I mean, WW2 era governments had absolutely no qualms whatsoever about lying to their citizens. And a whole lot of those lies have become "history".
You can't lie about massive depopulation, particularly of Poland. They're literally fucking gone. 14% of the population was wiped out.
From all that I've seen, I have no idea where there's supposed to be exaggeration. The Soviets initially exaggerated some losses, and so did the East & West Germans, and yet the initial exaggerations have been eliminated in the face of actual evidence. I've had to explain to the HD'ers who claim that "the numbers have never gone down", that the initial deaths at Auschwitz were estimated, improperly, by the Soviets to be 3 million. The camp commandant estimated it was closer to 2.5, then down to 1.8, and our own modern historical investigations suggest it's 1.1.
Look at the Khatyn Massacre, even. It was aggressively pushed as anti-Soviet propaganda, pushed out by Nazis who were always eager to push even completely invented propaganda (they literally started the war in Poland with a false flag attack). However, Khatyn was absolutely real, which made the propaganda even more successful. The Nazis didn't even have to exaggerate very much it because it was so useful as propaganda. They just pushed on it as hard as they could.
I've had to explain to the HD'ers who claim that "the numbers have never gone down"
Case in point, one of the guys in this thread who's apparently using a carefully-curated set of figures posted after the war, yes, but before tallies were updated, to say "Look, no genocide here, guv!"
You can't lie about massive depopulation, particularly of Poland. They're literally fucking gone. 14% of the population was wiped out.
From all that I've seen, I have no idea where there's supposed to be exaggeration. The Soviets initially exaggerated some losses, and so did the East & West Germans, and yet the initial exaggerations have been eliminated in the face of actual evidence. I've had to explain to the HD'ers who claim that "the numbers have never gone down", that the initial deaths at Auschwitz were estimated, improperly, by the Soviets to be 3 million. The camp commandant estimated it was closer to 2.5, then down to 1.8, and our own modern historical investigations suggest it's 1.1.
Look at the Khatyn Massacre, even. It was aggressively pushed as anti-Soviet propaganda, pushed out by Nazis who were always eager to push even completely invented propaganda (they literally started the war in Poland with a false flag attack). However, Khatyn was absolutely real, which made the propaganda even more successful. The Nazis didn't even have to exaggerate very much it because it was so useful as propaganda. They just pushed on it as hard as they could.
Case in point, one of the guys in this thread who's apparently using a carefully-curated set of figures posted after the war, yes, but before tallies were updated, to say "Look, no genocide here, guv!"