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//Mein Kampf// by Adolf Hitler  Chapter VI: War Propaganda

"There seems to have been no clarity on the very first question: Is propaganda a means or an end? It is a means and must therefore be judged with regard to its end. It must consequently take a form calculated to support the aim which it serves. It is also obvious that its aim can vary in importance from the standpoint of general need, and that the inner value of the propaganda will vary accordingly. The aim for which we were fighting the War was the loftiest, the most overpowering, that man can conceive: it was the freedom and independence of our nation, the security of our future food supply, and-our national honor. Despite all contrary opinions prevailing today, this honor does actually exist, or will have to exist; for peoples without honor have sooner or later lost their freedom and independence, which in turn is only the result of a higher justice, since generations of rabble without honor deserve no freedom. He who would be a slave cannot have honor; for such honor would soon become an object of general scorn. The German nation was engaged in a struggle for a human existence, and the purpose of war propaganda should have been to support this struggle; its aim to help bring about victory.

But when nations are fighting for their existence on this earth, when the question of ‘to be or not to be’ has to be answered, then all humane and aesthetic considerations must be set aside; for these ideals do not exist of themselves somewhere in the air but are the product of man’s creative imagination and disappear when he disappears. And even among mankind, they belong only to a few nations or rather races, and this in proportion as they emanate from the feeling of the nation or race in question. Humane and aesthetic ideals would vanish even from a world inhabited by man if this world were to lose the races that have created and upheld these concepts. But all such concepts become secondary when a nation is fighting for its existence; in fact, they become totally irrelevant to the forms of the struggle as soon as a situation arises where they might paralyze a struggling nation's power of self preservation. And that has always been their only visible result.

As for humanitarianism, Moltke said years ago that in war it lies in the brevity of the operation, and that means that the most aggressive fighting technique is the most humane.

But when people try to approach these questions with drivel about aesthetics, etc., really only one answer is possible: where the destiny and existence of a people are at stake, all obligation toward beauty ceases. The most unbeautiful thing there can be in human life is and remains the yoke of slavery. Or do these Schwabing decadents view the present lot of the German people as 'aesthetic'? Certainly we don't have to discuss these matters with the Jews, the most modern inventors of this cultural perfume. Their whole existence is an embodied protest against the aesthetics of the Lord's image. And since these criteria of humanitarianism and beauty must be eliminated from the struggle, they are also inapplicable to propaganda."

Hitler dictated his book //Mein Kampf// to relate autobiographical events and express his National Socialist political ideology. In this book he declares, “He who would be a slave cannot have honor; for such honor would soon become an object of general scorn” while expressing his views on the elements that make war propaganda effective. This aphorism refers to the idea that an individual held captive must not be able to retain any of their honor or dignity in order for their captor to maintain the prisoner’s inferior status. Hitler believes the slave must not be allowed to retain any semblance of personal dignity or he will attempt to gain his independence, so complete contempt and degradation of the targeted individual will remove any resistance. This is a general truth because almost all individuals who are stripped of all dignity will eventually succumb to pressure and lose the will to fight back. Masters applied this concept to oversee slaves throughout human history, just as Hitler used this idea to oppress the Jewish population in the first half of the twentieth century. By removing the honor of Jews, Hitler was able to more efficiently work toward his objective of exterminating the Jewish race. Absolute oppression of the Jews in Germany and nations it conquered during World War II was achieved through the use of propaganda that influenced the beliefs and actions of those countries’ citizens. This chapter of Hitler’s book is dedicated to analyzing how and why propaganda can be efficiently distributed to the mass population to “strengthen the fighting spirit” of the people during a period of war. Propaganda was a necessary tool for Hitler to spread his ideology to his followers and enabled him to effectively convey his influential message to his targeted audience. He believes that, “when nations are fighting for their existence on this earth, when the question of ‘to be or not to be’ has to be answered, then all humane and aesthetic considerations must be set aside; for these ideals do not exist of themselves somewhere in the air but are the product of man’s creative imagination and disappear when he disappears.” Hitler uses this aphorism as a justification of his inhuman practices during the war in order to preserve his nation because he accurately claims that man created the ideals of humane treatment within society, so when man ceases to exist the ideals do as well because they are merely established by man and do not exist in the natural wilderness. Hitler was able to effectively use the aphorisms within his book to appeal to the general public because they address basic truths of human nature to which his audience could relate.

SLamb "Mein Kampf: War Propaganda." __Hitler Historical Museum__. 04 Feb. 2009 http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv1ch06.html.