“Nobody knew better than Goebbels that a Propaganda Ministry was almost a contradiction in terms. Propaganda is the more effective the less people know that they are supposed to be influenced, and vice versa.”

— Curt Martin Riess

Source: Total Espionage: Germany’s Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-41 (1941), Joseph Goebbels: A Biography (1948), p. 101

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Curt Martin Riess 2

German journalist and writer 1902–1993

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“Nobody knew better than Goebbels that a Propaganda Ministry was almost a contradiction in terms. Propaganda is the more effective the less people know that they are supposed to be influenced, and vice versa.”

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