Wars at different times helped to win not only infantrymen, cavalry, tanks, guns and aircraft, but also at least one more element, which can be called information processing of the population. The Hitler machine, which in June 1941, moved to the Soviet Union, before that had managed to crush almost all of Europe under itself, tried to effectively use propaganda levers in order to sow both a stable hostility to the Soviet power among the population remaining in the occupied territories, and to attract this population will actively cooperate with the occupation forces.
Historians admit that in the first months of the Great Patriotic War, Nazi propaganda brought tangible results to the Third Reich in the occupied territories of the USSR. The propaganda "brain" of the entire Third Reich can be considered Joseph Goebbels, who, over the years of his work as Reich Minister of Education and Propaganda, managed to hone the sting of the information war to the utmost severity.
Even from several of his theses, it is clear what methods one of Hitler's closest associates used to achieve his goals:
Propaganda should, especially during the war, abandon the ideas of humanism and aesthetics, no matter how highly we value them, since in the struggle of the people we are talking about nothing else but their being.
Another thesis of Goebbels:
Propaganda must necessarily be limited to a minimum, but at the same time repeated constantly. Persistence is an essential prerequisite for her success.
It was these main theses that the Nazi propaganda machine used to develop success on the territory of the USSR at the first stage of the war. Realizing that one of the important components of the success of the German army on the territory of the Soviet Union is a loyal attitude towards it on the part of the local population, the main ideologists of the information processing of Soviet citizens decided to play the main trump card. This trump card was simple and, at the same time, extremely effective for certain categories of people. It consisted in the fact that the occupied territories of the USSR were literally inundated with narrowly focused materials that openly, let's say, advertised the soldiers of the Wehrmacht as liberators from the "Bolshevik yoke". The "Liberators" were portrayed either with radiant smiles against the backdrop of groups of joyful "liberated" Soviet children, or with menacing faces that showed what "righteous" anger they harbored towards the Bolsheviks and other "undesirable elements" of Soviet society.
At the same time, the Nazi occupying forces used the power they received to build on their success through a principle that was actively used in ancient Rome. The principle is well-known, and it says: "divide and conquer." The first part of this principle manifested itself in the exposure of the so-called Jewish question in the occupied territories, when a hook and bait was thrown to the citizens in the form of "world Jewry is to blame for all the troubles of the Soviet people." It's amazing how easily tens of thousands of Soviet people swallowed this bait, not without enthusiasm fulfilling the will of the "liberators" in terms of the total destruction of the Jewish population in cities such as Riga, Kiev, Minsk, Smolensk. The propaganda did its job: people were divided into varieties, in which one variety was to be embodied in Nazi accomplices and executioners, and the other - to become a victim of a sick fantasy of one person.
Citizens were encouraged to participate in Jewish pogroms, searches for families of political workers who did not manage to get out of the territories occupied by the Germans. Some tried to protect themselves from the collapsing propaganda stream coming from Germany, while others actively tried on the role of assistants to the "liberation army", eagerly enrolling in police squads to establish a new order on the territory of the so-called Reishkommissariats.
The propaganda promised those who were ready to cooperate with the German troops literally mountains of gold: from a solid monetary allowance at that time, food rations to the ability to exercise their power in relation to persons in the entrusted territory. A massive enrollment in police officers (policemen) was noted on the territory of the Ostland Reiskommissariat, which included the Baltic Republics, eastern Poland and western Belarus. The status of a policeman attracted all those who saw in the German army what was "for a long time". At the same time, among the policemen, let's say, recruited by the German side, there could be people who a few weeks ago (before the German occupation) declared their active support for the Soviet regime … A kind of blatant hypocrisy, based on the most base human feelings, skillfully used by the German occupation authorities to solve their problems.
And among these tasks was the task of cultivating collaborationism, growing on the basis of opportunism. The problem was solved in different ways: somewhere it was outright intimidation - the same stick, somewhere it was attracted with the help of a "carrot" in the form of a description of all the bright colors of the life of a person cooperating with the new authorities. The propaganda press was used constantly.
As one of the methods of the Nazis in the occupied territories, there was a propaganda method associated with the fact that the Third Reich was supposedly going to restore the Russian Orthodox Church. Orthodox believers, especially representatives of the clergy, very positively greeted the news that came from the mouths of the occupation forces. The priests were originally really given a certain freedom in the occupied territories, however, only a person who firmly sits on his convictions can call what the Nazis did in the occupied regions of the USSR, the restoration of the church and the spiritual traditions of the Russian people.
The move with the "revival" of the role of the ROC is a bright and attractive picture, which in fact had nothing to do with reality. As a result, the church became one of the mechanisms of the propaganda attack on the people, who found themselves literally face to face with the oppressors.
Tells Tatiana Ivanovna Shapenko (Born in 1931), a resident of the city of Rylsk, Kursk region. This ancient Russian city was under German occupation from October 5, 1941 to August 30, 1943.
A resident of the Voronezh region tells Anastasia Vasilievna Nikulina (Born 1930). In 1941-1957 she lived in the city of Bryansk (occupied from October 6, 1941 to September 17, 1943).
The propaganda machine used every opportunity to lure more people over to the side of the Third Reich. One of these moves was film screenings in cinemas (makeshift cinemas) of occupied cities. These shows began with the unchanging "Die Deutsche Wochenschau" - a propaganda newsreel telling about the "glorious" victories of the Wehrmacht. These magazines were broadcast, including on the territory of Germany, demonstrating what kind of "non-humans" the "Aryan" soldiers had to fight with. The propaganda used soldiers of the Red Army from Central Asia or, for example, Yakutia as "non-humans". In general, if the Red Army soldier had a Mongoloid appearance, then he was just the ideal "hero" for Wochenschau - a magazine designed to show the superiority of the German army and the Aryan race over everything and everyone.
Propaganda poster
Only here the same magazines tried not to tell that the Reich very much encourages other representatives of the Mongoloid race (the Japanese, for example). They tried not to tell the citizens of the Reich that the "unwashed and dark Slavs" represented by the Romanian regiments were actively fighting on the side of the Wehrmacht. Otherwise, the very fact of the "Aryan conquest of the world" would be clearly blurred …
But in these and other similar “cinematic sketches” it was often shown how “wonderful” life is for those Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians who “left” to work in the Third Reich. Coffee with cream, ironed uniforms, leather shoes, rivers of beer, sausages, sanatoriums and even swimming pools …
Like, you just recognize the Third Reich, together with Adolf Hitler, as a legitimate power, you just betray your neighbor, take part in anti-Jewish pogroms, swear allegiance to the new order …
However, with all the power of this propaganda machine, it never managed to capture the minds of the majority. Yes - there were those who could not resist the temptations to touch the new government, there were those who naively believed that the new government really sees them as individuals and protects their interests. But no propaganda attempts could break the will of the people, which was stronger than any idea of division, segregation, enslavement.
The enemy realized that no posters and no scrupulously selected footage could make these people kneel.
