Customer Reviews

State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is the accompaniment to one of the temporary exhibits at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. The book shows the progression of Nazi propaganda as the party attempts to legitimize itself into German society. It shows how the Nazis used all different types of media to get their message across to people and gain power. Then the book shows how once they gained power, they targeted the Jews and other minorities as scapegoats. The book is filled with large full-color posters and pictures, as well as illustrations of charts and graphs used by the Nazis to further their agenda. In one memorable picture, it shows a Parcheesi-type board game the Nazis designed to promote their twisted ideology - children rolled the dice to move the Jews out of the city!

If you have seen this exhibit, you will definitely want this book as it will remind you of what you saw. If you haven't, then this book will give you a fantastic overview of the tremendous lengths the Nazi state was willing to go to in order to keep control over the people. I consider myself to be very well-read on the history of Nazi Germany and WW-II, and I found many new things in this book. That is why I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the topic.

My title states 'beautiful but ugly book.' What I mean is that this is book is beautiful in the way it is laid out and the color of the photos and pictures. But is ugly in that it shows first hand the darkest element of human history. The book has a enormous collection of NAZI propaganda and anti-semitic posters from the WW II era. It shows with horrifying intensity the true NAZI propaganda machine.

The Holocaust Museum did a great job on this book. If you want to understand how the Nazi regime used propaganda to stir hatred of the Jews, this book will help; it contains more examples than any other book I've come across. Never forget.

There is this underlying notion that what happened in Germany with regards to the Nazi party was unique and could never happen anywhere else. This notion is especially interesting because at the same time there are groups like the 9/11 truth movement that believe it is happening right now in the USA, but one might argue that it's not quite the same because Germany didn't have dissidents against the Nazi party. Or were stupid, or ignorant or ... "well, why didn't they stop them!"...

This book is excellent, for one it features a lot of Nazi propaganda posters, though not as many as it could have which strikes me as odd because surely a work of this nature would include everything ... then again ... people might not attend the museum. Still, more would have been nice. On the flip side, it doesn't just focus on posters but includes to some extent discussions about movies and news paper / magazines, and the smaller less graphic / iconic items.

The other reason I'm not going for a higher rating is that for the most part the narrative doesn't go deep enough. It discusses a couple of topics / instances in greater depth but then still doesn't cover the area completely. Things like 'why was that poster structured that way' or 'how did this one aimed at the workers differ from the ones aimed at the higher classes' are not addressed. Rather the title points out that different tones and sentiments were used, but now how or why (aside from the obvious).

In fairness though the book is not about that, and it is easy to always expect more. Still the impact of the message would have been less superficial. That is not to say this is a bad title, far from it, it just isn't more than a short and introductory treatment. To illustrate: the main body of work is 166 pages, and just about every page features a picture, so there isn't a lot of text, what what is there is great.

The history is very well written and balanced though again it could have gone deeper as to how and why things changed for the people and how this is reflected in the propaganda. In truth I don't know that these are legitimate concerns but they are questions raised in my mind. Overall though the material is excellent in scope and as far as a book of this nature, which aims to focus on the propaganda material, rather than the in depths assessment of technique or historic context it is excellent. One lovely feature is that the authors don't take the stance that it could not have happened anywhere else, or that it could never happen again, and really that is what we should take away from this episode of history, and use to assess what we read, hear and see in the media today.

After visiting the special exhibit on Nazi propoganda at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, I knew I had to acquire this companion book. Full of important illustrations of objects used to sway minds and hearts, the book also has invaluable copy to go along with the graphics. In addition to being an essential history of the time, it also reminds us of the same manipulations used today in political campaigns and the media. Beautifully produced and should be read not only by adults but by every high school student in America!

When I first ordered this book I did not know what to expect. I had completed some research on Nazi propaganda; however, this was one of the best sources I have found so far. Far better than I expected. Amazing Illustrations.