Selling Hitler: Propaganda and the Nazi Brand

by Nicholas O'Shaughnessy

Hitler was one of the few politicians who understood that persuasion was everything, deployed to anchor an entire regime in the confections of imagery, rhetoric and dramaturgy. The Nazis pursued propaganda not just as a tool, an instrument of government, but also as the totality, the raison d'etre, the medium through which power itself was exercised. Moreover, Nicholas O'Shaughnessy argues, Hitler, not Goebbels, was the prime mover in the propaganda regime of the Third Reich - its editor and first author.
Under the Reich everything was a propaganda medium, a building-block of public consciousness, from typography to communiques, to architecture, to weapons design. There were groups to initiate rumours and groups to spread graffiti. Everything could be interrogated for its propaganda potential, every surface inscribed with polemical meaning, whether an enemy city's name, an historical epic or the poster on a neighbourhood wall. But Hitler was in no sense an innovator - his ideas were always second-hand. Rather his expertise was as a packager, fashioning from the accumulated mass of icons and ideas, the historic debris, the labyrinths and byways of the German mind, a modern and brilliant political show articulated through deftly managed symbols and rituals. The Reich would have been unthinkable without propaganda - it would not have been the Reich.
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Genres: History, Nonfiction, Research, World War II, Politics

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2016

About the author

Nicholas Jackson O'Shaughnessy is professor of communications at Queen Mary, University of London.

Reviews

[Cold War Conversations Podcast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worrying echoes of today

Nicholas O’Shaughnessy’s book is a detailed account of how the Nazi party and Hitler rose from nothing to plunging the world into a second global war 20 years after the previous.

It’s a scholarly read, dense in places but doggedly portrays how Nazi thuggery, the “symbolism of the bully” became the norm in an otherwise civilised European state.

An excellent study that does bring new insight to the rise of Nazism and warns us of the perils of today’s politics.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm hesitant to give this book more than three stars. Less because of the content which is quite interesting and clearly well researched, but more because of the lack of flow and coherence in its presentation, as well as the author's intrusive personality.
To be fair, the author does say early on that he isn't interested in delivering a narrative structure, and he is true to his word. There is certainly no chronological 'story' here. More just a long list of of short thoughts and observations that while interesting are rarely fleshed out before he jumps to the next idea. Furthermore, his insistence that this book is unlike any other on the Nazis that has been written grows tiresome. Yes he is correct, more has been written about the Nazis than practically any other subject. He cites the number of thousands of books even within the last 20 years. However, his need to repeatedly claim how different his book is, smacks of insecurity. We get it. A further criticism I have, as with other authors who do the same, is he often cites his own work as references. While he does cite a good amount of other sources, I have always found it a little lazy to cite yourself. Essentially, "It's true because I say it is true", isn't quite good enough for me.
All of this notwithstanding, the information in the book is fascinating. Hitler's use of propaganda the author argues wasn't merely a facet of the rise of the Nazis, it was the central tenant of it. Without it, nothing else would have been possible. It was a propaganda that managed to be violent and also reassuring. It played to people's fears but also their aspirations and the idea of an ideal self. It appealed to a idealized (if nonexistent) past where things were better before all the foreigners and Jews ruined it. Such was the genius of Hitler and in a sense, all aspiring authoritarians, in that they know how to read and manipulate crowds as well as play on their collective emotions for their own gain. While there may never be anyone quite as sinister or skillful at this manipulation as Adolf Hitler was, the story of the Nazis remains a cautionary tale for the present day where authoritarian regimes seem to once again be on the rise.

[Steve Donoghue · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dense, brilliant study of the cultural tactics employed by the Nazis to cement their hold on power. Here's my full review:

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/boo...

[Fliss]

Helpful for my dissertation.

[jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Densely written scholarly work on the pervasiveness of propaganda used throughout the Nazi regime. Although not the first to utilize propaganda through all means of available media, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and their ilk were perhaps the most artful purveyors of propaganda up to then, and perhaps even up to the present. The key was to stress the emotional over the intellectual, the lie that had a grain of truth, to imbue perceived enemies with qualities that were actually a reflection of the Nazis conduct. The propagandists knew not to try changing minds, but how to express out loud what the common folk, i.e., the lower classes were feeling: powerlessness over their own destinies, a desire for order after the chaos of the Weimar republic, and a wish for vengeance against the intellectual elite by making them out to be the ultimate evil-the Jews.

[Bryan Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book as a communications professor delves into the use of propaganda.

[Josiah Lybbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book if you want to understand how propaganda works. The Nazis were the best at it and serve as the best case study you can get. It’s also a warning for certain movements in today’s world. We are currently seeing many of the same patterns of influence and persuasion that were used by the Nazis.

[Joel Gn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't expect a compelling story of how the Nazi propaganda machine came to be; this is a highly technical thesis that will appeal to those vested in a more topical case study of the regime's approach and methods of mass communication, as opposed to its more dramatic rise and fall.

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good look on how the Nazis and Hitler used the media and propaganda to help them in their rise to power. It was a bit dull in sections but overall a good read for anyone interested in the time.

**I received a copy from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for a review**

[Sergio Montoro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding historial analysis on Nazi Party propaganda as the root of every modern propaganda. Very well written.