Film in the Third Reich:
The Power of Images and Illusions
Adolf Hitler and his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, were keenly aware of cinema’s ability to mobilize emotions and to immobilize minds. The Nazi leadership also knew well that profound and lasting political effects could not derive from political expressions alone. As the films in this series bear out, standardized mass culture would become the Nazis’ secret formula for successful mass manipulation. Mass culture also served as a crucial precondition for mass murder. The Third Reich’s production of death and devastation would not have been possible without Nazi dream machinery.