Nazi Propaganda, What's Wrong with Higher Education and the Ultimate Solution: Wedlock!

                                               
A few postings back, I promised to avoid commenting on the Presidential election until we are certain of who the major party nominees will be, and that may mean waiting until after the Conventions.  I have been sticking to that, too!   Meanwhile, there are a lot of interesting thoughts to post. Some follow.  What are yours?   Let me know.  
Jack Lippman


                                                

Why We Need to Study Nazi Propaganda

By Dr. Steven Luckert

(This article appears in the Spring 2016 issue of Memory&Action, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Magazine.  Learn more by clicking on the Museum's web site where donations may be made as well.)

Today’s Extremists Use Proven Techniques to Win Followers and Spread Hate

In the early 1920’s, long before he became a household name in German politics, Adolf Hitler visited a collector of political posters in Munich.  He went there to learn how the United States, Great Britain and France designed their propaganda against Germany in World War I.  He believed that the still-insignificant Nazi Party could draw lessons from it.

The Nazis perfected their techniques of political advertising in a democracy, where they had to compete against a multitude of parties vying for a majority.  Using these skills, Hitler’s movement emerged from the beer halls of Munich to become, in just a few year, the largest political party represented in the German parliament.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Americans, such as famed Hollywood director Frank Capra, studied Nazi propaganda to create potent anti-fascist messages.  During World War II, these messages helped to mobilize the United States to combat Nazi Germany.

Today, studying Nazi propaganda can help us counter dangerous speech that undermines democratic values, demonizes groups, and facilitates mass atrocities and genocide.

At the recent openings of our traveling exhibition State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda, in Paris and Los Angeles, students, teachers, and other visitors said that now, more than ever, we need this exhibition to start national conversations about the power and perils of propaganda in our own time.  Extremist groups, from the self-proclaimed Islamic State to neo-Nazis, use the Internet and social media to spread their ideas and recruit new members to spread their ideas and recruit members around the globe. And youth are the most at risk.

Tools to Persuade the Masses

While 2016 is not 1933, looking back at how the Nazis used propaganda and the latest technologies to sway millions of people and to facilitate their radical goals may help us confront problems today.

The Nazi Party revolutionized political messaging in Germany, drawing upon advertising techniques and new technologies to win over audiences.  Its innovative approaches to propaganda and insight into mass psychology continue to be applied today by populist and extremist organizations.  Learning how the Nazis used propaganda and why audiences responded positively to their message can help prepare democratic societies to better resist and counter dangerous speech.

The Nazi Party emerged out of the revolution and chaos after World War I, merely one of many extremist parties in Germany.  But in a few short years it went from political insignificance to prominence.  Nazi representation in the 500–member German parliament rose from 12 se. ats in 1928 to 230 seats in 1932.  This was a feat unparalleled in German or world history.  The Nazis accomplished this by communicating carefully crafted messages that appealed to a German people devastated by the Great Depression and disillusioned with the status quo. They played on popular fears of communism and pledged to end reparations payments forced on Germany by the Versailles Treaty that ended World War I.  Many voters deserted mainstream political parties to throw their support to political outsiders, who tapped into their fears and sold a vision of hope, unity and prosperity.

To garner such mass appeal, Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and others had to persuade millions of ordinary Germans to give them a chance.  The Nazis drew on successful messaging techniques employed by Socialists, Communists, Italian Fascists, and even American propagandists in World War I.  Building upon this pioneering work, they created a brand for the Nazi Party that differentiated it from 30 other political rivals.  Hitler crafted an image of himself as an unknown soldier, a common man, who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to become national leader. It was a new narrative in German politics.

Equally innovative was Hitler’s design of the Nazi flag, a black swastika emblazoned on a background of red and white.  It amounted to a logo for his movement, rare for a political party at the time.  Few logos have had such success in gaining immediate or long-lasting visual recognition.

Hitler understood that he had to appeal to all segments of society, so the Nazi Party promoted the idea that it alone could unify the nation and speak on behalf of all Germans, regardless of class, region, or religion.  Jews were perceived as an alien “race,” not a religious group and not part of the “true” German nation.  The Nazi Party negatively branded its political rivals as special interest groups who cared only about their narrow constituencies.

Appealing to all Germans required skillful communications strategies to retain the party’s extremists, while reaching out to mainstream voters.  Although the Nazis never abandoned their antisemetic platform, they understood from their audience research that anti-Jewish rhetoric did not appeal to all segments of the German population or resonate in all areas of Germany.  When Hitler ran for the German presidency in 1932, he refrained from antisemitic rants because he was interested in gathering as many votes as possible.  Instead of confronting Nazi antisemitism andracism, many Germans just preferred to overlook these ugly aspects of the party’s ideology.

Grassroots Organizing

To Germans far and wide, Nazi propagandists employed the latest technologies, film, recordings, and eventually radio.  Such novel tools attracted audiences, much as social media does today.  But the Nazis realized, as does ISIS, that the party had to establish a human connection to the targeted audiences.  Nazi propagandists encouraged members to invite a friend to a rally or meeting, and then suggested the new recruits invite their friends.  Through such contacts, the Nazis build up a huge grassroots organization that mobilized its base during electoral campaigns.

While the Nazi Party never attained a majority in any free German election, its mass support convinced German President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Adolf Hitler chancellor.  Once in power, the Nazis eradicated German democracy in a few short months.  In his first 100 days, Hitler abrogated the civil rights of all Germans, set up concentration camps, and initiated anti-Jewish legislation and policies.  Germany went from a state with more than 30 political parties to a one-party dictatorship.  This cleared the path for world war and the Holocaust.

Today, as we are again confronting the rise of extremism in society, it is vitally important that we learn from Holocaust history.  Propaganda works only when there is a receptive audience to its messages and a lack of voices countering this dangerous speech.  Making young people aware of the power of propaganda and the horrible consequences of unchecked hatred is an urgent need in today’s world if we hope to inoculate our societies from the virus of extremism.

(Dr. Luckert is senior program curator in Digital Learning and New Media in the Museum’s William Levine Family Institute for Holocaust Education.) 

                                                   

Third and Long for American Higher Education

The names of America’s leaders in the worlds of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) aren't the same kind of names that they used to be.  Only a few years ago, the names were a mix of traditional American Anglo-Saxon surnames and surnames representing the waves of immigration which came to this country over the past 150 years.  Now, however, things are different. Many such names are now of Chinese, Korean or Indian origin, among others. In some instances, this represents the increased immigration of these groups to this country and is just a continuation of the roles Jews, Italians and other immigrant groups have played over earlier decades.

In many instances, these STEM leaders were educated in their own countries and then came to the United States for higher education and advanced degrees. Some return to their own countries but many stay here in the scientific, medical, engineering and in even the business worlds.  Whichever course they follow, the number of foreign students in American graduate programs is mind-boggling.  A study in 2013, covering many major institutions, showed that about 90 percent of students pursuing advanced degrees in electrical engineering here, for example, were from other nations!  And I suspect that the same is true of other STEM disciplines. It is not an encouraging story.  (Check out the revealing statistics on this by clicking here.)

 

Grad Students in Lab at Univ. of Washingaton

How does this happen?  Well, I suspect that when the University of Wherever is choosing students for their post-graduate programs, hiring teaching assistants, and so forth, their selection process is a mixture of  grades, scores on tests, prior achievements and interviews.  And it looks like those with foreign undergraduate work are beating out American-educated students for these slots.  Some also may be foreign students who have excelled in getting their undergraduate degrees right here in the United States, as well, and have surpassed American students in achievement.

Why is this happening?  I believe that the association of our institutions of higher education with competitive athletic programs has moved the “ethos,” for want of a better word, of such institutions a few degrees away from academic excellence and shifted it in the direction of the school’s involvement in such athletics. And that is making all the difference.  Nowhere else in the world are institutions of higher learned wedded to highly sophisticated athletic programs. 

While this affects all schools, it is most noticeable in universities in the major athletic conference such as the SEC, the ACC, the Big 10, the Big 12 and the PAC.  Stadiums seating 100,000 filled with students and alumni watching supposed student athletes vying for championships, and all of the activities associated with such events, cannot help but detract from the primary mission of the university, education.

Foreign students come from institutions abroad where the sole purpose of being there is education, and their focus is undivided.  The University of Mumbai, which has over 500,000 students on its several campuses actually does have a football (we would call it soccer) team, but their stadium seats only 5,000 on benches although there are plans to expand it to 30,000.  But you get the idea.  

Even foreign undergraduate students in our universities here operate outside of the athletic-tinged atmosphere in which American students dwell.  That is why they do better and along with those with foreign undergraduate degrees, are dominating our graduate programs in the STEM disciplines.

This is where we stand today, and it does not bode well for higher education in the United States, particularly since more and more high school graduates, many ill-prepared, will be continuing on to higher education in a future where job opportunities are shrinking.  Here is my thought as to how to remedy this situation.  AND IT IS A RADICAL ONE.

College athletics must be separated from the academic role of institutions of higher learning.  How can we do this?  Well, for example, an alumni “foundation” might lease a university’s stadium and basketball arena where they would field athletic teams to nominally represent the school in major college sports.  Eventually, they might buy these facilities outright. The teams would still wear the school colors, but the athletes and coaches would be hired professionals (not students), coached by a hired outside staff.  The money from ticket sales and TV revenues would pay their salaries and the rent for the stadiums.  Students and alumni could attend athletic events if they wish, and cheer the team on, but this would have nothing whatsoever to do with the school, only with the Alumni Foundation which sponsors the team.  And of course, these teams would play in the season-climaxing bowl games with all the attendant hoop-lah, but this whole exercise would not have any connection with the academic institution the Alumni foundation represents.  Any profit from such operations would be donated to the school for academic purposes but the university administration would have nothing whatsoever to do with such alumni “foundations.”  And if intercollegiate football ultimately faded away entirely in such an environment, it would not be the worst thing that could happen, from an educational standpoint.

Once athletics are thusly divorced from our institutions of higher learning, they will be better able to focus on reaching the levels of achievement on the undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral levels for all of their students, levels which seem increasingly to be becoming the domain of foreign students and graduates of foreign universities these days.  Only then will the United States be able to remain competitive in the STEM disciplines.  Time is short.

JL

                                     
                                                     

How to Get Your Blood Pressure Up

Okay, so your doctor tells you that you have low blood pressure (hypotension) and aside from the pills he has prescribed, you’re looking for other solutions for your problem.  Well, it could be right there in your TV set!  If your politics lean toward the left, try a steady diet of Sean Hannity who is seen nightly on Fox News.  He’ll make your blood boil, but be careful not to throw a lamp at the TV screen.  And if you miss his program, there are plenty of others on Fox which will serve just as well.  The same remedy exists if you are a conservative.  Then, you should go for Rachel Maddow on MSNBC who will serve adequately to raise the blood pressure of any right winger.

 

Hannity, Maddow and Charen

But you don’t need a TV set to address this problem. My blood pressure went up the other morning when I read Mona Charen’s column in the paper.  It was titled “How Marriage Achieves What U.S. Government Can’t” and it dealt with some studies which pointed out that married people have better cancer survival rates, and are generally healthier than people who are not married.  She points out that the “retreat from marriage” prevalent in the black community, along with other causes, may result in higher illness rates among blacks.  She then goes on to bemoan that “with the Hispanic and white populations now retreating from marriage as well, many of the pathologies that had been politely called “inner city” woes – widespread drug abuse, joblessness, mental illness and school failure – are on the upswing among whites.”

 

 Charen's Cure-all Solution

Charen’s agenda, if one follows her columns, appears to be one where the government does little to address social and economic problems, thereby keeping taxes low, and counts on the private sector and charities to work toward solving these problems.  While marriage is a desirable state, and certainly the studies show it has a salutary effect on health, it is not a substitute for government programs to address the problems she cites.  Conservatives like Charen will do anything to discredit government, often making the libertarian ideas of having as little government as possible begin to approach anarchy.  That’s a good way to raise one’s blood pressure, whether you’re married or not.  

JL

 
                                         
                                                

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