Since the dawn of television, invented in 1922 by John Logie Baird, a dreamof many scientists for decades (Historic figures, BBC), it took a few years for thetechnology to be adapted. Eventually the BBC started broadcasting (under the name TheBBC Television Service) from Alexandra Palace via Marconi equipment.
It was not until the hostilities of war in 1939 that it was realized, by the Nazis, thattelevision can be ‘a tool to manipulate the masses’ (Inventions that changed the world,BBC). Goebbels, Hitlers propaganda minister, is quoted to have said ‘The NationalSocialist State considers it a first duty to infuse into art, new impulses which shall deepenpublic understanding of the greatness of the time (Sington and Weidenfeld, 1942). Thiswould lead us to assume that the Nazis considered that television would be a ‘newimpulse’, using the technology to infuse or ‘advertise’ the ‘greatness’ thus meaningHitler, of that time.
The power of television from that point was evident, convincing theGerman people that nothing out of place was happening around the country, that all of thepropaganda that the allies were spreading was false and that they were winning the war.
This showed that it was perfectly feasible to tell your audience anything and if it wasbeing shown on television then it must be right. We can consider the idea that the fantastic technology [television] was so new at the time that it would have been all themore believable to the audience who were used to listening to the radio or watchingnewsreels in the cinema.
These moving pictures on this small box in their living room must be showing wonderful and truthful things.
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