#1 - WWW II | Facing History & Ourselves

#1 - WWW II

Resources 7
Last Modified April 24, 2023
Description History
Reading

Spying on Family and Friends

Discover the effects of the “Malicious Attacks” law, which criminalized dissent to the Nazi party, had on one German family and on German society as a whole.

Notes
WWW II
Hitler Youth groups educated young people according to Nazi principles, and the encouraged comradeship and physical fitness through outdoor activities
Reading

Speaking in Whispers

Learn about the role of cell and block wardens, Germans who collected information about their neighbors in Nazi German society.

An issue of the antisemitic propaganda newspaper Der Stürmer (The Attacker) is posted on the sidewalk in Worms, Germany, in 1935. The headline above the case says, ""The Jews Are Our Misfortune.""
Reading

The Nuremberg Laws

Learn about the laws that redefined what it meant to be German in Nazi Germany, and that stripped Jews and others of citizenship.

In 1933, Jewish businessman Oskar Danker and his girlfriend, a Christian woman, were forced to carry signs discouraging Jewish-German integration. Intimate relationships between “true Germans” and Jews were outlawed by 1935.
Reading

Discovering Jewish Blood

Find out how one family's lives changed when Hitler passed the Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany.

 This chart was designed to help Germans determine their racial status as outlined by the 1935 Nuremberg Laws.
Reading

The Impact of Nazi Propaganda: Visual Essay

Explore a curated selection of primary source propaganda images from Nazi Germany.

Hubert Lanzinger Der Bannerträger (The Standard bearer)
Reading

Art and Politics

Discover how the Nazis used art as a tool to promote their ideology by celebrating what they perceived as authentic German art and eliminating art they deemed degenerate.

 This display from a 1937 degenerate art exhibit is entitled ""German Peasants—From a Jewish Perspective.” It includes paintings by German Expressionist artists Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Pechstein, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff.
Reading

Propaganda at the Movies

Learn how the Nazis used film to create an image of the “national community” and to demonize those they viewed as the enemy, such as the Jews.

Leni Riefenstahl's documentary-style film Triumph of the Will  glorified Hitler and the Nazi party. It was shot at the 1934 Nazi Party congress and rally in Nuremberg.