Non-fiction: Der Angriff

Overview
"Der Angriff" (The Attack) was a Berlin newspaper launched in 1927 by Joseph Goebbels, then the Nazi Party’s Gauleiter for Berlin. Meant as a daily organ for agitation rather than reporting, it blended polemical essays, short front-page salvos, and cartoons to cultivate a combative street-level presence. The title signaled purpose: to batter the perceived “System” of Weimar democracy, vilify political opponents, and rally followers behind a single-leader, ethnic-nationalist program. Though not a conventional book, its early issues and leading articles, many written by Goebbels, functioned as a coherent manifesto for the party’s urban strategy and were later anthologized.

Origins and context
Goebbels founded the paper amid the Nazi Party’s post-1925 reorganization, tailoring it to Berlin’s polarized politics. He faced a metropolis dominated by Social Democrats and Communists, a skeptical press landscape, and a public fatigued by crisis and cultural change. "Der Angriff" positioned itself as the voice of the “little man” and the embattled nationalist underclass, printing a masthead slogan like "For the oppressed against the exploiters" to feign social-revolutionary solidarity while redirecting anger toward designated enemies.

Themes and arguments
Central to the paper’s content was an uncompromising assault on parliamentary democracy. Elections were framed as hollow rituals masking rule by party machines, “system parties,” and alleged conspirators. The solution advanced was the Führerprinzip, dictatorial leadership embodied in a single will, presented as efficient, moral, and authentically popular. A second pillar was its dual-front attack on the left and on liberal-conservative elites: Social Democrats and Communists were lampooned as cynical power brokers or violent subversives, while centrist politicians were mocked as decadent guardians of a failed order.

Antisemitism suffused the argumentation. Jews were cast as the linchpin of supposed economic exploitation and cultural “decay,” an accusation that merged conspiracy tropes with scapegoating of “finance capitalism,” big department stores, and modern entertainment. Berlin’s pluralism, its nightlife, avant-garde arts, and cosmopolitan press, was caricatured as “asphalt culture,” a sign of moral corruption requiring a national rebirth. International agreements and reparations were denounced as national humiliation, with the paper urging a politics of will, struggle, and revenge.

Style and technique
"Der Angriff" refined methods that would define Nazi propaganda. Articles were short, slogan-heavy, and emotionally charged, privileging repetition over argument. Goebbels wrote in a colloquial, taunting register that personalized enemies and simplified causes. War and disease metaphors converted political opponents into existential threats. Caricatures by artists like Hans Schweitzer (“Mjölnir”) provided visual shorthand for enemies, while headlines staged politics as a permanent clash. The paper glorified action and discipline, portraying street confrontations as proof of vitality and framing SA militancy as defensive necessity.

Function as propaganda
Beyond persuasion, the paper coordinated mobilization. It advertised rallies, synchronized talking points with speaking tours, and offered readers a vocabulary of grievance and belonging. Attacks on the “system press” aimed to detach readers from alternative sources and produce a self-contained information world. The hybrid of social rhetoric and racial nationalism allowed the paper to mine economic distress while channeling resentment into the party’s exclusionary project.

Role and impact
"Der Angriff" helped the Nazi movement gain a foothold in Berlin, setting narrative frames that normalized contempt for democratic institutions and legitimated political violence. Its blend of antisemitic scapegoating, anti-Marxist agitation, and anti-parliamentary invective forged an identity for followers and intimidated opponents. The 1927 launch marked an organizational turning point: a propaganda instrument calibrated to the tempo of urban politics that would, in coming years, amplify crises, deepen polarization, and prepare audiences to accept authoritarian solutions.