Der ewige Jude
From the Holocaust Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia:
As part of its heightened wartime attack on Jews, the Ministry of Propaganda turned to motion pictures as a medium for antisemitic messages.
Fritz Hippler, the president of the Reich Film Chamber, directed the film Der ewige Jude, with input from German Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. A pseudo-documentary, it included scenes of Jews shot in the Warsaw and Lodz ghettos by propaganda company crews attached to the German military. This film was quite popular with audiences in Germany and throughout occupied Europe.
That image looks familiar somehow.
H/t Fred Sargeant
As I believe someone once said: “If the Devil did not exist, God would have had to create him.” That has gotten theologians into one helluva tangle; see first link below..
But at the same time, Manichaeism went some of the way to a theological solution. It also provided a Catholic (never excommunicated, and who may have snuck into Heaven) named Adolf Hitler with a handy hook to on which to hang his own warmongering philosophy.
https://www.exploregod.com/articles/who-created-satan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism
This is very much one of the reasons they lost the war… Not because it was evil, but because it was an utter waste of resources when they should’ve been focused on conquering Europe (which one would’ve thought was the whole point of the war).
Long ago I saw a documentary about Frank Capra’s ‘Why We Fight’ films. Capra had put together clips from German, Italian, and Japanese propaganda films, showing their foulness by using images they used to promote themselves.
The documentary included interviews with Capra, and with Hippler. Capra still felt some guilt for being manipulative, but was carrying photos of Belsen to explain his purpose. Hippler was serenely unconcerned, he had no regret or shame for having ‘done his job.’