What this film DOESN'T tell us

An interesting sidebar to the life of Joseph Goebbels has to do with Edward Bernays, the so-called 'founder' of public relations (and nephew of Sigmund Freud), who died four years ago at the age of 103. He wrote the 'bible' on public relations, and it's still very relevant (and widely used) today.

Goebbels was an admirer of Bernays, and given the German's mastery of propaganda, it's not hard to see why. Bernays was a cynical master of public manipulation, or what is now called 'spin'. His PR campaign for the U.S. government and the United Fruit Company convinced the American public that the democratically elected government of Guatemala was controlled by communists, which was patently false. This paved the way for the CIA-backed overthrow of the Guatemalan government (1954). The same modus operandi was used 19 years later in Chile.

Goebbels believed that if you tell the same lie often enough, the public will start to believe it is true. It became a credo for him. Where did he learn this? From none other than Bernays, who spent a good part of his life telling lies and pretending they weren't. These methods are used everywhere in the world of PR (now often labelled by the softer term 'public affairs' because PR has, not surprisingly, a lot of negativity attached to it).

George Orwell was influenced by Goebbels (and by extension, Bernays) in writing his novel '1984'. The persistent theme in the novel is mind manipulation, which is the guiding principle behind PR-advertising strategies, whether we like it or not.

Goebbels was one of the architects of the Holocaust. When told that Goebbels admired him, Bernays, an Austrian-born Jew, was reportedly flattered. A real sweetheart.

Goebbels and Bernays are both dead, but their ideas are alive and doing very well. The evidence is all around us, if we open our minds to see it.