On March 1, 1934, the German Reich gave a reception for foreign correspondents in an effort to polish their international image. According to a Chicago Tribune story at that time, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels said he wanted the press and their readers to have a better understanding of the “new Germany.” U.S. Ambassador William E. Dodd attended the reception.

Goebbels told those gathered that “the Nazi victory in Germany gave power to a new generation of men, fired by the noble ambition of finding a new method for solution of the old problems which seem insoluble to old methods. That is the only way to recovery for hard tried Europe.”