CYIL vol. 15 (2024)

AVITUS A. AGBOR addition, individuals out of the formal administrative elite were also prosecuted. A good example is the case of Streicher who ran a private newspaper to disseminate anti-Jewish literature: his case is of high importance as his conviction was based on not only the contents of his publications but their contributory effect to the overall mayhem that ensued in Germany. 2.2 Hans Fritzsche, Nazi Propaganda Minister In Nazi Germany, Fritzsche was a member of the Nazi Party and the Nazi Cabinet in which he served in different capacities. An accomplished journalist, he played different but significant roles in the propaganda machinery of the Nazi regime. Heading the Wireless News Service ( Drahtloser Dienst ) in the beginning of September 1932, he became attached to the Reich Ministry for People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda (commonly referred to as the Propaganda Ministry) on May 1, 1933. 11 He then occupied various positions in the Nazi regime till its collapse in May of 1945. In May 1933, the Wireless News Service was incorporated into Dr Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry where Fritzsche continued to serve as its head until 1938. 12 He also headed the news section of the Press Division of the Frank (who was the Civilian Governor-General of occupied Poland); Alfred Rosenberg (Minister of German occupied eastern territories and official ideologist of the Nazi Regime); Ernst Kaltenbrunner (following Heinrich Himmler’s suicide, he was the senior surviving official of the SS and Gestapo); Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel (Chief, Hitler’s Military Staff); Robert Ley (Leader of the German Labour Front); Joachim von Ribbentrop (Hitler’s Foreign Minister); Rudolf Hess; and Hermann Goering. Even though not in the official ranks, one individual was added because of the considerable influence he wielded over the broader German population, and the role he played in the indoctrination, identification, ostracization and victimisation of Jews in Germany: Julius Streicher. In addition to the foregoing names, the prosecution looked into the broader Nazi Regime and identified individuals who were responsible for specific Nazi entities and other criminal groups. For example, Grand-Admiral Karl Doenitz, Gustav Krupp, Fritz Sauckel, who was the primary figure in the foreign forced labor program; Albert Speer, who was Hitler’s favourite architect and later became Minister of Armament and Munitions; Walter Funk who succeeded Schacht as head of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics; Arthur Seyss-Inquart, an Austrian Nazi who later became Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy from 1943–1945, and was named in Hitler’s will as President and Supreme Commander in the Reich; Hjalmar H. G. Schacht, who, prior to the war, was head of Reichsbank and Minister of Economics, did handle the financing necessary to expand war production); Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, who was the Commander in Chief of the German Navy until his retirement in 1943, Hans Fritzsche, who was the highest subordinate of Goebbels at the Propaganda Ministry; Constantin von Neurath, who was Ribbentrop’s predecessor as Former Minister, and later Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia; Franz von Papen, who was the Reich Chancellor in 1932, Vice Chancellor in the Hitler Cabinet from 1933–1934 and subsequently Ambassador to Austria and Turkey; Alfred Jodl, who was Chief of Operations on Hitler’s Military Staff; Baldur von Schirach, who was the Nazi Youth Leader, added because of his ‘vicious indoctrination’ of the youths; and Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer whose death had not been confirmed officially at the time of the indictment: see Taylor 78–115. See also OVERY, R., Interrogations: The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945 (Allen Lane 2001). 11 KERSHAW, Ian, ‘How effective was Nazi propaganda?’ in Nazi Propaganda (RLE Nazi Germany & Holocaust) (Routledge 2014); O’SHAUGHNESSY, Nicolas, ‘Selling Hitler: propaganda and the Nazi brand’ 9 Journal of Public Affairs: An International Journal 55 ; and YOURMAN, Julius, ‘ Propaganda Techniques Within Nazi Germany’ 13 The Journal of Educational Sociology 148. In the context of hate speech, the word propaganda, as used, literally refers to the use of misleading and biased literature or information for the promotion of a political cause or point of view. 12 The Propaganda Ministry was given broad jurisdiction by a decree issued by the German Führer on June 30, 1933, which stipulated that „the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and propaganda has jurisdiction over the whole field of spiritual indoctrination if the nation, of propagandizing the State, of cultural and economic propaganda, of enlightenment of the public at home and abroad. Furthermore, he was in charge of the administration of all institutions serving those purposes“: see para. 2030-PS of the Affidavits at Nuremberg Trials.

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