Nazi Propaganda and the Second World War

ARISTOTLE A. KALLIS is Lecturer in European Studies at Lancaster University, UK, and researches in interwar European fascism with a particular focus on the German and Italian cases. He is the author of Fascist Ideology: Territory and Expansionism in Italy and Germany 1922-1945 (Routledge 2000) and editor of The Fascism Reader (Routledge 2004).

'A refreshing reading and a solid appraisal of the omnipresent manipulation of information and disinformation during the Second World War in Germany. The quality of interpretation, the attention to detail, and reader-friendly narrative must be mentioned here. All these add substantial value to Kallis's depiction of Nazi wartime propaganda. Kallis has placed the subject of Nazi propaganda in its broader context and has addressed important questions regarding political religions, totalitarianism and fascism. Amongst the new generation of scholars forming in the footsteps of those who, like Roger Griffin, Michael Burleigh, Emilio Gentile, and Walter Adamson, revised the discipline in the 1990s, Kallis is arguably the most prominent. This book certainly substantiates this claim.' - Marius Turda, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 'This book presents a thoroughly researched summary of current debates about Nazi propaganda with a main focus on the war years...[Kallis] provides the English-speaking reader with a brief survey that covers all relevant aspects of Nazi war propaganda and challenges the assumption that Germans followed Goebbels' perfectly-orchestrated propaganda'. - Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

• Introduction Propaganda, 'Co-ordination' and 'Centralisation': The Goebbels Network in Search of a Total Empire 'Polyocracy' versus 'Centralisation': The Multiple 'Networks' of NS Propaganda The Discourses of NS Propaganda: Long-term Employment and Short-term Justification From 'Short Campaign' to 'Gigantic Confrontation': NS Propaganda and the Justification of War, 1939-1941 From Triumph to Disaster: NS Propaganda from the Launch of 'Barbarossa' until Stalingrad National Socialist Propaganda and the Loss of the Monopoly of Truth (1943-44) The Winding Road To Defeat: The Propaganda Of Diversion And Negative Integration Cinema and Totalitarian Propaganda: 'Information' and 'Leisure' in National Socialist Germany, 1939-45 Conclusions: Legitimising the Impossible? Bibliography