This belated discovery of propaganda repeats the familiar German pattern of appropriating a foreign concept—one that was viewed simply as a means to an end—and subjecting it to an idealistic transformation that renders it into a kind of theology of salvation. The start of the process was the publication of The German Way of Thinking, which Rohrbach expected to have a transformative effect on the international battle of ideas. What he and others overlooked in their missionary zeal, however, was the fact that unfavorable images of Germany were not just the result of clumsy public relations.
