Background: This is to my mind one of Goebbels’ most interesting
speeches. It was given on 9 January 1928 to an audience of party
members at the so-called “Hochschule für Politik,” a series of
training talks for party members in Berlin. It is Goebbels’ most
extended discussion of the nature of propaganda, all the more
interesting because of its early date. The source: “Erkenntnis
und Propaganda,” Signale der neuen Zeit. 25 ausgewählte Reden
von Dr. Joseph Goebbels (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP.,
1934), pp. 28-52. Knowledge and Propaganda My dear fellow party
members! Our theme this evening is hotly disputed. I realize
that my viewpoint is subjective. There is really little point to
discussing propaganda. It is a matter of practice, not of
theory. One cannot determine theoretically whether one
propaganda is better than another. Rather, that propaganda is
good that has the desired results, and that propaganda is bad
that does not lead to the desired results. It does not matter
how clever it is, for the task