Modern Propaganda and Fighting the Nazis
Hitler’s appointment as chancellor in 1933 followed a long year of ferocious struggle between the NSDAP and its largest opponent, the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The SPD’s shortcomings account for the rise of the Nazis as much as the strengths of Nazi organisation and propaganda. Many observe the pioneering techniques in propaganda piloted by the Nazis during their rise to power; Joseph Goebbels deployed his messaging across the whole gamut of media and communications, from leaflets targeting specific classes in different parts of the country to travelling sound systems rigged to vehicles blaring Nazi slogans on every street corner. The SPD attempted to respond to these tactics with their own messaging, albeit too little too late.
Serge Chakhotin’s political strategy for the SPD’s “Iron Front” is one example of an alternative that could have effectively confronted the NSDAP. Chakhotin’s “Iron Front” was a grassroots electoral coalition dedicated to militant anti-fascism, closely allied with the Reichsbanner organisation of militant Republicanism. Along with the young SPD activist Carlo Mierendorff, Chakhotin devised a cutting-edge propaganda strategy to counter the increasing prevalence of Nazi symbols and messages in towns and villages across Germany.
A former student of Ivan Pavlov, Chakhotin’s ‘symbol war’ against the Nazis utilised the theory of cognitive conditioning to make the presence of the anti-fascist movement feel just as massive as fascist mobilisations. Chakhotin’s strategy is significantly one of the first attempts at propaganda which utilised modern insights about the psyche and its interaction with the media. Suggested by his own phrase, this short-lived propaganda battle between the Socialists and the Nazis understood that new importance of politic’s symbolic dimension in the modern world. A classic left wing failure to organise, however, see in the SPD leadership’s reluctance to adopt new tactics, and their stubborn refusal to unite sparring grassroots elements who supported the Weimar, indirectly enabled the Nazi Party’s ultimate victory.
In 1928, the SPD was the largest political party in Germany with one hundred and fifty-three seats in the Reichstag. The Nazis had twelve. By the summer of 1932, the Nazis emerged decisively as the largest political party with two hundred and thirty seats, and the SPD would be abolished a year later by the new government. How did the social democrats, once the most powerful political party in the world, suffer such a dramatic reversal in fortune?
It is rarely the strength of an opposing party alone which inspires voters to choose one party over another. Internal blunders of strategy, organisation, and poor decisions made by leaders are just as significant. When we consider that one in six socialist voters in 1928 voted Nazi in 1924, that both parties regularly campaigned to win votes from the same demographics, and that both parties used increasingly similar language and imagery in their speeches, posters, and flyers, we see how the SPD could have won by 1933. Instead, by 1932, SPD failures became Nazi victories. In the late Weimar, politics became a tug-of-war between a socialist or fascist future. Victory would be determined by which vision voters considered more compelling, and by which Party failed to sell their program effectively.
Nazi success lay in their populist character, their emotional appeal, and their blending of racial and social resentments in their rhetoric. It was a characteristically modern form of populism, however, as it was greatly enhanced by modern propaganda. The classical tropes of demagoguery - rhetoric, sophistry, the arrogance of ignorance - were menacingly combined with a new media infrastructure which spread messages and symbols faster than before. Chakhotin understood before most of his socialist colleagues that this development could not be ignored, it could not be circumvented, it had be challenged directly.
In order to match the Nazi’s emotive appeal, the Republic needed to seem symbolically appealing to ordinary people. The now famous anti-fascist ‘three arrows’ were invented by Chakhotin as part of his campaign strategy. Designed to cross out the swastikas which Nazi organisers would graffiti on walls and public spaces, by spreading the three arrows symbol everywhere, on posters, walls, flyers, marching banners, etc., the SPD countered the symbolic presence of the Nazi swastika and created the impression of a forceful omniscient socialist opposition.
Amidst the sheer desperation that most Germans were plunged into during the early 1930s (industrial production in 1932 had plummeted to 59% of 1928’s value and 44% of the population were unemployed), socialist resistance required potent symbolism around which people could rally. Without a discernible, and visually distinct , display of SPD values on the campaign trail, socialists were at risk of cutting the people adrift from a viable alternative future. Along with the three arrows, Chakhotin’s strategies emphasised a new style of working-class militancy. New banners with bright red and gold colours became widespread at Republican demonstrations, and new styles of parades and cadre organising emphasised a cohesive working class movement. Worker militancy was supposed to confront fascist militancy.
After the Hesse campaign success for the SPD in 1932 where Chakhotin’s methods were deployed, the same reluctance of the Party leadership which had delayed these tactics led to their complete capitulation. We cannot evaluate the long term implications of Chakhotin’s methods because the SPD leadership accepted the coup of their government in Prussia by Chancellor Franz von Papen (20th July, 1932). At this critical juncture the SPD’s executive proved unwilling to set aside their ideological hesitations to provide the working class with the guidance they needed - working class anguish reached fever pitch as street battles between Nazi paramilitaries and socialist militant groups spread. With the legal integrity of the Republic compromised, the SPD leadership were thrown a gauntlet. At this moment, Chakhotin argued, “the socialist movement should have armed itself for war.” Instead, the same pattern of blunder and delay which crippled their propaganda campaign against the Nazis again scuppered their last chance to counter Hitler. Revisiting this forgotten battle between socialism and fascism reveals to us an alternative path to victory that the once mighty SPD could have taken to route the Nazis. Populism is available to everyone, and in 1932 it nearly beat the fascists at their own game.
