Targeting three objectives and quickly, that was the roadmap of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels to influence and control the opinion of the Germans of the Third Reich. In a very short time he provided each family with a radio, with which he bombarded all Germans with the incessant messages that interested the Nazi party, intervened in the radio media and the written press and took over the film industry. In this way the manipulation was absolute and he managed to make the single thought assume as true that there was progress and hid that salaries were low, that the economy was in recession and that Germany was entering a strict socialist dictatorship.
Was there a Goebbels effect in Spain at that time? Although the Spanish were emerging from the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, which as such had restricted freedoms and implemented strong media censorship, in the subsequent "democratic" Second Republic there was a parallel with what was happening in Germany. Indeed, there was censorship, threats, fines, closure of newspapers and imprisonment of directors. The leftist Azaña, developing a political management that included the presence of agents of Stalin's USSR, being one of the ideologues of the lethal Popular Front, tried to implement what was successfully happening in Germany at the hands of the socialist Goebbels. And in a certain way he succeeded, since the absolute disaster that was being experienced in Spain managed to be perceived as convenient.
Has there been and is there a Goebbels effect in today's Spain? 86 years have passed since Joseph Goebbels was a minister and although the Spanish left has tried and tries to manipulate as the Nazi socialist manipulated, the truth is that manipulation is much more difficult today. But, even so, it is not negligible and therefore it is necessary to pay attention to it, because only by being aware that they are trying to direct our opinion can we resist and, therefore, be objective and gain freedom.
A clear example of the efforts of the left and the establishment to brainwash the Spanish, against what they consider a threat, is the permanent bombardment to which VOX is subjected, through radio, television, written and digital press. In this sense, the CIS itself, a public body of the Government of Spain, predicted a seat in the Andalusian elections for VOX in a study that all Spaniards paid for at a cost of 300,000 ?. Without forgetting that RTVE, with a public budget of 376 million ?, has censored VOX even when, beyond the CIS, VOX even aims to win the general elections. But, of course, the Board of Directors of the State public television is controlled by Chavistas and communists who know the enormous electoral potential of Santiago Abascal and who interpret it, rightly, as the possible beginning of the end of their trajectory.
The big differences between what happened in Germany almost 90 years ago and what is happening now in Spain is that it is now known that both socialism and communism only lead to the degradation and destruction of societies. And the other big difference is the internet and social networks, which escape any of the Goebbelsian manipulative intentions. Fortunately, at the end of the second decade of the 21st century, the Spanish identify who is trying to manipulate us by spending enormous efforts and exorbitant public economic resources. And how gratifying, from a democratic point of view, is the massive access to social networks, which disproves that VOX propagates hatred, wants to arm everyone in the streets, intends that women can be beaten, homosexuals degraded and immigrants crushed.
For all this and despite the fact that the Spanish left clings to the techniques of the national socialist propaganda minister, "a lie repeated a thousand times becomes a truth", it must be concluded that, in 2019, the Goebbels effect on the Spanish is less.
By Sigfrid Soria del Castillo Olivares, Affiliated to VOX
