X-Message-Number: 18273 Date: Tue, 01 Jan 2002 16:21:24 -0800 From: Olaf Henny <> Subject: Message #18258 from Mike Darwin References: <> I am responding to Mike Darwin's posting concerning the significant achievements of Leni Riefenstahl in cinematic opinion forming, without the benefit of having read any of the books about her. However I have personally been exposed to the euphoric atmosphere her film productions created among the German public. Even though I was just a small child at the time, I sensed the powerful, uplifting impact they had on the adults in my life. While the architect Albert Speer designed the monumental setting of the parade grounds featured in "Triumph of the Will", he was not the founder of the propaganda technique used in her films. That was clearly the creation of 'Reichspropagandaminister Dr. Joseph Goebbels', an unequalled genius in mass manipulation. His technique was later also widely used by the communist leadership. I was exposed to it on both sides, as an enthusiastic and willing target by the Nazis* and later as a hostile exposed to communist propaganda. The power of it is enormous. Just a quick introduction to my situation at the time: In 1950 I was one of only seven students in my school, who were still refusing to join the FDJ, the communist youth organization, and found myself under immense pressure to do so. Instead I changed schools and ended up in a class, where there were 6 of us still on the outside. Only a couple of month thereafter I was again the lone resisting student in my class. I was clearly no friend of the system. On occasion of the May 1st 1951 Workers Day parade, we were marching in true totalitarian style, ten or fifteen abreast, past a stage occupied the then president of the GDR, Wilhelm Pieck, and his entourage. Chanting all around us, the loudspeaker proclaimed: "The president of the German Democratic Republic salutes the students of the Goethe Schule (our school)". Around me everybody was clapping with hands raised above their heads. It was mass frenzy and although I resented the guy, as I have resented few in my life, my impulse at the time was to raise my hands and join in the clapping. I resisted and clenched my briefcase instead, but I realized then how profound the impact of mass manipulation can be. It does not work in our present situation, because the profound building of a new world by a new generation concept is missing or no longer credible as a mass movement setting. In communism it was the new world, where everybody has equal rights and shares in the wealth for a better and brighter future. With the Nazis it was the prosperous future achieved through healthy living and strengthening of body and mind in order to evolve into a stronger people . Those, who were not there, and know of Nazi atrocities will have difficulty understanding the mind set of the German people of the time. The 6 or 7 % of the population, who were directly exposed to those atrocities mostly disappeared quietly over night and faded from the memories of the general population. 99% of the rest of us had absolutely no idea, what was happening to them afterwards and the fraction of one percent, who were directly involved in those atrocities, did well for themselves by not talking about it, unless they wanted to share the fate of their victims. *The rest of us (the then adults anyway) have experienced in the years prior to Hitler s election in 1932: 60 to 70% unemployment, galloping inflation, during which you started in the morning after negotiating a wage, which would feed the family for a day, and in the evening, when you got paid, it was barely enough to buy one cigarette. Tumults in the streets fist fights between Nazis and Communists, the Weimar Republic out of control. Then in just six short years Germany rose from being the economically most devastated industrialized country to the one with the highest living standard with full employment. That was the foundation for the fanatic enthusiasm, with which the people supported the Nazis, and why their believe in the final victory of Germany was unwavering for so long. Albert Speer, Hitlers architect, is also credited with bringing the German war production into high gear and condemned for using slave labour to achieve that. In 1942, when he took over and when the bombing of industrial plants in the from Britain easy to reach Rhein/Rhur areas by the Allies started in earnest, the monthly production of tanks (the smallish P4) was under 100. By 1944 it had risen to 400 of the much bigger Koenigstiger, despite the relentless bombing. Best, Olaf Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18273