Nazi propaganda in the context of "Untermenschen"

Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (German: [ˈleːniː ˈʁiːfn̩ʃtaːl] ; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German filmmaker, photographer, and actress. She is considered one of the most controversial personalities in film history. Regarded by many critics as an "innovative filmmaker and creative aesthete", she is also criticized for her works in the service of propaganda during the Nazi era.

A talented swimmer and an artist, Riefenstahl became interested in dancing during her childhood, taking lessons and performing across all Europe. After seeing a promotional poster for the 1924 film Mountain of Destiny, she was inspired to move into acting and between 1925 and 1929 starred in five successful motion pictures. Riefenstahl became one of the few women in Germany to direct a film during the Weimar era when, in 1932, she decided to try directing with her own film, The Blue Light.

The Atlantic Wall (German: Atlantikwall) was an extensive system of coastal defences and fortifications built by Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1944 along the coast of continental Europe and Scandinavia as a defence against an anticipated Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe from the United Kingdom, during World War II. The manning and operation of the Atlantic Wall was administratively overseen by the German Army, with some support from Luftwaffe ground forces. The Kriegsmarine (German Navy) maintained a separate coastal defence network, organised into a number of sea defence zones.

Hitler ordered the construction of the fortifications in 1942 through his Führer Directive No. 40. More than half a million French workers were drafted to build it. The wall was frequently mentioned in Nazi propaganda, where its size and strength were usually exaggerated. The fortifications included colossal coastal guns, batteries, mortars, and artillery, and thousands of artillery pieces were stationed in its defences. Today, ruins of the wall exist in all of the nations where it was built, although many structures have fallen into the ocean or have been demolished over the years.

Anti-Sovietism or anti-Soviet sentiment are activities that were actually or allegedly aimed against the Soviet Union or government power within the Soviet Union.

Three common uses of the term include the following:

The German Nazi Party adopted and developed several racial hierarchical categorizations as an important part of its racist ideology (Nazism) in order to justify enslavement, extermination, ethnic persecution and other atrocities against ethnicities which it deemed genetically or culturally inferior. The Aryan race is a pseudoscientific concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people who descend from the Proto-Indo-Europeans as a racial grouping and it was accepted by Nazi thinkers. The Nazis considered the putative "Aryan race" a superior "master race" with Germanic peoples as representative of the Nordic race being the best branch, and they considered Jews, mixed-race people, Slavs, Romani, black people, and certain other ethnicities racially inferior subhumans, whose members were only suitable for slave labor and extermination. In these ethnicities, Jews were considered the most inferior. However, the Nazis considered Germanic peoples such as Germans to be significantly mixed between different races, with the East Baltic race being considered inferior by the Nazis, and that their citizens needed to be completely Nordicized after the war. The Nazis also considered some non-Germanic groups such as Sorbs, Northern Italians, and Greeks to be of Germanic and Nordic origin. Some non-Aryan ethnic groups such as the Japanese were considered to be partly superior, while some Indo-Europeans such as Slavs, Romani, and Indo-Aryans were considered inferior.

These beliefs stemmed from a mixture of historical race concepts, 19th-century and early 20th century anthropology, 19th-century and early 20th-century biology, racial biology, white supremacism, notions of Aryan racial superiority, Nordicism, social Darwinism, German nationalism, and antisemitism with the selection of the most extreme parts. They also originated from German military alliance needs. The term Aryan generally originated during the discourses about the use of the term Volk (the people constitute a lineage group whose members share a territory, a language, and a culture). Unlike the German armed forces (Wehrmacht) only used for military conflicts, the Schutzstaffel (SS) was a paramilitary organization directly controlled by the Nazis with absolute compliance with Nazi racial ideology and policies.

Ostmark (German pronunciation: [ˈɔstmaʁk] , "Eastern March") was a name that referred historically to the Margraviate of Austria, a medieval frontier march. It was also used in Nazi propaganda from 1938 to 1942 to refer to the formerly independent Federal State of Austria after the Anschluss with Nazi Germany. From the Anschluss until 1939, the official name used was Land Österreich ("State of Austria").

Antisemitism (prejudice against and hatred of Jews) has increased greatly in the Arab world since the beginning of the 20th century, for several reasons: the dissolution and breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; European influence, brought about by Western imperialism and Arab Christians; Nazi propaganda and relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world; resentment over Zionism and the experience of the Nakba; the rise of Arab nationalism; and the widespread proliferation of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories.

Traditionally, Jews in the Muslim world were considered to be People of the Book and were subjected to dhimmi status. They were afforded relative security against persecution, provided they did not contest the varying inferior social and legal status imposed on them under Islamic rule.

The claim that there was a Jewish war against Nazi Germany is an antisemitic conspiracy theory promoted in Nazi propaganda which asserts that the Jewish people, framed within the theory as a single historical actor, started World War II and sought the destruction of Germany. Alleging that war was declared in 1939 by Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, Nazis used this false notion to justify the persecution of Jews under German control on the grounds that the Holocaust was justified self-defense. Since the end of World War II, the conspiracy theory has been popular among neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers.