Indeed, in spring 1943, when Goebbels tried to mobilise public opinion – for the one and only time – in sympathy with the Poles, in order to showcase the far greater threat of Soviet terror, he had to contend with the popular memories of 1939. People pointed to the ‘fact’ that 60,000 Germans had been killed by Poles and asked why they merited German sympathy, even against killers from the Soviet secret police, the NKVD. The Propaganda Ministry could not remake public sympathies at will.
