Eric Onkenhout writing over at Coffee With Kenobi looks at the propaganda of Star Wars and the real-world influences that helped bring it to life.
In the Star Wars galaxy however, Palpatine and his Empire were not the only ones to use propaganda as a means to recruit. According to Propaganda: A History of Persuasive Art in the Galaxy written by Pablo Hidalgo, the Separatist Alliance used propaganda art to recruit young talent to build their battle droids. During Hitler’s last speech of the film, he addresses an event known as The Night of the Long Knives, which was a purge carried out by the Nazi Party to eliminate rival political parties and threats to Hitler’s rise to power. This purge essentially eliminated the SA (Sturmabteilung) or Storm-Detachment, and replaced that with Hitler’s own SS (Schutzstaffel) or Protection Squad. During the fall of the Republic and the eventual rise of the Empire, Palpatine also uses covert means to remove Chancellor Valorum from power and then his ultimate goal of eliminating the Jedi in the massacre that was Order 66.
