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Der Stӧrenfried is a short animated cartoon, produced in 1940 by Hans Held as a propaganda tool used by the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, more commonly known as the Nazi Party. The reason for the production of Der Stӧrenfried, which translates to English as “The Troublemaker”, was to try and influence the younger generations, and indoctrinate them into adopting the Nazi Party’s ideals, therefore reproducing the future generation of the Nazi Party. This method of using cartoons to appeal to the youth was used widely in Nazi Germany as a form of propaganda, with film production companies such as Disney creating films for the Nazi Party. This not only appealed to children but also provided those who were uneducated with a means of understanding the principles of the Nazi Party’s ideology rather than through complicated speeches or magazines and leaflets that they could not read. In the film itself before the animation starts it shows a bit of the production process and it states that the purpose of the film was to “promote enthusiasm for the war” and to try and recruit not only people for the army, but also support the Nazi Party ideologically.

Hans Held, the Producer and Author was by trade a Graphic Designer, born in Germany in 1910 and worked for Bavaria Film Art after training in Munich. The profile of Hans Held fitted the typical demographic of the Nazi Party’s members, a young, educated male with a professional job. Similarly, the composer of the music for the animation Leo Leux, (who wrote many compositions for films, starting in the Weimar Republic and continued to compose for films until his death in 1951 ), also fits this profile although slightly older than the average member of the Nazi Party (born in 1893).

PLOT
Der Stӧrenfried starts off by describing the cartoon as “An animal fable in which the woodlanders are fighting together against the enemy” which summarises it perfectly. The stork alerts the father  rabbit that the Fox (the enemy) has returned and has kidnapped the baby Rabbits, and the father rabbit is too cowardly to save them, running away from the fox back to his home, only to meet the mother rabbit angry at the male rabbit’s cowardly behaviour. This forces the rest of the woodlanders to unite against the fox and go to war with him, the hedgehogs and the wasps, work together to defeat the fox, with the wasps using their stings to finally kill the fox at the end of the cartoon. The animation finishes with the Rabbit family reunited and cheering for those that saved them and for the death of the enemy.

Animal Representations.
The use of animals in this particular cartoon (and many other Nazi propaganda films) is to represent certain groups that play a part in the war and in the principles of the Nazi Ideology. Firstly, the rabbits represent an ordinary German family, scared and endangered by the enemy- the fox. The father rabbit is cowardly and is a symbol of weakness, (the idea of Charles Darwin and his ‘survival of the fittest ’theory) and that there is no room in a German society for cowards. The use of the rabbit as a symbol of the weak, has been used in other Nazi Propaganda animations, for example in the Disney production ‘Education for Death: the making of the Nazi’ in which young boys are taught that the rabbit is a coward and that there is no place for the rabbits in an ideal Nazi state. Similarly, the fox is used as a symbol of the enemy in a lot of Nazi propaganda cartoons. In this case, the Jews are seen as the enemy and are represented by the fox, having connotations of being sly, cunning and dangerous to the ideal state. The animation also has militaristic connotations with the Hedgehogs representing German soldiers, with their spiky ‘uniforms’ to replicate the spike on the Wehrmacht helmets, which are iconic of the German army in WW2. Another military connection is the Wasps, who are representing the Luftwaffe – the German Air Force, with the original sound of the German bomber planes providing the sound effects for the animation with the wasps designed to look like the fighter planes they are representing, the Luftwaffe were notoriously strong and were depicted as the heroes in Der Stӧrenfried as that is what they were seen as, which would suggest the cartoon was produced before the defeat of the Luftwaffe  in the Battle of Britain in 1940. The Stork also sounds similar to an air raid siren, pictured as the warning the civilians would get before and during an attack. Der Stӧrenfried also features real-life sound effects of a Jagdbomber, a German fighter/bomber plane used by the Luftwaffe. This sound effect would be easily recognisable to the children and the familiarity of it would resonate with them thus contributing to the indoctrination of the youth intended by the Nazi Party. In addition to this, the sound of machine guns also features in the cartoon with the sting of the Wasps being replaced with an animated machine gun. This would give the audience an idea of what the Wermacht would be doing on the frontline, which normally they wouldn’t face (eg. The sound of machine guns). Finally, the end of the film shows the Rabbit family (the German Civilians) cheering at the death of the Fox(the enemy) and again reinforces the Wasps (the Luftwaffe) as the hero.

The animalistic representations are quite obvious and it easy to recognise each animal and who they represent even for children or those who are not educated, which was the aim of the Nazi Party – to have people (regardless of age or intellect) to be able to identify the heroes and the enemy. This again shows the importance for the Nazis to spread the message to as many people as possible therefore by having an easy message to understand it can appeal to everybody. Additionally, by using an animated film it is entertaining and more appealing to watch so therefore it is more likely to be watched and enjoyed. Also in a time with no personal televisions, the cartoon would have been played before a newsreel or a longer film at the cinema and so could reach bigger audiences all across Germany simultaneously rather than having limited audiences at speeches or rallies, without having to travel across the country to be seen.

The use of Propaganda
Propaganda has been described as a way to “to produce and spread fertile messages that, once sown, will germinate in large human cultures” and to promote ideologies, scare people into following regimes and to gain new supporters. With the developments in technology, the methods of propaganda too have evolved, moving from written propaganda, such as books and posters, to more modern methods such as film, with the development of film by the Lumiere Brothers in 1896, the use of film to spread propaganda has been used more widely and allows the message to be spread more quickly and to more people than previous methods of propaganda. Various types of film have been used as propaganda, with use of Comedy, Tragedies, Horror and even cartoon. Cartoons are a popular choice for propaganda films as they appeal both to children and the uneducated and therefore can indoctrinate their audience with the ideologies – their main purpose. As a result of this, Cartoons have been used throughout World War Two as a tool of propaganda, to influence the lives of both their supporters and the civilians of the opposition and to create the next generation to continue the ideology, not only by the Nazi party but by Britain, the USA, and the Soviet Union in particular and have continued to be a popular form of propaganda throughout the following years and in the recent years the use and the quality of them has increased, with the ever –increasing rise in technological advances. However, in the Second World War these cartoons were expensive to manufacture and so many were privately invested for example by richer members of the Nazi Party. Additionally, with the lack of domestic television during the Second World War, one of the most common forms of entertainment was the Cinema and this was also (along with the radio) the easiest way of reaching the news. Therefore before each news bulletin a short film/cartoon was played for the audiences as a means of entertainment. Der Stӧrenfried was one of these cartoons and was used as not only entertainment but as a way of influencing the audience and idealising the news that would follow. The voiceover also mentions how “the audience are able to watch the German Wermacht in reality, during the advance on all the fronts” which shows how the producers would be able to show the efforts of the German Army in a way that would be suitable for children, without all the real-life images and video footage. This therefore also reinforces the idea that cartoons were used as a way to inform the children of Germany about what was happening during the war in a way suitable for them.