How Did Hitler Use Photographic Propaganda

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Throughout history, photography techniques impacted people’s perceptions in unimaginable ways. Initially, when Hitler first rose to power in 1933 and introduced his scapegoat, the Jews, he blamed them for economic and social downfall, though many citizens were skeptical and unconvinced. In order to gain support and power, photographic propaganda was crucial for implementing Nazi Policies and acquiring power. Hitler employed Joseph Goebbels as head of propaganda to ensure nothing degrading or harmful to the Nazi Party was released. To create support for his idea of the ‘Aryan’ race, Hitler had to create a common enemy: the Jews. By highlighting common Jewish features in photographs along with other photography techniques, “propaganda helped to define who would be excluded from the new society’’ (“Nazi and East German Propaganda Archive” 1). By doing so, actions against the Jews became justified to …show more content…

The use of mechanics of photography and film in German propaganda effectively allowed Nazis to deceive other countries and German citizens, leading to widespread ignorance of the Holocaust. By using repeated photographs and sayings as opposed to cartoons or images, the public quickly began to associate specific features with the Jewish community as well as specific images with their respective phrases, swaying the interpretation of photographs. German citizens had a clear understanding of what typical Jews looked like through photographic propaganda, something that cannot be properly conveyed through a drawing. When certain features are associated with a specific group of people it becomes easy to single them out based on their physical features and highlight them as an ‘inferior’ race. When more and more of the German community began to believe Hitler’s claims, Goebbels began to introduce a larger variety of photographs

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