Why do totalitarian propaganda such as those created in Nazi Germany and the former German Democratic Republic initially succeed, and why do they ultimately fail? Outside observers often make two serious mistakes when they interpret the propaganda of this time. First, they assume the propaganda worked largely because they were supported by a police state, that people cheered Hitler and Honecker because they feared the consequences of not doing so. Second, they assume that propaganda really succeeded in persuading most of the citizenry that the Nuremberg rallies were a reflection of how most Germans thought, or that most East Germans were convinced Marxist-Leninists. Subsequently, World War II Allies feared that rooting out Nazism would be a very difficult task. No leading scholar or politician in the West expected East Germany to collapse nearly as rapidly as it did. Effective propaganda depends on a full range of persuasive methods, from the gentlest suggestion to overt violence, which the dictatorships of the twentieth century understood well.
In many ways, modern totalitarian movements present worldviews that are religious in nature. Nazism and Marxism-Leninism presented themselves as explanations for all of life—culture, morality, science, history, and recreation. They provided people with reasons for accepting the status quo. Bending Spines examines the full range of persuasive techniques used by Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic, and concludes that both systems failed in part because they expected more of their propaganda than it was able to deliver.
I went to Northwestern University as a graduate student in 1971 expecting to do research on John Calvin's rhetoric, an interest I'd developed as an undergraduate at the Calvin College, where I now teach. I quickly discovered that to do research on Calvin, I needed to know French and Latin. I knew German. Professor Robert D. Brooks, however, was looking for graduate students interested in propaganda, and I was the only one who knew enough German to be dangerous. He persuaded me to take up the subject, which has kept me occupied ever since.
With a few exceptions, my publications are on Nazi and East German political propaganda. A full list is available here:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/faculty/randallbytwerk.htm
Besides my books on the area, I maintain the German Propaganda Archive, a large and growing collection of translations and images from the Nazi and East German periods. It's worth a visit:
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/
I'm currently working on how the Nazis used American rhetoric during World War II in their propaganda.
