What was the role of media in germany for nazi
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Equally haunting, however, are another set of images that are oft-forgotten: In the years preceding World War II, news outlets from home magazines to the New York Times ran profiles of the Nazi leader that portrayed him as a country gentleman — a man who ate vegetarian, played catch with his dogs and took post-meal strolls outside his mountain estate.
These articles were often admiring — even after the horrors of the Nazi regime had begun to reveal themselves, says Despina Stratigakos, an architectural historian at the University at Buffalo.
Her new book, “Hitler at Home,” will be published Sept. 29 by Yale University Press. It recounts how the Führer’s inner circle worked throughout the 1930s to reinvent his image from a solitary oddball with few family ties to a statesman of fine taste and morals.
“They were able to engineer a complete transformation of Hitler’s public persona,” says Stratigakos, interim chair of architecture in UB’s School of Architecture and Planning. “They accomplished this by focusing on his private life — by showing him playing with his dogs and with children, and at home in architectural spaces designed to evoke a feeling of warmth. By the end of the 1930s, news stories around the world described him as a caring, gentle individual with great taste in home décor.”
“It was dangerous because it made him likeable,” Stratigakos said. “After reading these stories, people would feel like they knew the ‘true’ Hitler, the private man behind the Führer mask, and that maybe this person was not as bad as all of the news coming out of Europe seemed to suggest.”
She notes that while many historians have dismissed Hitler’s personal life as irrelevant, his private persona was in fact painstakingly constructed to further his political ends.
Flattering images of Hitler on the eve of war
Stratigakos says that her early research for the book uncovered a media landscape that felt surreal: “These news stories filled your head with positive images of Hitler. I was shocked at the extent of it and how late they appeared.”
On Aug. 20, 1939, the New York Times Magazine published an article describing the day-to-day life at Hitler’s mountain chalet.
This was 12 days before Germany invaded Poland and started World War II, nine months after the violent anti-Jewish pogroms of Kristallnacht, and six years after the first Nazi concentration camp opened at Dachau.
The article commented that Hitler’s estate on the Obersalzberg, a mountain retreat near the Austrian border, was “furnished harmoniously, according to the best of German traditions.” Unstained wainscoting and handwoven rugs combined to “create an atmosphere of quiet cheerfulness” in the Führer’s study, the New York Times reported.
A 1938 profile in Homes and Gardens, a British magazine, was similarly descriptive. The piece, a three-page feature on the same estate, related that the home was “bright” and “airy,” with a jade green color scheme. It noted that Hitler “had a passion for cut flowers,” and considered his gardeners, chauffeur and air-pilot not as servants, but as “loyal friends.”
“All kinds of publications — from serious political journals to LIFE and even American Kennel Gazette, a dog magazine — were covering this story about the ‘real’ Hitler,” Stratigakos said. “In 1934, the German Press Association reported that images of Hitler at home playing with his dogs or with children were the most popular images purchased by the media in Germany and abroad.”
Architecture as a tool for manipulation
The media’s adulation of Hitler on the eve of war shows how lifestyle stories considered “harmless fluff” can serve as powerful propaganda, Stratigakos said
Architecture played a key role in that effort: The makeover of the Führer’s public persona coincided with major renovations of three residences he occupied — the old chancellery in Berlin, his Munich apartment and his mountain home.
“Hitler at Home” documents the creation of these homes, showing how Hitler was intimately involved with each project, working closely with his architects and Frau Gerdy Troost — an interior designer who was well known at the time but subsequently forgotten by historian
The dangerous power of media “fluff”
The story of Hitler’s homes is far from over, Stratigakos says.
Today, as in the past, we believe our domestic spaces reflect the inner person — the person someone “truly” is.
That powerful association is easily manipulated, Stratigakos says.
Her book is not just about Hitler, she says, but also “about the way that we can be lulled into changing our ideas of someone through a slick presentation of their private lives.”
“The 1930s marked the rise of celebrity culture, in the era of talking movies, radio and new lifestyle magazines,” Stratigakos said. “People developed a strong desire to know what the private person was like behind the public facade. Hitler’s propagandists took advantage of the new celebrity culture and even helped to shape it.”
These articles were often admiring — even after the horrors of the Nazi regime had begun to reveal themselves, says Despina Stratigakos, an architectural historian at the University at Buffalo.
Her new book, “Hitler at Home,” will be published Sept. 29 by Yale University Press. It recounts how the Führer’s inner circle worked throughout the 1930s to reinvent his image from a solitary oddball with few family ties to a statesman of fine taste and morals.
“They were able to engineer a complete transformation of Hitler’s public persona,” says Stratigakos, interim chair of architecture in UB’s School of Architecture and Planning. “They accomplished this by focusing on his private life — by showing him playing with his dogs and with children, and at home in architectural spaces designed to evoke a feeling of warmth. By the end of the 1930s, news stories around the world described him as a caring, gentle individual with great taste in home décor.”
“It was dangerous because it made him likeable,” Stratigakos said. “After reading these stories, people would feel like they knew the ‘true’ Hitler, the private man behind the Führer mask, and that maybe this person was not as bad as all of the news coming out of Europe seemed to suggest.”
She notes that while many historians have dismissed Hitler’s personal life as irrelevant, his private persona was in fact painstakingly constructed to further his political ends.
Flattering images of Hitler on the eve of war
Stratigakos says that her early research for the book uncovered a media landscape that felt surreal: “These news stories filled your head with positive images of Hitler. I was shocked at the extent of it and how late they appeared.”
On Aug. 20, 1939, the New York Times Magazine published an article describing the day-to-day life at Hitler’s mountain chalet.
This was 12 days before Germany invaded Poland and started World War II, nine months after the violent anti-Jewish pogroms of Kristallnacht, and six years after the first Nazi concentration camp opened at Dachau.
The article commented that Hitler’s estate on the Obersalzberg, a mountain retreat near the Austrian border, was “furnished harmoniously, according to the best of German traditions.” Unstained wainscoting and handwoven rugs combined to “create an atmosphere of quiet cheerfulness” in the Führer’s study, the New York Times reported.
A 1938 profile in Homes and Gardens, a British magazine, was similarly descriptive. The piece, a three-page feature on the same estate, related that the home was “bright” and “airy,” with a jade green color scheme. It noted that Hitler “had a passion for cut flowers,” and considered his gardeners, chauffeur and air-pilot not as servants, but as “loyal friends.”
“All kinds of publications — from serious political journals to LIFE and even American Kennel Gazette, a dog magazine — were covering this story about the ‘real’ Hitler,” Stratigakos said. “In 1934, the German Press Association reported that images of Hitler at home playing with his dogs or with children were the most popular images purchased by the media in Germany and abroad.”
Architecture as a tool for manipulation
The media’s adulation of Hitler on the eve of war shows how lifestyle stories considered “harmless fluff” can serve as powerful propaganda, Stratigakos said
Architecture played a key role in that effort: The makeover of the Führer’s public persona coincided with major renovations of three residences he occupied — the old chancellery in Berlin, his Munich apartment and his mountain home.
“Hitler at Home” documents the creation of these homes, showing how Hitler was intimately involved with each project, working closely with his architects and Frau Gerdy Troost — an interior designer who was well known at the time but subsequently forgotten by historian
The dangerous power of media “fluff”
The story of Hitler’s homes is far from over, Stratigakos says.
Today, as in the past, we believe our domestic spaces reflect the inner person — the person someone “truly” is.
That powerful association is easily manipulated, Stratigakos says.
Her book is not just about Hitler, she says, but also “about the way that we can be lulled into changing our ideas of someone through a slick presentation of their private lives.”
“The 1930s marked the rise of celebrity culture, in the era of talking movies, radio and new lifestyle magazines,” Stratigakos said. “People developed a strong desire to know what the private person was like behind the public facade. Hitler’s propagandists took advantage of the new celebrity culture and even helped to shape it.”
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