Every recording has a point of view. Explore how speeches, broadcasts and music can shape belief—and learn what to listen for.
Start with a question
When you hear a confident voice, a cheering crowd or a familiar tune, ask: What am I being invited to believe—or do?
Propaganda is communication designed to steer opinion and behaviour toward a particular cause. It can use falsehoods, but it can also select real facts, leave out inconvenient details or connect a message with feelings of pride, fear and belonging. Recognising it takes more than spotting an obvious lie. 1 2
You do not have to agree with a message to study it. A recording can help us understand how someone tried to persuade an audience without proving that the speaker’s claims were true.
Two wars, different settings
Imperial Germany · 1914–1918
Wartime messaging promoted national unity, sacrifice and confidence in victory. It circulated through newspapers, posters, postcards, songs, films and public addresses. The Deutsches Historisches Museum also describes substantial public participation in producing patriotic material. 3
A photograph of an enthusiastic crowd does not tell us what everyone thought. The museum points out how images of cheering people helped create a misleading impression of universal enthusiasm for war.
Nazi Germany · 1933–1945
The Nazi regime used propaganda alongside censorship and terror. Its messages promoted loyalty, justified aggression and spread antisemitism. Propaganda helped prepare the ground for persecution and genocide; those consequences belong in the history of the recordings. 2 4
Speeches were part of a wider media system that included radio, film, newspapers, education and music. Understanding who controlled that system matters as much as examining a single phrase.
These periods should be studied separately. Similar techniques can appear in different countries and political systems, but their purposes, institutions and consequences are not interchangeable.
What to listen for
Use these questions as starting points. Try noting a timestamp and the specific words or sounds that caught your attention.
“Everyone agrees”
Does applause, chanting or a claim of national unity stand in for evidence? Who was present—and whose views are missing?
A simple enemy
Is one group blamed for complicated problems? Watch for collective accusations, conspiracy claims and language that denies people their humanity.
Fear and urgency
Are you being pushed toward an immediate conclusion? What evidence supports the danger described, and what choices are left out?
Familiar words, repeated
Which slogans return? Does their familiarity make them feel established even when the speaker offers little support?
Authority and belonging
Does the message connect loyalty to a leader with loyalty to your community? Can someone question the claim without being labelled an enemy?
Gentle words for harmful acts
Does official language make coercion or violence sound routine? Ask what the action meant for the people affected. Nazi authorities, for example, used misleading resettlement language to conceal murder. 4
These listening prompts are our editorial synthesis, informed by the museum education sources below. They are not a scoring system or an automatic test for propaganda.
Listen to the sound, too
Notice changes in pace, volume and pauses; the placement of music; and when the audience responds. Then compare what you heard with the transcript. A dramatic delivery can make a claim memorable without making it accurate.
Ask whether you are hearing a live event, a studio performance, a later reading or an edited compilation. Background noise alone cannot settle that question. A short excerpt may remove the sentence that explains what came before or after it. The Library of Congress recommends moving between observation, interpretation and further questions when studying audio. 5
For music, consider the lyrics, the occasion, who commissioned or distributed it, and how it was used. A march rhythm—or the date of a recording—does not by itself establish a propaganda purpose.
Check a claim in five steps
- Pin down the claim. Put the factual assertion into plain language. Separate it from insults, predictions and appeals to loyalty.
- Identify the source. Find the speaker, organisation, intended audience and original recording or publication. Treat a filename as a clue.
- Recover the context. Look for the full speech and a reliable transcript. Keep the event date, recording date and later release date separate.
- Look beyond the source. Consult independent archives and established historical research. Several sites copying one account are not several independent witnesses. Digital Inquiry Group calls the practice of investigating a source elsewhere “lateral reading.” 6
- State what the evidence supports. A useful conclusion may be “supported,” “contradicted” or “not established.” Be willing to revise it when stronger evidence appears.
Translations need checking too. Compare important wording with the original language where possible, and distinguish a literal translation from an editor’s summary.
Put the method to work
A recording date worth checking
The Deutsches Historisches Museum’s catalogue entry for Wilhelm II’s Aufruf an das deutsche Volk gives its recording date as 10 January 1918. This is a useful reminder to consult the object record instead of dating audio only from the event or speech named on a compilation. 7
Try asking: What date does the catalogue actually describe? Is this the same recording as the file I have?
A song linked to propaganda film
Clark University preserves a contemporary postcard connecting Bomben auf Engelland with the propaganda film Feuertaufe. That link gives us evidence about the song’s use beyond its title. It does not identify every later performance of the song. 8
Try asking: How do the words, film and intended audience work together? What would the recording alone leave unexplained?
Sources & further reading
Begin with the source records, then compare interpretations. These links support the guide; they do not identify recordings that have not yet been examined.
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — Teaching Materials on Propaganda. Educational framework for assessing messages and evidence.
- USHMM — Nazi Propaganda. Institutions, media and the connection with persecution.
- Deutsches Historisches Museum / LeMO — Kriegspropaganda. First World War context; German-language resource.
- USHMM — Deceiving the Public. Concealment, deception and the justification of violence.
- Library of Congress — Analyzing Sound Recordings. Primary-source listening guide.
- Digital Inquiry Group — How to Evaluate Online Sources About History. Lateral reading and investigating who is behind a source.
- DHM via Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek — Wilhelm II recording, object T 90/430. Recording-date example.
- Clark University — Baptism of Fire, postcard 2022.02.9.11. Song and film connection.