As for the media, again I agree completely, but this has been the same since media began, it will always show what its masters want it to show. The majority of germans didn't know what their own soldiers were doing in ww2 due to hitlers media machine, US soldiers being killed in somalia caused more uproar than the famine and murder that preceeded it, why? because the media made it so.
The media is a tool, no more no less, and in todays age of communication the news media is more powerfull than ever, but it will always be biased, you can not tell me that palestinian media shows the indiscriminate way its missiles are killing civilians,just in the same way israeli media will not show its missiles killing civilians.
Interesting you should say this. This is proof of the power of modern day media.
Opening up most history books, you will be told that the majority of Germans were unaware of what was happening within Germany and the occupied parts of Europe during WW2. In reality, this is utter, and total nonsense. The German people by and large WERE more than aware of what was happening.
Here as some facts to back this up: (some of the post below may not be for the weak of heart)
Go read Mein Kampf. Most of the Germans read it, particularly the young ones. The book leaves very little questions about what Hitler was planning to do to the Jewish people.
The Endlösung, the final solution to the "Jewish problem" was more important to Germany than winning the war itself was. The murder of 6 million Jews and several million others required vast amounts of resources, both in manpower, materiel and money. Literally hundreds of thousands were involved in this murder on an industrial scale. It is impossible to keep something involving so many people a secret, unless you keep them isolated from the rest of the world (as the Allies did with the troops marked to take part in Operation Overlord, the Normandy invasion). More on this later.
When it was clear to everybody that Germany was not going to win the war, it would have been easy to take the men of the Einsatzgruppen, Police battalions and others involved in the genocide, and transform them into frontline troops. This would have boosted whatever front they would be fighting on with several hundred thousand men, qualified for military duty, who need only minimal training to make the frontline fit, they would have performed much better than the old and sick and kids they chose to send instead. In fact, when Germany was starting to feel the pressure, rather than stiffening their lines, troops were withdrawn from the front in order to step up "production" in the camps. This is a clear indication where priorities lay. Kill the Unerwunschten first, then fight the war.
As I said, no attempt was made to keep things secret. Before the extermination camps kicked into full gear, most of the killing was done by simple firing squads. One of the units used for this, was Police battalion 101 of the Ordnungspolizei. These were not men of the Einsatzgruppen or SS.
While engaged in their ghastly duties in eastern Europe, these men, since they did not serve on the front, were allowed to receive visitors from home. Many officers were visited by their wives. On more than one occasion, wives were present when the battalion carried out its duties. It has to be said the officers that brought their wives were reprimanded. However, this was not because of any breach of confidentiality, but because in that day and age it was considered too rude for a woman to watch such things...
Many of the regular men carried cameras and were happy taking snapshots of their handiwork. These rolls of film with these shots were then sent home in order to be developed at the local photolab, after which their family would pick them up, sometimes sending them back to the men that took them, sometimes putting them in the family album. Again, nobody complained about any breach of confidentiality.
Also, it is wrong to think of the people involved in the slaughter as hardcore Nazis. They weren't. Using Police battalion 101 as an example again, the avarage age in the battalion was a few years above the avarage military age. Most of the men had families, and were of the generation that had not grown up to the sound of Hitler's speeches. In fact, the percentage of the men that were members of the NSDAP was lower than the national avarage. Still, these men carried out their duties with pride. The commander of the battalion always gave the men the chance to not actively partake in the killing of Jewish men, women and children. Only sporadically would a man choose to use this pardon. However, not a single man has stated that he had moral objections to the killings, the reasons they gave were usually a variant on just not being able to stand the gore. One complaint was filed when the battalion had to work with an SS unit (not Waffen SS, regular SS). The complaint concerned one SS NCO, who was particularly brutal in his executions. He would grab small children and babies and lift them up by a leg, so they would dangle with their heads down. He would then shoot them in the head. The men of the battalion complained because this was too messy, and many of them were splattered with gore.
It is chilling to realise that men of an age "that should know better", and who are most definitely not the hardcore Nazis that you would expect, would willingly engage in such activities.
None of the German genocidal plans were kept secret. When Germany announced that it had started its euthenasia program, ending the lives of thousands of disabled and mental patients, an uproar went out throughout the country. As a result, Germany stopped the program. No uproar was heard when the slaughter of the Jewish people started.
Now, all the above does not counter the crux of your post, namely that the media is a powerful tool. And I agree with that. But one must realise that the Germans were not kept ignorant of what was happening, instead they were fed information that would make them supportive of what was happening. Pretty much the same as what is happening now. It is ironic that the government of a people that would not have existed if the Nazis had had their way, has taken the same approach to the media as Joseph Göbbels did...
