Propaganda and Me

In class on Monday we watched “The Triumph of the Willing,” a propaganda film chronicling the events of the Nazi rally in Nuremberg in 1934. What struck me the most about this film was the masses upon masses of people lined up to welcome Hitler with genuine smiles and expressions of joy. While I’m sure that yawning grandpas and angst-ridden teenagers were edited out of the film, the reality of emotions depicted in this film was inescapable, and perhaps one of the main reasons “The Triumph of the Willing” is such effective propaganda. Everyone, from the farmers in traditional attire, to the frolicking, super-clean men in the labor camp, to the women and children lining the streets, was honestly happy to see Hitler. This was not just smiling for the camera, I could feel the raw, uncut emotions oozing out of the screen. And I found myself thinking, “If I didn’t know better, I’d probably wonder if Hitler could really be that bad.” And that leads me to the one horrifying aspect of this movie—and I use the term “horrifying” intentionally: How could that many people be that wrong about Hitler? For the sake of my own faith in human goodness, however, I’m not entirely sure that I want to know the answer to that question. I don’t really want to know how a single man captured the hearts of millions under the façade of hope and goodness, only to, often literally, break these same hearts with a campaign of unspeakable evil. I don’t want to know why and/or how more people couldn’t recognize his charade. My curiosity for these answers beckons, but I know that my faith in humanity will surely be deeply challenged by the answers.