Thursday, March 3, 2011

7. Germany: Part Three of Control and Propaganda

         I swear I am about to run gamut through my little rampage against horrifying propaganda and control of the media, but I simply cannot stop without addressing that media stoppage that prevailed in Nazi Germany. The free media lid was closed so tight that you faced death if you broke out of the acceptable channels of information. The case of Helmuth Hubener stands out for what the media can do for a person. Hubener was a young man in Nazi Germany who originally believed in the call of Nazism. In fact, he was a member of Hitler's youth. A chance broadcast he heard from BBC on the radio changed this thought. Hearing what was really happening rather that what the media of his own country had been feeding made Hubener realize that the Nazi plan was not the best of ideas. Indeed, with the free information provided by BBC - the democratic media – Hubener saw how misled his people were. He created a news flyer weekly – yet another form of democratic media – to tell his countrymen what he was hearing. Tragically because he was in a state against free media, he was eventually charged with crimes against the government and executed at the age of 17. His contribution to the media was so damaging to the Third Reich, although he was simply a young man with a voice and a medium.

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