Big Lie

The phrase Big Lie refers to a propaganda technique which originated with Adolf Hitler's 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf. In that book Hitler wrote that people came to believe that Germany lost World War I in the field due to a propaganda technique used by Jews who were influential in the German press. This technique, he believed, consisted of telling a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe anyone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously". The first documented use of the phrase "big lie" is in the corresponding passage: "in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility".¹

Related Topics:
Propaganda - Adolf Hitler - Mein Kampf - World War I - ¹

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Later, Joseph Goebbels put forth a slightly different theory which has come to be more commonly associated with the phrase big lie. In this theory, the English are attributed with using a propaganda technique where in they had the mendacity to "lie big" and "stick to it".²

Related Topics:
Joseph Goebbels - ²

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There is an uncited rumor to the effect that Goebbels also offered up his version of the big lie technique without attributing it to either Jewish or Allied propaganda. That uncited quote is the most wide-spread attribution of the big lie and it is usually given in a context where the implication is that the propaganda technique was invented by Goebbels, who was the propaganda minister for the Third Reich.³

Related Topics:
Third Reich - ³

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The phrase was also used (on page 51) in a report prepared during the war by the Office of Strategic Services in describing Hitler's psychological profile http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/profile-index.html

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:His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it. - OSS report page 51 http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/h/hitler-adolf/oss-papers/text/oss-profile-03-02.html

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