Dr. Joseph Goebbels, head of Germany's Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. His masterful use of propaganda for Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP made him a prototype of the modern spin doctor in public conscience.

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Propaganda, the coordinated attempt to influence public opinion through the use of media, was skillfully used by the NSDAP in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's leadership of Germany (1933–1945). National Socialist propaganda provided a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of their policies, including the pursuit of total war and the extermination of millions of people in the Holocaust.

The pervasive use of propaganda by the Nazis is largely responsible for the word "propaganda" itself acquiring its present negative connotations.^[1]

Chronology[link]

In opposition (1919–33)[link]

Nazi leader Adolf Hitler devoted two chapters of his 1925/26 work Mein Kampf, itself a propaganda tool, to the study and practice of propaganda.^[2] He claimed to have learnt the value of propaganda as a World War I infantryman exposed to very effective British and ineffectual German propaganda.^[3] The argument that Germany lost the war largely because of British propaganda efforts, expounded at length in Mein Kampf, reflected then-common German nationalist claims. Although untrue – German propaganda during World War I was mostly more advanced than that of the British – it became the official truth of Nazi Germany thanks to its reception by Hitler.^[4]

Mein Kampf contains the blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts. Assessing his audience, Hitler writes in chapter VI:

"Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. (...) All propaganda must be presented in a popular form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. (...) The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood."^[5]

As to the methods to be employed, he explains:

"Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula."

Hitler put these ideas into practice with the reestablishment of the Völkischer Beobachter, a daily newspaper published by the Nazi Party (NSDAP) from February 1925 on, whose circulation reached 26,175 in 1929. It was joined in 1926 by Joseph Goebbels's Der Angriff, another unabashedly and crudely propagandistic paper.

During most of the Nazis' time in opposition, their means of propaganda remained limited. With little access to mass media, the party continued to rely heavily on Hitler and a few others speaking at public meetings until 1929.^[6] In April 1930, Hitler appointed Goebbels head of party propaganda. Goebbels, a former journalist and Nazi party officer in Berlin, soon proved his skills. Among his first successes was the organization of riotous demonstrations that succeeded in having the American anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front banned in Germany.^[7]

In power (1933–39)[link]

Before World War II, Nazi propaganda strategy, officially promulgated by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, stressed several themes. Their goals were to establish external enemies (countries that allegedly inflicted the Treaty of Versailles on Germany) and internal enemies, such as Jews, Romani, homosexuals, and Bolsheviks. Hitler and Nazi propagandists played on the anti-Semitism and resentment present in Germany. The Jews were blamed for things such as robbing the German people of their hard work while themselves avoiding physical labour. Der Stürmer, a Nazi propaganda newspaper, told Germans that Jews kidnapped small children before Passover because “Jews need the blood of a Christian child, maybe, to mix in with their Matzah.” Posters, films, cartoons, and fliers were seen throughout Germany which attacked the Jewish community, such as the 1940 film The Eternal Jew.

Reaching out to ethnic Germans in other countries such as Czechoslovakia, France, Poland, the Soviet Union and the Baltic states was another aim of Nazi party propaganda. In Mein Kampf, Hitler makes a direct remark to those outside of Germany. He states that pain and misery is forced upon ethnic Germans outside of Germany, and that they dream of common fatherland. He finished by stating they needed to fight for one’s nationality.^[8] Throughout Mein Kampf, he pushed Germans worldwide to make the struggle for political power and independence their main focus.

Nazi propaganda efforts then focused on creating external enemies. Propagandists strengthened the negative attitude of Germany towards the Treaty of Versailles by territorial claims and ethnocentrism. When the Treaty was signed in 1919 non-propagandists newspapers headlines across the nation spoke German’s feelings, such as “UNACCEPTABLE” which appeared on the front page of the Frankfurter Zeitung in 1919. The Berliner Tageblatt, also in 1919, predicted “Should we accept the conditions, a military furore for revenge will sound in Germany within a few years, a militant nationalism will engulf all.”^[9] Hitler, knowing his nation's disgust with the Treaty, used it as leverage to influence his audience. He would repeatedly refer back to the terms of the Treaty as a direct attack on Germany and its people. In one speech delivered on January 30, 1937 he directly states that he is withdrawing the German signature from the document to protest the outrageous proportions of the terms. He claims the Treaty makes Germany out to be inferior and “less” of a country than others only because blame for the war is placed on it. The success of Nazi propagandists and Hitler won the Nazi party control of Germany and eventually led to World War II.^[10]

For months prior to the beginning of World War II in 1939, German newspapers and leaders had carried out a national and international propaganda campaign accusing Polish authorities of organizing or tolerating violent ethnic cleansing of ethnic Germans living in Poland.^[11] On 22 August, Adolf Hitler told his generals:

"I will provide a propagandistic casus belli. Its credibility doesn't matter. The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth."^[12][13]

The main part of this propaganda campaign was the false flag project, Operation Himmler, which was designed to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which was subsequently used to justify the invasion of Poland.^[12][13][14]

At war (1939–45)[link]

Until the conclusion of the Battle of Stalingrad on February 4, 1943, German propaganda emphasized the prowess of German arms and the humanity German soldiers had shown to the peoples of occupied territories. Pilots of the Allied bombing fleets were depicted as cowardly murderers, and Americans in particular as gangsters in the style of Al Capone. At the same time, German propaganda sought to alienate Americans and British from each other, and both these Western nations from the Soviets. One of the primary sources for propaganda was the Wehrmachtbericht, a daily radio broadcast that described the military situation on all fronts. Nazi victories lent themselves easily to propaganda broadcasts and were at this point difficult to mishandle.^[15] Satires on the defeated, accounts of attacks, and praise for the fallen all were useful for Nazis.^[16] Still, failures were not easily handled even at this stage; when the Ark Royal proved to have survived an attack that German propaganda had hyped, considerable embarrassment resulted.^[17]

After Stalingrad, the main theme changed to Germany as the sole defender of what they called "Western European culture" against the "Bolshevist hordes". The introduction of the V-1 and V-2 "vengeance weapons" was emphasized to convince Britons of the hopelessness of defeating Germany.

Problems in propaganda arose easily in this stage; expectations of success were raised too high and too quickly, which required explanation if they were not fulfilled, and blunted the effects of success, and the hushing of blunders and failures caused mistrust.^[18] The increasing hardship of the war for the German people also called forth more propaganda that the war had been forced on the German people by the refusal of foreign powers to accept their strength and independence.^[19] Goebbels called for propaganda to toughen up the German people and not make victory look easy.^[20]

On June 23, 1944, the Nazis permitted the Red Cross to visit concentration camp Theresienstadt to dispel rumors about the Final Solution, which was intended to kill every Jew. In reality, Theresienstadt was a transit camp for Jews en route to extermination camps, but in a sophisticated propaganda effort, fake shops and cafés were erected to imply that the Jews lived in relative comfort. The guests enjoyed the performance of a children's opera, Brundibar, written by inmate Hans Krása. The hoax was so successful for the Nazis that they went on to make a propaganda film (Theresienstadt) at Theresienstadt. Shooting of the film began on February 26, 1944. Directed by Kurt Gerron, it was meant to show how well the Jews lived under the "benevolent" protection of the Third Reich. After the shooting, most of the cast, and even the filmmaker himself, were deported to the concentration camp of Auschwitz where they were killed.^{[citation needed]}

Goebbels committed suicide on May 1, 1945, shortly after Hitler had killed himself. Hans Fritzsche, who had been head of the Radio Chamber, was tried and acquitted by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal.

Media[link]

Newspapers[link]

The Völkischer Beobachter ("People's Observer") was the official daily newspaper of the NSDAP since December 1920. It disseminated Nazi ideology in the form of brief hyperboles directed against the weakness of parliamentarism, the evils of Jewry and Bolshevism, the national humiliation of the Versailles Treaty and other such topics.^[21] It was joined in 1926 by Der Angriff ("The Attack"), a weekly and later daily paper founded by Joseph Goebbels. It was mainly dedicated to attacks against political opponents and Jews – one of its most striking features were vehemently antisemitic cartoons by Hans Schweitzer – but also engaged in the glorification of Nazi heroes such as Horst Wessel.^[6] The Illustrierter Beobachter was their weekly illustrated paper.^[22]

Other Nazi publications included

• Das Reich, a more moderate and highbrow publication aimed at intellectuals and foreigners;
• Der Stürmer, the most virulently antisemitic of all;^[23] and
• Das Schwarze Korps, an SS publication, aiming at a more intellectual tone.^[24]

After Hitler's rise to power in 1933, all of the regular press came under complete Nazi editorial control through the policy of Gleichschaltung, and short-lived propaganda newspapers were also established in the conquered territories during World War II.

Newspapers in occupied countries[link]

In Ukraine, after Nazis cracked down on the papers, most papers printed only articles from German agencies, producing the odd effect of more anti-American and anti-British articles than anti-Communist ones.^[25] They also printed articles about antecedents of German rule over Ukraine, such as Catherine the Great and the Goths.^[25]

Speakers[link]

The Nazi party relied heavily on speakers to make its propaganda presentations, most heavily before they came to power, but also afterwards. Hitler, in Mein Kampf, recounted that he had realized that it was not written matter but the spoken word that brought about changes, as people would not read things that disagreed, but would linger to hear a speaker.^[26] Furthermore, speakers, having their audiences before them, could see their reactions and adjust accordingly, to persuade.^[27] His own oratory was a major factor in his rise, and he despised those who came to read pre-written speeches.^[28]

Such speakers were particularly important when it was not wanted that the information put across not reach foreigners, who could access the mass media.^[29] Schools were instituted to substitute for the political conflict that had formed the old speakers.^[30] In 1939, Walter Tiessler, speaking of his own experience as an early speaker, urged that they continue.^[31]

Sturmabteilung speakers were used, though their reliance on instinct sometimes offended well-educated audiences, but their blunt and folksy manner often had their own appeal.^[32]

The ministry would provide such speakers with information, such as how to spin the problems on the eastern front,^[33] or how to discuss the cuts in food rations.^[34] The party propaganda headquarters, sent the Redner-Schnellinformation [Speakers’ Express Information] out with guidelines for immediate campaigns, such as anti-Semitic campaigns and what information to present.^[29]

Specific groups were targeted with such speakers. Speakers, for instance, were created specifically for Hitler Youth.^[35] These would, among other things, lecture Hitler Youth and the BDM on the need to produce more children.^[36]

Posters[link]

Poster art was a mainstay of the Nazi propaganda effort, aimed both at Germany itself and occupied territories. It had several advantages. The visual effect, being striking, would reach the viewer easily.^[37] Posters were also, unlike other forms of propaganda, difficult to avoid.^[38]

Imagery frequently drew on heroic realism.^[39] Nazi youth and the SS were depicted monumentally, with lighting posed to produce grandeur.^[39]

Hans Schweitzer, under the pen name "Mjölnir" produced many Nazi posters.^[40]

Posters were also used in schools, depicting, for instance, an institution for the feeble-minded on one hand and houses on the other, to inform the students that the annual cost of this institution would build 17 homes for healthy families.^[41]

Films[link]

The Nazis produced many films to promote their views. Themes included the virtues of the Nordic or Aryan type, German military and industrial strength, and the evils of the Nazi enemies. On March 13, 1933, The Third Reich established a Ministry of Propaganda, appointing Joseph Goebbels as its Minister. On September 22, 1933, a Department of Film was incorporated into the Chamber of Culture. The department controlled the licensing of every film prior to its production. Sometimes, the government would select the actors for a film, financing the production partially or totally, and would grant tax breaks to the producers. Awards for "valuable" films would decrease taxes, thus encouraging self-censorship among movie makers.^[42]

Under Goebbels and Hitler, the German film industry became entirely nationalised. The National Socialist Propaganda Directorate, which Goebbels oversaw, had at its disposal nearly all film agencies in Germany by 1936. Occasionally, certain directors such as Wolfgang Liebeneiner were able to bypass Goebbels by providing him with a different version of the film than would be released. Such films include those directed by Helmut Käutner: Romanze in Moll (Romance in a Minor Key, 1943), Große Freiheit Nr. 7 (The Great Freedom, No. 7, 1944), and Unter den Brücken (Under the Bridges, 1945).

Schools were also provided with motion pictures projectors because film was regarded as particularly appropriate for propagandizing children.^[43] Films specifically created for schools were termed "military education."^[43]

Newsreels were explicitly intended to not be the truth, but to portray such of the truth as was in the interest of Germany to spread.^[44]

Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1934) by film-maker Leni Riefenstahl chronicles the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg. It features footage of uniformed party members (though relatively few German soldiers), who are marching and drilling to classical melodies. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including speeches by Adolf Hitler. Frank Capra used scenes from the film, which he described partially as "the ominous prelude of Hitler's holocaust of hate" in many parts of the U.S. government's Why We Fight anti-Axis seven film series, to demonstrate what the personnel of the American military would be facing in World War II, and why the Axis had to be defeated.

Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew, 1940) was directed by Fritz Hippler at the insistence of Goebbels, though the writing is credited to Eberhard Taubert. The movie is done in the style of a documentary, the central thesis being the immutable racial personality traits that characterize the Jew as a wandering cultural parasite. Throughout the film, these traits are contrasted to the Nazi state ideal: while Aryan men find satisfaction in physical labour and the creation of value, Jews only find pleasure in money and a hedonist lifestyle.

Books[link]

The Nazis and sympathizers published many books. Most of the beliefs that would become associated with the Nazis, such as German nationalism, eugenics and anti-Semitism had been in circulation since the 19th century, and the Nazis seized on this body of existing work in their own publications.

The most notable is Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf detailing his beliefs.^[45] The book outlines major ideas that would later culminate in World War II. It is heavily influenced by Gustave Le Bon's 1895 The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, which theorized propaganda as a way to control the seemingly irrational behaviour of crowds. Particularly prominent is the violent anti-Semitism of Hitler and his associates, drawing, among other sources, on the fabricated "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". For example, Hitler claimed that the international language Esperanto was part of a Jewish plot and makes arguments toward the old German nationalist ideas of "Drang nach Osten" and the necessity to gain Lebensraum ("living space") eastwards (especially in Russia).

Other books such as Rassenkunde des deutschen Volkes (Ethnology of German People) by Hans F. K. Günther and Rasse und Seele (Race and Soul) by Dr. Ludwig Ferdinand Clauss attempt to identify and classify the differences between the German, Nordic or Aryan type and other supposedly inferior peoples. These books were used as texts in German schools during the Nazi era.

The pre-existing and popular genre of Schollen-roman, or novel of the soil, also known as blood and soil novels,^[46] was given a boost by the acceptability of its themes to the Nazis and developed a mysticism of unity.^[47]

The immensely popular "Red Indian" stories by Karl May were permitted despite the heroic treatment of the hero Winnetou and "colored" races; instead, the argument was made that the stories demonstrated the fall of the Red Indians was caused by a lack of racial consciousness, to encourage it in the Germans.^[48] Other fictional works were also adapted; Heidi was stripped of its Christian elements, and Robinson Crusoe's relationship to Friday was made a master-slave one.^[49]

Text books[link]

"Geopolitical atlases" emphasized Nazi schemes, demonstrating the "encirclement" of Germany, depicting how the prolific Slav nations would cause the German people to be overrun, and (in contrast) showing the relative population density of Germany was much higher than that of the Eastern regions (where they would seek Lebensraum).^[50] Geography text books stated how crowded Germany had become.^[51] Other charts would show the cost of disabled children as opposed to healthy ones, or show how two-child families threatened the birthrate.^[52] Math books discussed military applications and used military word problems, physics and chemistry concentrated on military applications, and grammar classes were devoted to propaganda sentences.^[53] Other textbooks dealt with the history of the Nazi Party.^[54] Elementary school reading text included large amounts of propaganda.^[55]

Maps showing the racial composition of Europe were banned from the classroom after many efforts that did not define the territory widely enough for party officials.^[56]

Even fairy tales were put to use, with Cinderella being presented as a tale of how the prince's racial instincts lead him to reject the stepmother's alien blood for the racially pure maiden.^[57] Nordic sagas were likewise presented as the illustration of Führerprinzip, which was developed with such heroes as Frederick the Great and Bismark.^[58]

Literature was to be chosen within the "German spirit" rather than a fixed list of forbidden and required, which made the teachers all the more cautious^[59] although Jewish authors were impossible for classrooms.^[60] While only William Shakespeare's MacBeth and The Merchant of Venice were actually recommended, none of the plays were actually forbidden, even Hamlet, denounced for "flabbiness of soul."^[61]

Biology texts, however, were put the most use in presenting eugenic principles and racial theories; this included explanations of the Nuremberg Laws, which were claimed to allow the German and Jewish peoples to co-exist without the danger of mixing.^[62] Science was to be presented as the most natural area for introducing the "Jewish Question", once teachers took care to point out that in nature, animals associated with those of their own species.^[63]

Teachers' guidelines on racial instruction presented both the handicapped and Jews as dangers.^[64] Despite their many photographs glamorizing the "Nordic" type, the texts also claimed that visual inspection was insufficient, and genealogical analysis was required to determine their types, and report any hereditary problems.^[65]

Books for occupied countries[link]

In occupied France, the German Institute encouraged translation of German works, although chiefly German nationalists, not ardent Nazis, and produced a massive increase in the sale of translated works.^[66] The only books from English to be sold were English classics, and books with Jewish authors or Jewish subject matter (such as biographies) were banned, except for some scientific works.^[67] Control of the paper supply allowed Germans the easy ability to pressure publishers about books.^[67]

Comics[link]

The Nazi-controlled government in German-occupied France produced the Vica comic book series during World War II as a propaganda tool against the Allied forces. The Vica series, authored by Vincent Krassousky, represented Nazi influence and perspective in French society, and included such titles as Vica contre le service secret anglais, and Vica défie l’Oncle Sam.^[68]

Magazines[link]

In and after 1939, the Zeitschriften-Dienst was sent to magazines to provide guidelines on what to write for appropriate topics.^[69]

Nazi publications also carried various forms of propaganda.

Neues Volk, the monthly publication of the Office of Racial Policy, carried racial propaganda.^[70] While chiefly aimed at fomenting ethnic pride through ideal Aryan types, it also included articles aimed at Jews and "defectives."^[71]

The NS-Frauen-Warte, aimed at women, included such topics as the role of women in the Nazi state.^[72] Despite its propaganda elements, it was predominately a woman's magazine.^[73] It defended anti-intellectualism,^[74] urged women to have children, even in wartime,^[75][76] put forth what the Nazis had done for women,^[77] discusses bridal schools,^[78] urged women to greater efforts in total war.^[79]

Der Pimpf was aimed at boys and contained both adventure and propaganda.^[80]

Das deutsche Mädel, in contrast, recommended for girls hiking, tending the wounded, and preparing for care for children.^[81] It lay far more emphasis than NS-Frauen-Warte on the strong and active German woman.^[73]

Signal[link]

Signal was a propaganda magazine published by the Wehrmacht during World War II.^[82] It was distributed throughout occupied Europe and neutral countries. "Signal" was published from April 1940 to March 1945, and had the highest sales of any magazine published in Europe during the period 1940 to 1945—circulation peaked at two and one half million in 1943. At various times, it was published in at least twenty languages. There was an English edition distributed in the British Channel Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark—these islands were occupied by the Wehrmacht during World War II.

The promoter of the magazine was the chief of the Wehrmacht propaganda office, Colonel Hasso von Wedel. Its annual budget was 10 million Reichmarks, roughly $2.5 million at the pre-war exchange rate.

The image that Signal hoped to create was that of Nazi Germany and its New Order as the great benefactor of European peoples and of Western civilization in general. Germany and its allies were depicted as the humane liberators of the occupied nations. Some articles displayed color photographs of dramatic battle scenes. The magazine contained little anti-Semitic propaganda, and the Jews were hardly mentioned.^{[83][84] [85]}

Radio[link]

The radio was an important tool in Nazi propaganda and it has been argued that it was the Nazis who pioneered the use of what was still a relatively new technology as a tool of genocide.^[86]

Internal broadcasts[link]

Certainly the Nazis recognised the importance of radio in disseminating their message and to that end Goebbels approved a scheme whereby millions of cheap radio sets (the Volksempfänger) were subsidised by the government. Goebbels claimed the radio was the "eighth great power",^[87] and he, along with the Nazi party, recognized the power of the radio in the propaganda machine of Nazi Germany. In that "Radio as the Eighth Great Power" speech, Goebbels proclaimed:

It would not have been possible for us to take power or to use it in the ways we have without the radio....It is no exaggeration to say that the German revolution, at least in the form it took, would have been impossible without the airplane and the radio. ...[Radio] reached the entire nation, regardless of class, standing, or religion. That was primarily the result of the tight centralization, the strong reporting, and the up-to-date nature of the German radio.

By the start of the Second World War over 70% of German households had one of these radios, which were deliberately limited in range in order to prevent loyal citizens from considering other viewpoints in foreign broadcasts.^[86] Radio broadcasts were also played over loudspeakers in public places and workplaces.^[86]

In private homes, however, people could easily turn off the radio when bored and did so once the novelty of hearing the voice from a box wore off; this caused the Nazis to introduce many non-propaganda elements, such as music, advice and tips, serials and other entertainment.^[88] This was accelerated in the war to prevent people from tuning in enemy propaganda broadcasts; though Goebbels claimed in his Das Reich article that it was to make the radio a good companion to the people, he admitted the truth in his diary.^[89]

External broadcasts[link]

As well as domestic broadcasts, the Nazi regime also used radio to deliver its message to both occupied territories and enemy states. One of the main targets was the United Kingdom to where William Joyce broadcast regularly, gaining the nickname 'Lord Haw-Haw' in the process. Joyce first appeared on German radio on 6 September 1939 reading the news in English but soon became noted for his often mischievous propaganda broadcasts.^[90] Joyce was executed in 1946 for treason. Although the most notorious, and most regularly heard, of the UK propagandists, Joyce was not the only broadcaster, with others such as Norman Baillie-Stewart, Jersey-born teacher Pearl Vardon, British Union of Fascists members Leonard Banning and Susan Hilton, Barry Payne Jones of the Link and Alexander Fraser Grant, whose show was aimed specifically at Scotland, also broadcasting through the 'New British Broadcasting Service'.^[91]

Broadcasts were also made to the United States, notably through Robert Henry Best and 'Axis Sally' Mildred Gillars. Best, a freelance journalist based in Vienna, was initially arrested following the German declaration of war on the US but before long he became a feature on propaganda radio, attacking the influence of the Jews in the US and the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^[92] He would later be sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. Gilders, a teacher in Germany, mostly broadcast on similar themes as well as peppering her speech with allegations of infidelity against the wives of servicemen. Her most notorious broadcast was the 'Vision of Invasion' radio play, broadcast immediately prior to D-Day, from the perspective of an American mother who dreamed that her soldier son died violently in Normandy.^[93]

France also received broadcasts from Radio-Stuttgart, where Paul Ferdonnet, an anti-Semitic journalist, was the main voice during the Phoney War.^[94] Following the occupation Radio Paris and Radio Vichy became the main organs of propaganda, with leading far right figures such as Jacques Doriot, Philippe Henriot and Jean Hérold-Paquis regularly speaking in support of the Nazis. Others who broadcast included Gerald Hewitt, a British citizen who lived most of his life in Paris and had been associated with Action Française.^[95] The use of domestic broadcasters intended to galvanise support for occupation was also used in Belgium, where Ward Hermans regularly spoke in support of the Nazis from his base in Bremen,^[96] and the Italian Social Republic, to where Giovanni Preziosi broadcast a vehemently anti-Semitic show from his base in Munich.^[97] Pro-Nazi broadcasts were even heard in North Africa, where Mohammad Amin al-Husayni helped to ensure the spread of Nazi ideas in the Arabic language.^[98]

Fine art[link]

Arno Breker's sculptures of the Nordic man made him Hitler's favorite sculptor.^[99]

By Nazi standards, fine art was not propaganda. Its purpose was to create ideals, for eternity.^[100] This produced a call for heroic and romantic art, which reflected the ideal rather than the realistic.^[101] Explicitly political paintings were very rare.^[102] Still more rare were anti-Semitic paintings, because the art was supposed to be on a higher plane.^[103] Nevertheless, selected themes, common in propaganda, were the most common topics of art.

Sculpture was used as an expression of Nazi racial theories.^[104] The most common image was of the nude male, expressing the ideal of the Aryan race.^[105] Nudes were required to be physically perfect.^[106] At the Paris Exposition of 1937, Josef Thorak's Comradeship stood outside the German pavilion, depicting two enormous nude males, clasping hands and standing defiantly side by side, in a pose of defense and racial camaraderie.^[107]

Landscape painting featured mostly heavily in the Greater German Art exhibition,^[102] in accordance with themes of blood and soil.^[108] Peasants were also popular images, reflecting a simple life in harmony with nature,^[109] frequently with large families.^[110] With the advent of war, war art came to be a significant though still not predominating proportion.^[111]

The continuing of the German Art Exhibition throughout the war was put forth as a manifestation of German's culture.^[112]

Themes[link]

Nazi propaganda promoted Nazi ideology by demonizing the enemies of the Nazi Party, especially Jews and communists, but also capitalists and intellectuals. It promoted the values asserted by the Nazis, including heroic death, Führerprinzip (leader principle), Volksgemeinschaft (people's community), Blut und Boden (blood and soil) and pride in the German race. Propaganda was also used to maintain the cult of personality around Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and to promote campaigns for eugenics and the annexation of German-speaking areas. After the outbreak of World War II, Nazi propaganda vilified Germany's enemies, notably the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States, and exhorted the population to partake in total war.

Historiography[link]

Nazi propaganda is a relatively recent topic of close study.^[113] Historians of all persuasions, including Eastern Bloc writers, agree about its remarkable effectiveness.^[113] Their assessment of its significance, however – whether it shaped or merely directed and exploited public opinion – is influenced by their approach to wider questions raised by the study of Nazi Germany, such as the question whether the Nazi state was a fully totalitarian dictatorship, as argued by Hannah Arendt, or whether it also depended on a certain societal consensus.^[114]

In addition to media archives, an important primary source for the study of the Nazi propaganda effort are the reports on civilian morale and public opinion that the Sicherheitsdienst and later the RMVP compiled from 1939 on. Another are the Deutschland-Berichte, reports gathered by underground agents of the Sopade that particularly dealt with German popular opinion.^[115]

See also[link]

• Amt Rosenberg
• Lapplandsender
• Japanese propaganda during World War II
• Propaganda of Fascist Italy
• British propaganda during World War II
• American propaganda during World War II
• Propaganda in the Soviet Union
• Censorship in Germany

Bibliography[link]

• Welch, David (1993). The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda. Routledge. ISBN 0-203-93014-2. 

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nazi propaganda

• Advertising Evil: Pro-Nazi Posters — slideshow by Life magazine
• Nazi and East German Propaganda Guide Page German Propaganda Archive
• "What is at Stake" by Joseph Goebbels German Propaganda Archive
• Vica Nazi Propaganda Comics - Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
• 2010 German Exhibit Shows Mass Appeal Of Nazi Ideology - audio report by NPR

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Walt Disney
Walt Disney on January 1, 1954
Born	Walter Elias Disney (1901-12-05)December 5, 1901[1] Hermosa, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	December 15, 1966(1966-12-15) (aged 65) Burbank, California, U.S.
Cause of death	Lung Cancer
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California, U.S.
Residence	Burbank, California
Nationality	American
Education	McKinley High School
Occupation	Film producer, Co-founder of The Walt Disney Company, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions
Years active	1920–1966
Home town	Chicago, Illinois
Political party	Republican
Board member of	The Walt Disney Company
Religion	Christian (Congregationalist)[2]
Spouse	Lillian Bounds (1925–1966; his death)
Children	Diane Marie Disney Sharon Mae Disney
Parents	Elias Disney Flora Call Disney
Relatives	Ronald William Miller (son-in-law) Robert Borgfeldt Brown (son-in-law) Roy Edward Disney (nephew)
Family	Herbert Arthur Disney (brother) Raymond Arnold Disney (brother) Roy Oliver Disney (brother) Ruth Flora Disney (sister)
Awards	7 Emmy Awards, 22 Academy Awards, Cecil B.DeMille Award
Signature

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon,^[3] and philanthropist, well known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O. Disney, he was co-founder of Walt Disney Productions, which later became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation is now known as The Walt Disney Company and had an annual revenue of approximately US$36 billion in the 2010 financial year.^[4]

Disney is particularly noted as a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created some of the world's most well-known fictional characters including Mickey Mouse, for whom Disney himself provided the original voice. During his lifetime he received four honorary Academy Awards and won 22 Academy Awards from a total of 59 nominations, including a record four in one year,^[5] giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual in history.^[6] Disney also won seven Emmy Awards and gave his name to the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the U.S., as well as the international resorts Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland.

The year after his December 15, 1966 death from lung cancer in Burbank, California, construction began on Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. His brother Roy Disney inaugurated the Magic Kingdom on October 1, 1971.

1901–1937: Beginnings[link]

Childhood[link]

Disney was born on December 5, 1901, at 2156 N. Tripp Avenue in Chicago's Hermosa community area to Irish-Canadian father Elias Disney and Flora Call Disney, who was of German and English descent.^[7][8] His great-grandfather, Arundel Elias Disney, had emigrated from Gowran, County Kilkenny, Ireland where he was born in 1801. Arundel Disney was a descendant of Robert d'Isigny, a Frenchman who had travelled to England with William the Conqueror in 1066.^[9] With the d'Isigny name anglicised as "Disney", the family settled in a village now known as Norton Disney, south of the city of Lincoln, in the county of Lincolnshire.

In 1878, Disney's father Elias had moved from Huron County, Ontario, Canada to the United States at first seeking gold in California before finally settling down to farm with his parents near Ellis, Kansas, until 1884. Elias worked for the Union Pacific Railroad and married Flora Call on January 1, 1888, in Acron, Florida. The family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1890,^[10] hometown of his brother Robert^[10] who helped Elias financially for most of his early life.^[10] In 1906, when Walt was four, Elias and his family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri,^[11] where his brother Roy had recently purchased farmland.^[11] In Marceline, Disney developed his love for drawing^[12] with one of the family's neighbors, a retired doctor named "Doc" Sherwood, paying him to draw pictures of Sherwood's horse, Rupert.^[12] His interest in trains also developed in Marceline, a town that owed its existence to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway which ran through it. Walt would put his ear to the tracks in anticipation of the coming train^[8] then try and spot his uncle, engineer Michael Martin, conducting the train.

10-year old Walt Disney (center right) at a gathering of Kansas City newsboys in 1912.

The Disneys remained in Marceline for four years,^[13] before moving to Kansas City in 1911^[14] where Walt and his younger sister Ruth attended the Benton Grammar School. At school he met Walter Pfeiffer who came from a family of theatre aficionados, and introduced Walt to the world of vaudeville and motion pictures. Before long Walt was spending more time at the Pfeiffers' than at home.^[15] As well as attending Saturday courses at the Kansas City Art Institute,^[16] Walt often took Ruth to Electric Park, 15 blocks from their home, which Disney would later acknowledge as a major influence of his design of Disneyland.^{[citation needed]}

Teenage years[link]

In 1917, Elias acquired shares in the O-Zell jelly factory in Chicago and moved his family back to the city,^[17] where in the fall Disney began his freshman year at McKinley High School and took night courses at the Chicago Art Institute.^[18] He became the cartoonist for the school newspaper, drawing patriotic topics and focusing on World War I. Despite dropping out of high school at the age of sixteen to join the army, Disney was rejected for being underage.^[19]

After his rejection by the army, Walt and a friend decided to join the Red Cross.^[20] Soon after joining he was sent to France for a year, where he drove an ambulance, but only after the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918.^[21]

Disney as an ambulance driver immediately after World War I

Hoping to find work outside the Chicago O-Zell factory,^[22] in 1919 Walt moved back to Kansas City to begin his artistic career.^[23] After considering whether to become an actor or a newspaper artist, he decided on a career as a newspaper artist, drawing political caricatures or comic strips. But when nobody wanted to hire him as either an artist or even as an ambulance driver, his brother Roy, then working in a local bank, got Walt a temporary job through a bank colleague at the Pesmen-Rubin Art Studio^[23] where he created advertisements for newspapers, magazines, and movie theaters.^[24] At Pesmen-Rubin he met cartoonist Ubbe Iwerks^[25] and when their time at the studio expired, they decided to start their own commercial company together.^[26]

In January 1920, Disney and Iwerks formed a short-lived company called, "Iwerks-Disney Commercial Artists". However, following a rough start, Disney left temporarily to earn money at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, and was soon joined by Iwerks who was not able to run their business alone.^[27] While working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company, where he made commercials based on cutout animations, Disney became interested in animation, and decided to become an animator.^[28] The owner of the Ad Company, A.V. Cauger, allowed him to borrow a camera from work to experiment with at home. After reading the Edwin G. Lutz book Animated Cartoons: How They Are Made, Their Origin and Development, Disney considered cel animation to be much more promising than the cutout animation he was doing for Cauger. Walt eventually decided to open his own animation business,^[29] and recruited a fellow co-worker at the Kansas City Film Ad Company, Fred Harman, as his first employee.^[29] Walt and Harman then secured a deal with local theater owner Frank L. Newman, arguably the most popular "showman" in the Kansas City area at the time,^[30] to screen their cartoons at his local theater, which they titled Laugh-O-Grams.^[30]

Laugh-O-Gram Studio[link]

Presented as "Newman Laugh-O-Grams",^[30] Disney's cartoons became widely popular in the Kansas City area^[31] and through their success, he was able to acquire his own studio, also called Laugh-O-Gram,^[32] for which he hired a vast number of additional animators, including Fred Harman's brother Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, and his close friend Ubbe Iwerks.^[33] Unfortunately, studio profits were insufficient to cover the high salaries paid to employees. Unable to successfully manage money,^[34] Disney's studio became loaded with debt^[34] and wound up bankrupt^[35] whereupon he decided to set up a studio in the movie industry's capital city, Hollywood, California.^[36]

Hollywood[link]

Disney and his brother Roy pooled their money and set up a cartoon studio in Hollywood^[37] where they needed to find a distributor for Walt's new Alice Comedies, which he had started making while in Kansas City^[35] but never got to distribute. Disney sent an unfinished print to New York distributor Margaret Winkler, who promptly wrote back to him that she was keen on a distribution deal for more live-action/animated shorts based upon Alice's Wonderland.^[38]

Alice Comedies[link]

Virginia Davis, the live-action star of Alice’s Wonderland and her family relocated from Kansas City to Hollywood at Disney's request, as did Iwerks and his family. This was the beginning of the Disney Brothers' Studio located on Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district, where it remained until 1939. In 1925, Disney hired a young woman named Lillian Bounds to ink and paint celluloid. After a brief courtship, the pair married that same year.

The new series, Alice Comedies, proved reasonably successful, and featured both Dawn O'Day and Margie Gay as Alice with Lois Hardwick also briefly assuming the role. By the time the series ended in 1927, its focus was more on the animated characters and in particular a cat named Julius who resembled Felix the Cat, rather than the live-action Alice.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit[link]

By 1927, Charles Mintz had married Margaret Winkler and assumed control of her business. He then ordered a new all-animated series to be put into production for distribution through Universal Pictures. The new series, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was an almost instant success, and the character, Oswald — drawn and created by Iwerks — became a popular figure. The Disney studio expanded and Walt re-hired Harman, Rudolph Ising, Carman Maxwell, and Friz Freleng from Kansas City.

Disney went to New York in February 1928 to negotiate a higher fee per short and was shocked when Mintz told him that not only did he want to reduce the fee he paid Disney per short but also that he had most of his main animators, including Harman, Ising, Maxwell, and Freleng—but not Iwerks, who refused to leave Disney—under contract and would start his own studio if Disney did not accept the reduced production budgets. Universal, not Disney, owned the Oswald trademark, and could make the films without Walt. Disney declined Mintz's offer and as a result lost most of his animation staff whereupon he found himself on his own again.^[39]

It subsequently took his company 78 years to get back the rights to the Oswald character when in 2006 the Walt Disney Company reacquired the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from NBC Universal, through a trade for longtime ABC sports commentator Al Michaels.^[40]

Mickey Mouse[link]

After losing the rights to Oswald, Disney felt the need to develop a new character to replace him, which was based on a mouse he had adopted as a pet while working in his Laugh-O-Gram studio in Kansas City.^[41] Ub Iwerks reworked the sketches made by Disney to make the character easier to animate although Mickey's voice and personality were provided by Disney himself until 1947. In the words of one Disney employee, "Ub designed Mickey's physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul."^[41] Besides Oswald and Mickey, a similar mouse-character is seen in the Alice Comedies, which featured "Ike the Mouse". Moreover, the first Flip the Frog cartoon called Fiddlesticks showed a Mickey Mouse look-alike playing fiddle. The initial films were animated by Iwerks with his name prominently featured on the title cards. Originally named "Mortimer", the mouse was later re-christened "Mickey" by Lillian Disney who thought that the name Mortimer did not fit. Mortimer later became the name of Mickey's rival for Minnie – taller than his renowned adversary and speaking with a Brooklyn accent.

The first animated short to feature Mickey, Plane Crazy was a silent film like all of Disney's previous works. After failing to find a distributor for the short and its follow-up, The Gallopin' Gaucho, Disney created a Mickey cartoon with sound called Steamboat Willie. A businessman named Pat Powers provided Disney with both distribution and Cinephone, a sound-synchronization process. Steamboat Willie became an instant success,^[42] and Plane Crazy, The Galloping Gaucho, and all future Mickey cartoons were released with soundtracks. After the release of Steamboat Willie, Disney successfully used sound in all of his subsequent cartoons, and Cinephone also became the new distributor for Disney's early sound cartoons.^[43] Mickey soon eclipsed Felix the Cat as the world's most popular cartoon character^[41] and by 1930, despite their having sound, cartoons featuring Felix had faded from the screen after failing to gain attention.^[44] Mickey's popularity would subsequently skyrocket in the early 1930s.^[41]

[edit] Silly Symphonies

Following in the footsteps of Mickey Mouse series, a series of musical shorts titled, Silly Symphonies were released in 1929. The first, The Skeleton Dance was entirely drawn and animated by Iwerks, who was also responsible for drawing the majority of cartoons released by Disney in 1928 and 1929. Although both series were successful, the Disney studio thought it was not receiving its rightful share of profits from Pat Powers,^[45] and in 1930, Disney signed a new distribution deal with Columbia Pictures. The original basis of the cartoons was their musical novelty with the first Silly Symphony cartoons featuring scores by Carl Stalling.^[46]

Iwerks was soon lured by Powers into opening his own studio with an exclusive contract, while Stalling would also later leave Disney to join Iwerks.^[47] Iwerks launched his Flip the Frog series with the first voiced color cartoon Fiddlesticks, filmed in two-strip Technicolor. Iwerks also created two other cartoon series, Willie Whopper and the Comicolor. In 1936, Iwerks shut down his studio in order to work on various projects dealing with animation technology. He would return to Disney in 1940 and go on to pioneer a number of film processes and specialized animation technologies in the studio's research and development department.

By 1932, although Mickey Mouse had become a relatively popular cinema character, Silly Symphonies was not as successful. The same year also saw competition increase as Max Fleischer's flapper cartoon character, Betty Boop, gained popularity among theater audiences.^[48] Fleischer, considered Disney's main rival in the 1930s,^[49] was also the father of Richard Fleischer, whom Disney would later hire to direct his 1954 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Meanwhile, Columbia Pictures dropped the distribution of Disney cartoons to be replaced by United Artists.^[50] In late 1932, Herbert Kalmus, who had just completed work on the first three-strip technicolor camera,^[51] approached Walt and convinced him to reshoot the black and white Flowers and Trees in three-strip Technicolor.^[52] Flowers and Trees would go on to be a phenomenal success and would also win the first 1932 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons. After the release of Flowers and Trees, all subsequent Silly Symphony cartoons were in color while Disney was also able to negotiate a two-year deal with Technicolor, giving him the sole right to use their three-strip process,^[53][54] a period eventually extended to five years.^[46] Through Silly Symphonies, Disney also created his most successful cartoon short of all time, The Three Little Pigs (1933).^[55] The cartoon ran in theaters for many months, featuring the hit song that became the anthem of the Great Depression, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf".^[56]

One of two stars dedicated to Walt Disney on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

First Academy Award[link]

In 1932, Disney received a special Academy Award for the creation of "Mickey Mouse", a series which switched to color in 1935 and soon launched spin-offs for supporting characters such as Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto. Pluto and Donald became standalone cartoons in 1937,^[57] with Goofy following in 1939.^[58] Of all Mickey's partners, Donald Duck, who first teamed up with Mickey in the 1934 cartoon, Orphan's Benefit, was arguably the most popular, going on to become Disney's second most successful cartoon character of all time.^[59]

Children[link]

The Disneys' first attempt at pregnancy ended in miscarriage. Lillian became pregnant again and gave birth to a daughter, Diane Marie Disney, on December 18, 1933.^[60] Later, the Disneys adopted Sharon Mae Disney (December 31, 1936 – February 16, 1993).^[61]

Diane married Ron Miller at the age of 20 and is known as Diane Disney Miller. The Millers established and own a winery called Silverado Vineyards in California.^[62] Diane and Ron Miller have seven children: Christopher, Joanna, Tamara, Jennifer, Walter, Ronald and Patrick.^[63] Years later, Diane went on to become the cofounder of The Walt Disney Family Museum, with the aid of her children.^[60] The museum was created to preserve her father's image and reach out to millions of Disney fans worldwide.^[64] The museum displays a chronological view of Walt Disney's life through personal artifacts, interactive kiosks and various animations.^[64]

Sharon Mae Disney was born December 31, 1936, in Los Angeles, California and was later adopted by the Disneys, due to Lillian's several birth complications.^[63][65] In 1950, Sharon went on to star as herself in the Walt Disney Studios special One Hour in Wonderland.^[66] Sharon married Robert Brown in 1958, with whom she had one child, and they remained married until his death in 1967.^[65] Sharon married William Lund in 1969 and had two children with him, but six years later they divorced.^[65][67] Sharon was a philanthropist and had contributed to charities such as the Marianne Frostig Center of Educational Therapy and the Curtis School foundation.^[68] In 1993 at the age of 57, Sharon died from cancer at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California.^[65] After Sharon's death, her estate donated $11 million to the California School of Performing Arts, where she was a member of the board of trustees for almost two decades. Sharon's donation was commemorated by renaming the School of Dance the Sharon D. Lund School of Dance.^[60][69]

1937–1941: Golden age of animation[link]

[edit] "Disney's Folly": Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Walt Disney introduces each of the Seven Dwarfs in a scene from the original 1937 Snow White theatrical trailer.

Following the creation of two cartoon series, in 1934 Disney began planning a full-length feature. The following year, opinion polls showed that another cartoon series, Popeye the Sailor, produced by Max Fleischer, was more popular than Mickey Mouse.^[70] Nevertheless, Disney was able to put Mickey back on top as well as increase his popularity by colorizing and partially redesigning the character to become what was considered his most appealing design to date.^[41] When the film industry learned of Disney's plans to produce an animated feature-length version of Snow White, they were certain that the endeavor would destroy the Disney Studio and dubbed the project "Disney's Folly". Both Lillian and Roy tried to talk Disney out of the project, but he continued plans for the feature, employing Chouinard Art Institute professor Don Graham to start a training operation for the studio staff. Disney then used the Silly Symphonies as a platform for experiments in realistic human animation, distinctive character animation, special effects, and the use of specialized processes and apparatus such as the multiplane camera – a new technique first used by Disney in the 1937 Silly Symphonies short The Old Mill.^[71]

All of this development and training was used to increase quality at the studio and to ensure that the feature film would match Disney's quality expectations. Entitled Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the feature went into full production in 1934 and continued until mid-1937, when the studio ran out of money. To obtain the funding to complete Snow White, Disney had to show a rough cut of the motion picture to loan officers. The film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater on December 21, 1937 and at its conclusion the audience gave Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a standing ovation. Snow White, the first animated feature in America made in Technicolor, was released in February 1938 under a new distribution deal with RKO Radio Pictures. RKO had been the distributor for Disney cartoons in 1936, after it closed down the Van Beuren Studios in exchange for distribution.^[72] The film became the most successful motion picture of 1938 and earned over $8 million on its initial release. These initial release earnings for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be the equivalent of $122,487,945 in 2010.^[73]

Golden age of animation[link]

Following the success of Snow White, for which Disney received one full-size, and seven miniature Oscar statuettes, he was able to build a new campus for the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, which opened for business on December 24, 1939. Snow White was not only the peak of Disney's success, but also ushered in a period that would later be known as the Golden Age of Animation for the studio.^[74][75] Feature animation staff, having just completed Pinocchio, continued work on Fantasia and Bambi as well as the early production stages of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Wind in the Willows while the shorts staff carried on working on the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto cartoon series, ending the Silly Symphonies at this time.^{[clarification needed More info needed on end of the Silly Symphonies to make a new and separate sentence.]} Animator Fred Moore had redesigned Mickey Mouse in the late 1930s after Donald Duck overtook him in popularity among theater audiences.^[76]

Pinocchio and Fantasia followed Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into the movie theaters in 1940, but both proved financial disappointments. The inexpensive Dumbo was then planned as an income generator, but during production most of the animation staff went on strike, permanently straining relations between Disney and his artists.

1941–1945: World War II era[link]

In 1941, the U.S. State Department sent Disney and a group of animators to South America as part of its Good Neighbor policy, at the same time guaranteeing financing for the resultant movie, Saludos Amigos.^[77]

Shortly after the release of Dumbo in October 1941, the US entered World War II. The U.S. Army and Navy Bureau of Aeronautics^[78] contracted most of the Disney studio's facilities where the staff created training and instruction films for the military, home-front morale-boosting shorts such as Der Fuehrer's Face and the 1943 feature film Victory Through Air Power. However, military films did not generate income, and the feature film Bambi underperformed on its release in April 1942. Disney successfully re-issued Snow White in 1944, establishing a seven-year re-release tradition for his features. In 1945, The Three Caballeros was the last animated feature released by the studio during the war.

In 1944, Encyclopædia Britannica publisher William Benton, entered into unsuccessful negotiations with Disney to make six to twelve educational films per annum. Disney was asked by the US Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA), to make an educational film about the Amazon Basin, which resulted in the 1944 animated short, The Amazon Awakens.^{[79][80][81][82][83]}

1945–1955: Post-war period[link]

Disney studios also created inexpensive package films, containing collections of cartoon shorts, and issued them to theaters during this period. These included Make Mine Music (1946), Melody Time (1948), Fun and Fancy Free (1947) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The latter had only two sections, the first based on The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and the second on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. During this period, Disney also ventured into full-length dramatic films that mixed live action and animated scenes, including Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart. After the war ended, Mickey's popularity would also fade.^[84]

By the late 1940s, the studio had recovered enough to continue production on the full-length features Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, both of which had been shelved during the war years. Work also began on Cinderella, which became Disney's most successful film since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In 1948 the studio also initiated a series of live-action nature films, titled True-Life Adventures, with On Seal Island the first. Despite its resounding success with feature films, the studio's animation shorts were no longer as popular as they once were, with people paying more attention to Warner Bros. and their animation star Bugs Bunny. By 1942, Leon Schlesinger Productions, which produced the Warner Bros. cartoons, had become the country's most popular animation studio.^[85] However, while Bugs Bunny's popularity rose in the 1940s, so did Donald Duck's,^[86] a character who would replace Mickey Mouse as Disney's star character by 1949.^[87]

During the mid-1950s, Disney produced a number of educational films on the space program in collaboration with NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun: Man in Space and Man and the Moon in 1955, and Mars and Beyond in 1957.

Walt Disney meets Wernher von Braun in 1954.

Disney and the Second Red Scare[link]

Disney was a founding member of the anti-communist group Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.  In 1947, during the Second Red Scare,^[88] Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators and labor union organizers, Communist agitators. All three men denied the allegations and Sorrell went on to testify before the HUAC in 1946 when insufficient evidence was found to link him to the Communist Party.^[89][90]

Disney also accused the Screen Cartoonists Guild of being a Communist front, and charged that the 1941 strike was part of an organized Communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood.^[88]

1955–1966: Theme parks and beyond[link]

Planning Disneyland[link]

Disneyland: aerial view, August 1963, looking SE. New Melodyland Theater at top. Santa Ana Freeway (US 101 at the time, now I-5) upper left corner.

On a business trip to Chicago in the late-1940s, Disney drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children. The idea for a children's theme park came after a visit to Children's Fairyland in Oakland, California. It also said that Disney may have been inspired to create Disneyland in the park Republic of the Children located in Manuel B. Gonnet, La Plata, Argentina, and opened in 1951.^[91] This plan was originally intended to be built on a plot located across the street to the south of the studio. These original ideas developed into a concept for a larger enterprise that would become Disneyland. Disney spent five years developing Disneyland and created a new subsidiary company, WED Enterprises, to carry out planning and production of the park. A small group of Disney studio employees joined the Disneyland development project as engineers and planners, and were dubbed Imagineers.^{[citation needed]}

As Disney explained one of his earliest plans to Herb Ryman, who created the first aerial drawing of Disneyland presented to the Bank of America during fund raising for the project, he said, "Herbie, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded by a train."^[92] Entertaining his daughters and their friends in his backyard and taking them for rides on his Carolwood Pacific Railroad had inspired Disney to include a railroad in the plans for Disneyland.

Disneyland grand opening[link]

Disneyland officially opened on July 18, 1955. On Sunday, July 17, 1955, Disneyland hosted a live TV preview, among the thousands of people in attendance were Ronald Reagan, Bob Cummings and Art Linkletter, who shared cohosting duties, as well as the mayor of Anaheim. Walt gave the following dedication day speech:

Carolwood Pacific Railroad[link]

The Lilly Belle on display at Disneyland Main Station in 1993. The caboose's woodwork was done entirely by Walt himself.

During 1949, Disney and his family moved to a new home on a large piece of land in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles, California. With the help of his friends Ward and Betty Kimball, who already had their own backyard railroad, Disney developed blueprints and immediately set to work on creating a miniature live steam railroad for his backyard. The name of the railroad, Carolwood Pacific Railroad, came from his home's location on Carolwood Drive. The railroad's half-mile long layout included a 46-foot (14 m) long trestle bridge, loops, overpasses, gradients, an elevated berm, and a 90-foot (27 m) tunnel underneath his wife's flowerbed. He named the miniature working steam locomotive built by Disney Studios engineer Roger E. Broggie Lilly Belle in his wife's honor and had his attorney draw up right-of-way papers giving the railroad a permanent, legal easement through the garden areas, which his wife dutifully signed; however, there is no evidence of the documents ever recorded as a restriction on the property's title.^{[clarification needed]}

Expansion into new areas[link]

As Walt Disney Productions began work on Disneyland, it also began expanding its other entertainment operations. In 1950, Treasure Island became the studio's first all-live-action feature, soon followed by 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (in CinemaScope, 1954), Old Yeller (1957), The Shaggy Dog (1959), Pollyanna (1960), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), and The Parent Trap (1961). The studio produced its first TV special, One Hour in Wonderland, in 1950. Disney began hosting a weekly anthology series on ABC entitled Disneyland, after the park, on which he aired clips of past Disney productions, gave tours of his studio, and familiarized the public with Disneyland as it was being constructed in Anaheim. The show also featured a Davy Crockett miniseries, which started the "Davy Crockett craze" among American youth, during which millions of coonskin caps and other Crockett memorabilia were sold across the country.^[93] In 1955, the studio's first daily television show, Mickey Mouse Club debuted on ABC. It was a groundbreaking comedy/variety show aimed specifically for children. Disney took a strong personal interest in the show and even returned to the animation studio to voice Mickey Mouse in its animated segments during its original 1955-59 production run. The Mickey Mouse Club would continue in various incarnations in syndication and on the Disney Channel into the 1990s.