Abstract:

The National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) came into power on 30 January 1933 and the Ministry of People's Enlightenment and Propaganda was established in Germany. NSDAP leader Adolf Hitler had brought Joseph Goebbels from his party's leading names to the head of this new ministry. Goebbels, shortly after he became the head of the ministry, was on the way to establish a rigorous control over all media organizations in the country. Goebbels, thanks to the strict control of the media, aimed to use all the mass media in the country for the propaganda activities of the Nazi regime. In particular, at this stage, the cinema has become one of Goebbels’ important propaganda tools. Goebbels believed that the cinema would be an effective propaganda tool if the Nazi ideology could push over the masses. For the 12 years (1933-1945), Goebbels served as the propaganda minister, and in Germany he made the filming of world-historic propaganda films. In the study, during Goebbels' ministry, the process of development of the film industry in Germany, the censors, the boycott, the crisis, the state incentives and the propaganda films taken by the Nazi regime were tried to explain in detail. The study is aimed at lighting the German cinema under Goebbels, one of the turning points of propaganda cinema.