What were the pros and cons of Mussolini and Hitler in their use of propaganda?
I doesn’t sound as if you’re looking for pros and cons, but rather techniques. Mussolini was a journalist and then the editor of a major newspaper. As a politician he was very slick. He said different things to different groups, and since he controlled the press, no one really knew what he was doing. He was the first politician to have himself filmed shirtless working alongside the peasants in Sicily. This was a brilliant piece of propaganda – Mussolini, the father of the nation who cares for all classes, working right alongside the peasants. He was also fluent in 4 languages (Hitler was only fluent in German, and only had a high school education). Hitler’s propaganda machine was run by Dr. Goebbels, who had a PhD in philosophy. This guy was a very skillful liar. The Nazis made much use of popular art and cinema to advance their program of racial supremacy. Italians laughed at German claims to be racially superior. Italy was civilized about a thousand years before Germany was, and near
