The mythical city of Vineta
In the Third Reich, the Ministry of Propaganda and Public Education, which, as you know, was headed by Joseph Goebbels, originally consisted of five departments: press, radio, active propaganda, cinema, theater and education. Later, with the growth of territories, the ministry expanded to 15 departments (by 1940), and in 1942 one more was added to them. Goebbels tried in his department to concentrate complete control over the thoughts and emotions of the burghers and enslaved peoples. In particular, four departments were responsible for various media, including foreign ones, five controlled all types of art, and two departments (propaganda and special tasks) worked to promote the ideas of anti-Semitism and Aryan superiority. And that's not all. The history of the service of Hitler's propaganda is full of events and in the light of what is happening in the world is especially instructive. Let's choose its most interesting sector - work on the Eastern Front.
The most important event directly connected with the Soviet Union was the organization of the Vineta department in the Goebbels ministry at the beginning of 1941. In the best traditions of Hitler's mysticism, the department was named in honor of the mythical city, allegedly located several centuries ago at the mouth of the Oder. The fate of the townspeople turned out to be unenviable - for numerous sins they were swallowed up by the Baltic Sea. The head of the new service was Eberhart Taubert, who became famous for his authorship of the script for the film "The Eternal Jew" and the idea of the forced wearing of a yellow six-pointed star by Jews. Taubert, who undoubtedly had the most direct relation to the punitive essence of Nazism, did not suffer any punishment in the post-war period. Moreover, he participated in attempts to revive Nazism in the Federal Republic of Germany, and also advised many state structures. The rich experience of aggressive propaganda policy turned out to be in demand both by the third world countries and by the special services of developed countries.
Vineta was divided into so-called editions: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Azerbaijani and Georgian. The tasks of the divisions included translation, preparation and publication of various materials in the languages of these peoples. A few months before the start of the war, relevant brochures, leaflets, posters and other propaganda waste paper were prepared, which was equipped with the advanced units of the Wehrmacht. A feature of Vineta was not just work in the occupied territory, but the presence of specialists directly at the front, along with units of the regular army. By the way, the first time the announcers went on the air on the Eastern Front at 10 a.m. on June 22. The infamous leaflet "Kill the Jew-political instructor, the face asks for a brick!" also invented in Vineta and managed to print 160 million copies by the beginning of the war.
Help from collaborators
Now about the "specialists" of the Vineta department. Naturally, the Germans could not fully conduct such a wide propaganda in eight languages (at least) and attracted numerous White emigrants and famous cultural figures for this. They served the Third Reich in this dirty business, in particular, the artist Viktor Ostroumov, the performer of the main parts of the world opera classics Ivan Zhadan, the Moscow Art Theater actor Sergei Sverchkov and many other Soviet art workers who were in German captivity. Employees of the rest of the national editions of the Vineta department were recruited according to approximately the same principle.
When it became clear that the lightning war on the Eastern Front was turning into a battle of attrition, Vineta's resources were expanded. By April 1943, the department was divided into four groups. The first broadcast three radio stations "Old Lenin's Guard", the Russian nationalist "For Russia" and "separatist", broadcast in 18 languages. The broadcasts of these radio stations were always accompanied by quite plausible information about the allegedly existing anti-communist underground in the USSR, as well as about the nationalist revolution that is about to begin. An important operation of Vineta was Yakov Stalin's masterfully forged anti-Soviet appeal to his father, which was broadcast immediately from 35 points on the Eastern Front. In fact, Yakov did not say anything like that - his speech was simply glued together in the desired sequence from a previously made recording of his voice.
From Berlin, Vsevolod Blumenthal-Tamarin himself, probably one of the most odious collaborators, often broadcast on the radio. This actor, who fell into the occupation in Istra, agreed to cooperate with the Nazis, moved to the German capital, and since February 1942 he regularly on the air urged Soviet citizens to stop senseless resistance. The unconditional talent of the traitor was the ability to very accurately imitate the voice of Joseph Stalin, which the Germans actively used in their propaganda. On May 10, 1945, he was found hanged in German Münsingen - according to one version, this was the result of the work of Soviet intelligence.
The second group of the renewed Vineta was engaged in printing activities (leaflets, brochures), as well as censoring everything that spread in the occupied territory. The third group was engaged in the translation of propaganda texts from German into the languages of the target audience. And finally, the fourth group was intended to raise the mood and misinformation of prisoners of war and oriental workers.
Wehrmacht officers against
When the German troops on the Eastern Front began to retreat and lost their strategic initiative, it was impossible to limit themselves only to external propaganda activities in the department. It was also necessary to handle our own army.
On December 22, 1943, Hitler ordered to organize a specific institution of officers "for the implementation of the National Socialist leadership." We can say that this Nationalsozialistischer Führungsoffizier, or NSFO, was in many ways a copy of the institute of the commissars of the Red Army. The main tools were conversations and mass meetings, at which they raised the already fairly weakened fighting spirit of the German soldier, and also fostered hatred of the Red Army. Naturally, an important place in the work of NSFO was the continuation of the ardent anti-Semitic policies of the Third Reich. Operated with such cliches as "loyalty to the Fuhrer", "obedience to his orders" and "victory in the end will be ours." Towards the end of the war, as mentioned in the "Military Historical Journal", in the Wehrmacht, the officer's ability to conduct ideological work with subordinates was equated with his military tactical skills:
"An officer who does not know how to carry out political education and political leadership of his unit is just as inappropriate for his assignment as an officer who does not know how to carry out tactical training and tactical leadership."
The growing shortage of weapons, equipment and ammunition, the German command planned to neutralize the fanaticism of their soldiers. Heinz Guderian, the chief of the general staff of the Wehrmacht, echoed the adherents of Nazi propaganda, stating in an order dated September 4, 1944:
"Every true warrior knows that relatives, women and children will be horrified if the Jewish terror spread to Germany."
Goebbels also frightened the burghers that "the German people will be completely destroyed biologically."
What else did the Germans intimidate the civilian population of Germany and the occupied territories? The Russian State Military Archives contains a document called "Propaganda Action on Soviet Methods of Atrocities and Terror". Goebbels signed it on April 24, 1944. A copy of this order was received, in particular, by the chief of the military propaganda department in the high command of the Wehrmacht, Major General Hasso von Wedel, and took it as a direct guide to action.
The peculiarity of the document is that Goebbels demanded its execution not only in the eastern territories, but throughout Europe. It was required to raise the entire population of the Old World in hatred of the Red Army. For this, a set of 14 horror stories was developed that would inevitably await every European inhabitant with the arrival of the Red Army:
1. Extermination of the population and terror against it. Here, atrocities against women, children, priests and the sick are especially effective.
2. Driving the population into forced labor.
3. Forced eviction of the population for use at the front, where it, unarmed and untrained, serves as cannon fodder.
4. Displacement of the population to remote areas of the Soviet Union.
5. During the seizure of settlements: the opening of prisons and robberies.
6. Destruction of churches, desecration of shrines.
7. Destruction of cultural institutions. Arrests, deportations and executions of leading cultural figures.
8. Planting Jews as local leaders. Atrocities committed by Jews, denunciations of the population by Jews and the NKVD.
9. Transfer of local government to asocial elements, former prisoners.
10. Confiscation of food supplies and famine among the population.
11. Introduction of the collective farm system.
12. Bringing wages and prices to Soviet norms and reducing workers' living standards to Soviet levels.
13. The introduction of the Stakhanov movement and sweatshops in enterprises.
14. Closure of small shops and destruction of craft industries.
No matter how unpleasant it may be to admit, Goebbels' propaganda was effective both at the beginning of the war and before its end. In the first months of the war, it undoubtedly influenced the intensity of the surrender of the surrounded Red Army soldiers, and just before the end, Goebbels managed to instill terror in the German population before the advancing Soviet army.
