Goebbels' Principles of Propaganda #16

Keep them Afraid

PROPAGANDA TO THE HOME FRONT MUST CREATE AN OPTIMUM ANXIETY LEVEL

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Extremes are rarely desirable. Apparently, that includes propaganda aimed at your own people.

Domestic propaganda needs balanced, according to Hitler’s propaganda chief. Goebbels felt that propaganda aimed at your own population needed to keep them anxious - but not too anxious. The goal was just enough fear to keep control, and not so much that the targets panic. The same tactic is used today. Enough fear to vote and buy trinkets, but not so much they stay at home in gloominess.

Propaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat

The battle needs to be, at least in the minds of the targets, a “fight for their very lives,” see Goebbels’ Principles of Propaganda by Leonard Doob, that “they must fight it with their entire strength.” That was the basis for asking Germans to sacrifice as much as the Nazi regime needed. Keeping them willing to do it was the goal of German domestic propaganda campaigns. It made anxiety the foundation of voluntary suffering.

The true Nazi vulnerability was the appeal of peace to wartime Germans...