaganda that would hopefully be enough to win the war. The Nazi’s continually needed to motivate and unite the country.

            The Nazi leaders used every aspect of propaganda to get military support from the Germanic nation. The object of bandwagon propaganda is to show that everyone else is doing something exemplary and so should you. The bandwagon attempt was used very often to persuade young men to apply for the military.  Nazi leaders couldn’t have made a better example of the bandwagon visual propaganda than with a certain phenomenal poster showing a sea of soldiers in full Nazi uniform, as Hitler leads the crowd appearing as a Christ figure with the light beaming down on him.

            Nazi’s also promoted having multiple children especially if Germans could breed children who had Arian blood. Hitler had posters designed that promoted young men that were physically fit—and Arian--to join his school to become one of Hitler’s prestigious SS soldiers.  Another poster depicted a healthy looking family with about six children with blue eyes and blonde hair, which were theoretically the characteristics of the Arians.   

           The Nazi’s were able to strategize and subdue the enemy with visual propaganda effectively. They would send aircraft with leaflets of propaganda and drop it onto the allied troops and psychologically defeat them (much like the Americans). In doing so they were able to taunt and make the enemy nervous. Many of the leaflets had pictures of infants and little children and had a message on the back saying how much they missed their dad and hoped that he would make it back alive. With all of the fighting that many of the allied troops had gone through many of them broke down.