Love, Hate and Propaganda: Reflections on the making of a documentary series
Résumé
Decision making and the transmitting of information lie at the heart of politics. Letting people know what you are doing is as important as the actual deeds themselves. This simple reality was the starting point for David Welch’s work on the Third Reich. The Nazis’ obsession with propaganda took many forms – pictorial, architectural, musical and of course cinematic. All of these dimensions worked together to form consensus and create the illusion of a ‘national community’. What was true for the Nazis applies to other totalitarian regimes, and, let us admit, to democracies, too. Propaganda and techniques of mass communication are, therefore, at the heart of political identities in the twentieth century. Looked at together, they allow us to sketch out a different history of the contemporary world, in which appearances are discussed, and dismantled, so that the strategies employed by states and political forces are laid bare. And, at the heart of this history, are to be found feelings.