When Hitler Is Used as an Instrument of Patriotism

By S. Rouzbeh

In governments beset by crisis, more than security institutions and instruments of repression are mobilised. Language is enlisted too. Words are emptied of their ordinary meaning, mixed with fear, anger and disgust, then injected into public opinion through slogans, posters and banners. A poster recently seen in Iran bearing a sentence attributed to Hitler belongs to this pattern: it is more than a simple patriotic message; it is an example of psychological warfare and the engineering of emotion.

What makes the poster significant is not only its content, but how it constructs its psychological effect. It invokes Hitler’s name: a figure who, in the world’s historical memory, symbolises crime, hatred, warmongering and destruction. That choice is meaningful in itself. Why should an apparatus wishing to speak of the ‘homeland’ and ‘national honour’ seek refuge in the name of one of history’s most reviled figures? The answer is clear: it no longer relies on argument and seeks shock instead. This choice signals not authority, but a poverty of propaganda.

More importantly, at least as far as publicly available, established sources can be searched, there appears to be no clear, reliable source for this sentence attributed to Hitler. In other words, we are most likely dealing with an unverified or fabricated quotation. This is not a secondary point. On the contrary, it is precisely here that the nature of the propaganda becomes apparent. Within such a mechanism, a lie is not an error; it is part of the method. An unsupported sentence is circulated under the name of an imposing, frightening figure to exploit that name’s false authority in influencing the audience’s mind.

But the poster’s main burden does not rest on the attributed quotation alone. More decisive is the sentence added beneath it, equating an assault on the country with an assault on one’s mother. Here we move beyond the political slogan into the realm of political invective. Language is deliberately lowered to a level at which the homeland is presented not as a historical, civic and national concept, but as an inflamed matter of sexual and familial honour. In such language, no room remains for thought. Rather than think, the audience must react: must become angry, tense up and feel confronted by something answerable only with hatred and exclusion.

Comparing an assault on the country with the rape of one’s mother is more than rhetorical exaggeration. It is a familiar technique in authoritarian propaganda. Politics is drawn into the realm of honour so that questioning becomes impossible. In an atmosphere governed by honour, reason retreats and instinctive reaction takes its place. Within this framework, the boundaries between critic, opponent, dissenter, protester and traitor are deliberately erased. Everything is poured into one vessel to make labelling easier. This is no longer a defence of the homeland; it turns the homeland into an instrument of threat and humiliation.

At this point we must say plainly: this is not the language of patriotism. It is political invective dressed in the homeland’s clothes. In this poster, Iran is not loved, but appropriated. The country’s name is spent to produce fear, guilt and disgust. Rather than being the shared home of all citizens, the homeland becomes a propaganda cudgel for silencing criticism and intimidating public opinion.

This device usually intensifies when a government faces a deficit of legitimacy. The less scope there is for persuasion, the greater the need for visual shouting. The weaker the argument, the harsher and more contaminated the language becomes. In such circumstances, a poster is no longer simply a passing image on a wall. It forms part of a psychological operation seeking to push citizens from thought into reaction. They are not meant to ask questions, but to be afraid. Not to judge, but to stand in a predetermined line.

The contradiction is therefore striking. A government calling itself the defender of morality, independence and national dignity invokes Hitler’s name and places beneath it a phrase carrying the stench of humiliation, assault and abuse. This contradiction is not accidental. We are dealing here not with persuasive propaganda, but with agitated propaganda. The aim is not to explain, but to provoke. Not to reason, but to block the path to reasoning.

The danger of such language lies in more than its falsehood. Its principal danger is the degradation of public language. When abuse, humiliation and degrading comparisons enter political speech, truth is not the only casualty; the very possibility of healthy dialogue is lost. A society continually surrounded by this kind of expression gradually moves away from rational judgement and is pushed towards crude, immediate reactions. This is the ground on which authoritarianism likes to keep its citizens: the ground of anxiety, rather than thought.

Ultimately, the poster should not be treated as a lapse of taste or an insignificant display. It is a condensed example of a broader logic: lies in place of evidence, shock in place of argument, invective in place of political dialogue and fear in place of persuasion. When Hitler is used as an instrument of patriotism, those doing so reveal, above all, their own moral and propagandistic bankruptcy. Attributing an unsupported sentence to such a figure, then adding a phrase that equates an assault on the country with an assault on one’s mother, is no defence of the homeland. It exploits the homeland’s name to obstruct thought and inject fear into society.

The homeland is not preserved through lies, abuse and frightening the public. What such posters expose is not a system’s strength, but its anxiety. The first step in confronting this organised anxiety is to prevent a lie, wrapped in the flag of the homeland, from passing itself off as truth.