Die Beeinflussung der Jugend durch den nationalsozialistischen Sprachstil

Abstract

Every regime uses certain ways in order to spread its ideology. One channel to win people over for an organization is propaganda–an instrument which is aimed primarily at emotions and not at reason. Propaganda combined with music influences people’s perception of the world even more because their emotions are addressed in two ways. The ›Third Reich‹ practiced this method especially with the help of the Hitler Youth’s song repertoire. Singing songs contributed to the political alignment of the citizens. This paper will demonstrate the emotionally persuasive character of the language in selected songs. The songbook Junge Gefolgschaft will be used as a basis for the analysis. Linguistic theories that will help to support the analysis will come from Klaus Brinker and Christian Braun. With their help, this paper will show that the lyrics of these songs had a persuasive impact on the recipients in order to influence them deliberately to support a national socialist world view.