All propaganda has to be popular and has to adapt its spiritual level to the perception of the least intelligent of those towards whom it intends to direct itself.

This line is from Adolf Hitler’s political manifesto *Mein Kampf*, written in the mid-1920s after the failed Beer Hall Putsch and during his imprisonment, when he was systematizing lessons he believed the Nazi movement should draw from wartime and postwar mass politics. In the book’s discussion of propaganda, Hitler argues for messaging aimed at the broadest possible audience and criticizes complexity, nuance, and intellectual appeal as ineffective for mass persuasion. The remark reflects his instrumental view of communication as a technique for mobilization and control, rather than deliberation or truth-seeking, and it anticipates the simplified, repetitive messaging later characteristic of Nazi propaganda practice.

The quote asserts a deliberately reductive theory of mass persuasion: propaganda should be designed for maximum reach, calibrated to the lowest level of comprehension within the target audience. “Popular” here means not merely widely liked but simplified, emotionally legible, and easily repeatable. The implication is that effective propaganda avoids complexity and aims at uniform, immediate impact, treating the public as a manipulable collective rather than as individuals capable of critical judgment. In a broader ethical sense, the statement is revealing because it frames persuasion as a one-way process of lowering discourse to secure obedience—an approach that helps explain how authoritarian movements use simplification, repetition, and scapegoating to shape perceptions and behavior.