The Making of a Nazi: Disney’s 1943 Animated Short

During World War II, Walt Disney entered into a contract with the US government to develop 32 animated shorts. Nearly bankrupted by Fantasia (1940), Disney needed to refill its coffers, and making American propaganda films didn’t seem like a bad way to do it. On numerous occasions, Donald Duck was called upon to deliver moral messages to domestic audiences (see The Spirit of ’43 and Der Fuehrer’s Face). But that wasn’t the case with Education for Death: The Making of Nazi, a film shown in U.S. movie theaters in 1943.

Based on a book written by Gregor Ziemer, this animated short–streamable over at Archive.org–used a different lineup of characters to show how the Nazi party turned innocent youth into Hitler’s corrupted children. Unlike other topics addressed in Disney war films (e.g. taxes and the draft), this theme, the cultivation of young minds, hit awfully close to home. And it’s perhaps why it’s one of Disney’s better wartime films. (Spiegel Online has more on Disney’s WW II propaganda films here.)

You will find Education for Death permanently listed in the Animation section of our collection of Free Movies Online.

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Comments (3)
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  • leonel says:

    and why is that the video is not available in europ France?

  • inDependent52 says:

    Inquiring minds want to know. Does America have a Hitler? If so, who is he/she? Who is our Goerhing? Goebels? Have a look at this Disney animation. Ignore the word Nazi and the Reich flag. Substitute the word America for Germany. Try to work through it as a thought exercise. Are we, inadvertently, going down a dangerous road? If so, why? Can we avoid it? How?

  • Edward Turner says:

    We don’t have a Hitler moron but we do have right wing zealots who are anti_intellectual and regressive idiots who invent insidious concepts like American exceptuualism and rant and rave about how anyone who doesn’t see things the way they do must be leftists or communists if we do have a Joseph gobbles he would be like Sean hannity or rush Limbaugh our names call themselves conservatives

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