More on Goebbels

I found myself exploring the PBS web pages on the American Experience program I mentioned below. One page is devoted to questions and answers about Goebbels with Professor Martin Kitchen providing the answers. Here's part of what Kitchen has to say:

Goebbels' major contribution was to introduce what the German-Jewish philology professor Victor Klemperer, who survived under the Nazis in Dresden, called "Lingua Tertii Imperii -- The Language of the Third Reich," in which common words took on new meanings. This enabled people to accept certain aspects of Nazi policy, particularly anti-Semitism, in a way that they previously wouldn't have done, because they learned to think and speak in a different language.

Take for example the different words used to describe how the Nazis intended to deal with the "Jewish problem": "removal", "resettlement", "evacuation", "final solution", "eradication", "annihilation". Most of these words are imprecise and their real meaning changed until they all finally meant "murder". Endless repetitions, euphemisms and shifting meanings became internalized, lowered the threshold of acceptance, and individuals treated with indifference what they would have previously found morally questionable. As Schiller wrote: this was a new vocabulary that insidiously became "a language that writes and thinks on your behalf."

In part this is due to peculiarities of the German language. Hitler was always described as the Führer, a word that has many meanings in German. "Leader" is the best-known, but it also means "guide", or simply "person in charge."

"Faith" was the key word in the creation of the Hitler myth. As he himself said: "All certainty comes from faith". A faith that he contrasted to "sterile intelligence." He insisted that "feelings have to take the place of thinking." The amazing thing is the number of people who had an absolute faith in Hitler. As Goebbels said in 1944: "We do not need to know what the Führer is going to do -- we believe in him." Even after the war, there were people who said they still believed in Hitler. It was a kind of religious fervor that had nothing to do with the realities of the war situation itself. Hitler constantly talked about will. His attitude was, if you will it, you can do it. This was part of his appeal. People saw him as a strong figure, a man of destiny, able to convey the absolute conviction that he was correct. He had a mission and a will to fulfill it.

Just think about this analysis and then about what's going on in our country today. Just think. My only hope lies in the fact that Bush's poll numbers are low. But the Republicans are still able to frame the issues with their language. That's what's so discouraging.