Hitlers Theater Art as Propaganda

Description

Overview: A regimented use of spectacle theater to brainwash millions of Germans on a massive scale with lies and half-truths to psychologically prepare them to murder six million Jews. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Public Information and Propaganda, announced shortly after Hitler's seizure of power plans to build 400 theaters with seating capacities ranging from 10 to 50,000 "so that the spiritual experience [Nazi doctrine] could be fulfilled." Already painfully seasoned with distress, anger and hatred as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, deep economic depression, abdication of the Kaiser and a contentious Weimar Republic government, the German people were ready for a target at which to aim blame for their misfortunes. The xenophobic attitude of Germans toward foreign culture and thought played directly into the Nazi’s plan to eradicate the primarily Jewish influenced theater, disenfranchise their Jewish population and send it packing into exile or extermination. In order to fill the artistic vacuum, Goebbels’ Cultural Board enlisted thousands of voluntary laborers to build massive amphitheaters that roughly resembled the ancient Greek models on “sacred ground” claimed to be sites of medieval Teutonic feats of valor and victories over foreign encroachment.