Customer Reviews

Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic (Rhetoric & Public Affairs)

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Bytwerk has written a very accessible book about the use of propaganda by the two twentieth century dictatorships in Germany - the nazis and the communists. It's well-organized with excellent endnotes and a lengthy bibliography. While I think the subject deserves two in-depth booklength studies on each individual era instead of this comparative approach, "Bending Spines" is a good introduction. At times however, the comparative structure simply breaks down, for example in the chapter comparing the role of satire journals under Hitler and in the GDR. Bytwerk's hunt for anti-semitic "humor" in East German sources to compare to the Nazi's overwhelming hatred made me cringe. Bytwerk provides a wonderful website as a supplement to this book. It is an archive of translations of both Nazi and communist propaganda and is superb.

Award-winning author an Professor of Communication Randall Bytwerk presents Bending Spines: The Propagandas Of Nazi Germany And The German Democratic Republic, a scholarly close study that strives to answer a larger question: why do totalitarian propagandas such as those created in Nazi Germany and the former German Democratic Republic succeed so well in the short term, yet fail in the long term? Examining in-depth the litany of persuasive techniques used by the regimes, and ultimately concluding that the government expected more of propaganda than it was able to deliver, Bending Spines leaves no word unturned in its search to comprehend what truth moves and manipulates human hearts and minds. A sober, meticulous dissection of the lessons of history.