Hitler's Terrible Weapon: Publicity-Exibit at Holocaust Memorial Museum

[RamboLiberal]

After touring the newly liberated Nazi concentration camp at Ohrdruf, Germany, in 1945, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower said that he made his very public visit "to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda.' "

Those words are chiseled on the wall of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which has just opened a major new exhibition devoted to propaganda. Eisenhower's intuition that propaganda, which made the Holocaust possible, might also be used to deny its existence remains prescient. Just last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel blasted the Catholic Church for rehabilitating the disgraced bishop, Richard Williamson, who has publicly questioned essential and accepted facts about the Nazi genocide.

In many ways, "State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda" feels like an introduction to Holocaust Museum 2.0. The $3.2 million exhibition is one of the largest and most ambitious in years, and certainly the most technologically slick in recent memory. By taking on the subject of propaganda, the museum is taking on the whole of the Nazi project, retelling the story of Hitler's rise to prominence, his consolidation of power, his ideology and his wars, and the aftermath, including a substantial look at how propaganda and genocide remain linked in places such as Rwanda.

One item on display, a large painting of the young Hitler speaking to a small, rapt audience, is titled "In the Beginning Was the Word." That biblical reference would make a good subtitle to "State of Deception," which covers much of the same ground as the museum's permanent collection, while more explicitly emphasizing the degree to which propaganda was the very fiber of the whole Nazi project.

It's also a subject of ongoing debate in our own political culture, where politicians routinely resort to the same techniques -- simplification, vilification, message branding -- that the Nazis relied on seven decades ago.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/10/AR2009021003582.html?hpid=artslot

[Taverner]

1. All thanks to Edward Bernays, the godfather of propaganda

[CoffeeCat]

3. Bernays was the Godfather of public relations...

Public relations, which is the practice of shaping public opinion, can be used for good.

You can elect Barack Obama using a stellar PR campaign, convince someone to attend an anti-war
march or spark sales of vitamins.

Public relations, and the techniques that Bernays pioneered aren't good or bad. However, the motivations
behind a particular campaign certainly can be good or bad.

Bernays was reported to have been shocked that the Nazis were using his techniques.

[Taverner]

4. That's why I said "godfather" and not "father"

Yes, he is the father of PR - but out of PR came propaganda studies.

In fact, propaganda was what Bernays was originally after, since he felt that the masses need direction

[JackRiddler]

7. You're practicing some of it yourself - PR, propaganda, advertising, all the same shit

And I doubt Bernays was shocked that the Nazis were using techniques he helped develop -- although I'm sure he was "reported to have been shocked," as you say. Since that's the point of propaganda: to be reported on, in just the right light.

And that is exactly what he called it: PROPAGANDA. As in the title of his book:



(Now we're going to see if you're capable of constructive embarrassment.) ;)

A quote should give an idea of Bernays's contempt for human beings:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

I recommend Stuart Ewen's excellent and seminal book PR for more on Bernays and his profoundly undemocratic ideas. Ewen even got to interview the man himself, before his death - he was still doing well mentally at the age of 105.

Over time, the original name for the art of selective information and manipulative presentation (or lying outright) for the purpose of influencing public opinion rightfully acquired negative connotations. So Bernays and his fellow ideology-mercenaries and bullshit artists took to calling it "public relations."

As for the "neutral tool" argument: please. The professional PR is exactly what people like the least about Obama, or any other politician. And most people can see right through it, but it still gets shoveled because if there's one thing the bullshit industries of PR/advertising/propaganda have successfully sold, it's that the bullshit industries are indispensable.

[Two Americas]

12. not so

"Public relations" is only required when you are not telling the truth. The truth doesn't need public relations. Thinking that it does has crippled the Democratic party and the political Left.

[zbdent]

2. ReRushicans will flock there to study the greats ...

but, in truth, Goebbels would be in awe of today's machine ...

[tom_paine]

5. Yes on both counts. n/t

[Diclotican]

10. zbdent

zbdent

I belive mr Gobbels, if he was alive today, would be verry impressed by todays mashine, who are far better than Gobbels could have imagined in the 1930s... Or in the 1940s. And it was not for the lack of trying.. Gobbels had the imagines to build up a propaganda system like never seen before.. And was using the whole power of the STATE to do it too... And even then he would be in awe and enwy of what the right have managed to build up in the US the last 60 or so year..

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language.

[robinlynne]

6. Years ago I went to see the Dachau concentration camp. The most shocking of

what I saw (well, maybe) was an exhibit just like the one you are writing about. It was in the museum, and had the newspapers of the time. You could see the entire history happening, via the propaganda in the newspapers. it built up slowly and changed. After one subject was pounded on for months, another soon became the item of the day, worse and worse, until Germany got to where it got to. I remember my absolute shock because it made it so real. You can actually imagine it happening. I highly recommend anyone go see this exhibition. Take a friend so you don't have to cry alone.
(I remember I was the only jewish person in my particular group, and it was pretty awful to feel alone there, when one of the kids made a terrible joke. I was a teenager.)

[DCKit]

8. Kinda' "Catapaulting the Propaganda"?

Repeating the same *WMD* thing *WMD* over *WMD* and *WMD* over *WMD* again *WMD* , until *WMD* everyone *WMD* accepts *WMD* it *WMD* as *WMD* the *WMD* truth *WMD*?

[Diclotican]

9. DCKit

DCKit

Bingo.. Same shit, just draped diferent... Pur, evil Propaganda of today.. And we know how many WMD the US discovered in Iraq...

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language

[robinlynne]

11. sort of, but more planned and subtle and building up. not in your face like the rethugs.

[Enthusiast]

13. It goes on today with "Liberals" caused it . nt