EN
LV
Takeover of the media by the invading Germans was immediate and complete. Nazi information control was total. Even the takeover of the press by the Soviets in 1940 and 1944 was more gradual and measured. The campaign to proselytize anti-Semitism was of primary concern to the occupying German regime. Prof. Ezergailis examines the planning for and invasion of Nazi propganda into Latvia.
- Propaganda of Ethnic Hate in 1941
- SD Press and Propaganda — Nazi takeover of the press was total and immediate, within hours of the German occupation. This control, from cities to towns to the countryside, confirms that German control over Latvian territory was equally immediate and complete. The propagandic Tēvija ("Fatherland") newspaper was published the first day of occupation, broadcasting was taken over immediately upon invasion. Significant effort was put into equating Jews and the Chekists, the instruments of terror and torture of the prior occupier. The Nazis were simply punishing Jews, the guilty, for their crimes—who, in a macabre theater, were made to disinter the mass graves of Latvians killed by the Soviets. Every act was tied to propaganda, even the burning of synagogues: conceived not as an act of punishment for the Jews, but as propaganda: Arājs told his men that the synagogue needs to be burned to enrage the city against the Jews.
- Print Propaganda—Membership and Structure of Press — The German-run propagandic Nazi press as of 1941 and contributors.
- Anti-Semitism in Print — Contrary to the universal knowledge that the Ulmanis regime was fascist and anti-Semitic, Ulmanis had banned anti-Semitic literature, so there had been none for the seven years prior to the Nazi invasion. What anti-Semitism was present in independent Latvia was largely the stereotype of avarice taking advantage of Latvian peasants. Hard-core anti-Semites proselytizing the "truth" about Jews were on the outer fringes of society and politics. The term "Bolshevik" and its definition as "Jew/Checkist" arrived with the Nazis.
- The Arrival of Nazi Anti-Semitism —The Germans were already establishing anti-Semitic press while still on the way to taking Rīga, proclaiming Hitler's liberation of Latvia from "rule of the Muscovite Kremlin degenerates and Jews."
- General Anti-Semitism — A review of examples of anti-Semitic statements appearing in the occupied press.
- Mature Nazi Anti-Semitism — The culmination and ethnic personalization of anti-Semitism, a review of examples of occupation propaganda accusing Jews of murdering Latvians and demanding the death of Jews.