As the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world, Random House has helped to distribute some of the best-loved novels on the planet - but what's less well-known is that the company was integral to Hitler's propaganda machine. Joseph Goebbels may have been the Reich Minister of Propaganda, but he used Bertelsmann A.G. - parent company of Random House - to print millions of Nazi propaganda posters and thousands of books, including "Serialisation and Euthanasia: A Contribution To Applied Christian Ethics" and the works of Will Vesper, who was one of the most prominent officials involved in the 1933 book burning. What's more, Random House can also join Siemens in the club of Nazi-associated companies who have subsequently shot themselves in the foot with PR blunders In 1997, the company altered the Webster's Dictionary definition of "Nazi" to include: "A person who is fanatically dedicated to or seeks to control a specified activity, practice, etc.; e.g. 'A soup Nazi'." The Anti-Defamation League accused the company of "trivialising and denying the murderous intent and actions of the Nazi regime". As a publisher who specialised in propaganda during the 1930s and 1940s, you would have thought Random House would have been able to promote its own public image more effectively, wouldn't you?
NUFC editor for WhatCulture.com/NUFC. History graduate (University of Edinburgh) and NCTJ-trained journalist. I love sports, hopelessly following Newcastle United and Newcastle Falcons. My pastimes include watching and attending sports matches religiously, reading spy books and sampling ales.
