‘The Nazis Are Coming, Hurrah! Hurrah!’: 1933–1935

Chapter 3 analyses the coverage of the tumultuous events in Germany and the victimisation of Jews from 1933 to 1935, after Hitler’s seizure of power. It reflects on Australian news gathering and the specific constraints placed on the press. The reception to the racial laws from 1933 to 1935—the boycotts against Jewish businesses, the expropriation decrees, and the Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935—is significant in revealing the strengths and deficiencies in the press treatment of Nazism in Australia in the gradual build-up of tension and violence as the decade progressed. The chapter documents how news outlets had access to the same information and photographs from the wire services. It argues that some Australian news organisations acknowledged and gave credence to the burgeoning number of accounts of Jewish persecution, providing comprehensive coverage of the unfolding tragedy in Europe; other outlets, however, followed a trajectory of obfuscation, disinformation and even denial.