The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

particularly tough PR task trying to convince Germans of the wisdom of
such a move whilst at the same time ensuring that belief in the Führer
remained as high as ever. ‘He must be very busy this morning,’ Herr Wolter
had told Else Wendel on 24 August, ‘burning all the leaflets and books in
which he thundered against the Russians, and told us so carefully why and
how they were such barbarians. This morning they are our blood brothers.’
Else had laughed as hard as her boss. From that moment on, Goebbels had
had to try to persuade the nation that it was, after all, necessary to go to war.
The second main task was to present to Germans and potential enemies
alike an aura of ever-increasing military strength and invincibility, with the
aim of, first, persuading Germans that a war could and would be won and,
second, trying to cow these enemies. At the same time, it was the
Propaganda Ministry’s job to ensure the population received practical
advice about rationing, possible gas attacks, air raid protection and other
wartime considerations, whilst at the same time maintaining morale.
Although Goebbels was one of the best-known Nazis both at home and
abroad, he did not have complete domination of propaganda by any stretch
of the imagination. It was very much Hitler’s divide and rule style to
encourage jealousy and back-stabbing amongst his senior acolytes, so he
decreed that foreign propaganda should be handled by von Ribbentrop’s
foreign office and that military reporting be left to the OKW’s propaganda
department. Meanwhile, Hitler’s Reich Press Chief, Otto Dietrich, although
officially subordinate to Goebbels, was very much a part of the Führer’s
inner circle and produced daily directives to the press. Needless to say,
Goebbels repeatedly tried to persuade Hitler to bring all propaganda under
his control but the Führer refused to be budged.
Even so, Goebbels was able to get round most of these frustrating
blocks to his control. The Propaganda Ministry maintained a large foreign
section despite von Ribbentrop’s separate role in that area. Dietrich’s
authority, for example, bizarrely only ever extended to the press, not the
radio and news services. Unlike in Britain, however, there were few
national newspapers – nearly all were regional, and although newspapers
continued to be read widely, it was the radio, above all, that was used to
convey the message of the Third Reich; the Nazis had, from the outset, been
particularly radio-conscious.
Although radio saw a world-wide expansion in the 1930s, the Nazis,
particularly, had made sure that radio sets were both cheap and accessible.