NS-Propaganda im Militärverwaltungsgebiet der Ukraine: Ziele, Mittel und Wirkungen. Aims, Means, and Effects

Abstract

The article explores the role and impact of propagandistic media in Ukraine, especially East Ukraine, during National Socialist occupation from 1941 to 1943. It is based on official National Socialist documents, archival sources from Ukrainian, German and Russian archives, and relies heavily on interviews by the author with contemporary witnesses in Ukraine who survived the war. The media under consideration here are newspapers and journals, leaflets, posters and touring exhibitions, radio transmissions, and film including documentary and feature films, and newsreel. All were vehicles both for propaganda as well as for local news so desperately needed during the war by people living under harsh National Socialist occupation near the front line. Those significant and meaningful sources have been analysed for the first time to create an impression of everyday life, its atmosphere, its sorrows and its coping strategies for people living in extremely difficult conditions during what were undoubtedly the worst years of the war. The article throws light too on the correlation and rivalry between German, Soviet and Ukrainian nationalistic propaganda about Ukraine and on its changing effects at various stages of the war.