How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
To accomplish this he and Goebbels, who on March 13 became Minister of Propaganda, conceived a master stroke. Hitler would open the new Reichstag, which he was about to destroy, in the Garrison Church at Potsdam, the great shrine of Prussianism, which aroused in so many Germans memories of imperial glories and grandeur […]. (2.7.43)
Old President Hindenburg had tears in his eyes during this ceremony, staged at the church of the Hohenzollern kings. Hitler was associating the old Reichstag with this hallowed church all the while planning to destroy the Reichstag and Hindenburg's government.
Quote #2
For six years, since the Nazi "co-ordination" of the daily newspapers, which had meant the destruction of the free press, the citizens had been cut off from the truth of what was going on in the world.
[…] whereas all the rest of the world considers that peace is about to be broken by Germany, that is it Germany that is about to attack Poland…here in Germany […] the very reverse is maintained. What the Nazi papers are proclaiming is this: that it is Poland which is disturbing the peace of Europe; Poland that is threatening Germany with armed invasion... (3.16.103)
Shirer got a chance, unlike most German people, to read papers from other countries other than Germany. He wrote in his diaries: "You ask: But the German people can't possibly believe these lies? Then you talk to them. So many do."
Quote #3
Good propaganda, to be effective, as Hitler and Goebbels had learned from experience, needs more than words. It needs deeds, however much they may have to be fabricated. (3.16.286)
Boy, did they fabricate a doozy. They dressed up S.S. men as Polish soldiers and had them attack a German radio station near the Polish border and broadcast threats to Germany. The plan was to drug concentration camp inmates and leave them as "dying" civilian German casualties. This created a pretext for invading Poland. The next day, Hitler did just that, justifying his actions to the world by this fake attack on the radio station. Since the people had only the Nazi-controlled radio, they believed it.