A Psychoanalytic View of Racial Myths in a Nazi Propaganda Film: Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew)

Abstract

This paper describes the emotional appeal of propaganda utilizing concepts from psychoanalysis, small group psychology, and psychohistory. The film propagandist attempts to exploit irrational emotional responses to visual scenes and commentary to change attitudes, values, and behavior in a mass setting. A link between shared unconscious fantasies and myth is offered as an explanatory concept to explain propaganda's wide emotional appeal. The German Nazi anti-Semitic film, Der Ewige Jude, serves as the case example of the exploitation of such fantasies in a mass setting for a political end.