Svobodnaya Zemlya — Newspaper of German Occupants: Against the Soviets. A Paradigm of Fascist Propaganda to Negate War Goals Revisited

Introduction. The article aims to analyze the newspaper ’Svobodnaya zemlya’ (Free Land), published for a short time (September-December 1942) by German occupying forces in Kalmykia. The newspaper has not been the object of a special study so far.  Its main purpose was propaganda, used by the occupiers as one of the most important psychological and ideological weapons of war. The Nazi propaganda targeted the population of the occupied territories, subjecting the people to massive psychological and ideological pressures. Hence, every genre of the newspaper was designed and adapted to carry on disguised Nazi propaganda. Material and methods. The source for the research data was ’Svobodnaya zemlya’, the organ of the German administration at the time of Nazi occupation of the Kalmyk territory. Notably, the historiography in this country and abroaddiscusses certain aspects of fascist propaganda during the Second World War, but the regional newspapers of the German occupiershave not been examined so far. In his analysis, the author was guided by the principles of objectivity, comprehensive analysis, historicism, hermeneutics, and source criticism. Results. The purpose of the German occupiers’ newspaper was to persuade the local population that the preventive war launched and conducted by them was not a humanitarian catastrophe, but it was directed only against the “Jewish-Bolshevik government” of the Soviet Union, and the German army had a liberation mission, a happy future awaiting the liberated people. According to this propaganda, the liberated peoples were tostay calm and confident of their future; also, they were expected to actively cooperate, helping the German army tonear the victory, but any act of disobedience orjust passive resistance of individuals would havedire consequences for them, including death punishment. Conclusion. The newspaper under studyis one of the most important types of historical sources to shed light on the history of Kalmykia in the war period. Added to the source data, it helps fill in some gaps to allow for an objective discussion of controversial issues. Also, the analysis of the newspaper demonstrates some of the methods and techniques used by the Nazis in the occupied regions to deliberately disseminate falsified ideas about the goals of the war as a means of disguised propaganda.

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