Battle for the minds: Use of propaganda films in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany

Since the end of the Second World War, scholars and experts have examined the use of cinema in spreading totalitarian propaganda. Nazi Germany, in particular, has caught the most attention. However, most of these studies focus exclusively on one nation, and relatively few studies have tried to directly compare the cinematic propaganda of different countries. This study aims to directly compare cinematic propaganda of Stalinist-era Russia and Nazi Germany and find out who utilized the medium of film more effectively. To accomplish this, this study will examine and directly compare several critical components, such as industry structure and artistic merits, of each nation’s film industry. This study finds that the Germans were more effective than the Soviets at producing films in terms of quality and quantity. However, there is a lack of available data about the psychological effectiveness of these propaganda pieces. Therefore, this study can’t definitively state which nation more effectively used cinema as a propaganda tool