It’s been 80 years since the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany. It all seems pretty improbable now, that a political party whose main platform was eliminating Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and other “undesirables,” led by a shrill man with a toothbrush mustache, could attain, let alone maintain, absolute power, and do it so quickly—between 1928 and 1932, the Nazi constituency in the 500-member German parliament grew from 12 to 230. But as the new Field Museum exhibit “State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda” shows, Adolf Hitler and his propaganda officers were masters at graphic design and niche marketing and at harnessing new technology to spread their messages.
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In its early years, the Nazi Party portrayed itself as all-inclusive, with an everyman leader in Hitler, a patriot who had fought for the German army in World War I even though he technically didn’t give up his Austrian citizenship until shortly before he became president. “It didn’t matter if you were an aristocrat or a farmer, a Protestant or a Catholic,” says Luckert. “This was new in German politics.”
The Nazi propaganda machine kept close tabs on public opinion and tailored its messages accordingly. In areas where polls showed that residents weren’t especially interested in the “Jewish question,” for example, it played down its anti-Semitism and emphasized other issues people said were important to them. It was only after the Nazis rose to power and eliminated all other political opposition that their propaganda began targeting Jews as the enemy.
Since it opened nearly five years ago, “State of Deception” has been one of the most popular exhibits at the Holocaust Museum. “It raises important issues about the role propaganda played for the Nazis,” says Luckert, “but it also gets visitors thinking about their own role as consumers of information.”
There will be three more “Standard of Living” shows over the next two years, but Stewart isn’t yet sure what they’ll include. She’s organized two meetings in November (the first is at 2 PM on Saturday, November 2, at the gallery) for curators, community organizers, scholars, and other interested individuals to discuss which issues to address in the upcoming exhibitions.
Reception Fri 11/1, 5-8 PMThrough 12/14Gallery 400400 S. Peoriagallery400.uic.eduFree
“State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda”
11/6-2/2Field Museum1400 S. Lake Shorefieldmuseum.org$15
