As Propaganda Minister, Goebbels understood that pressure could be brought to bear to push these initiatives along by way of a major propaganda campaign. On 18 February 1943, he made a nationally broadcast speech from the Berlin Sportpalast before a hand-picked audience of 14,000 Nazi die-hards, in which he extolled the necessity of a Spartan way of life in order to achieve total war. Throughout the speech the crews filming the event panned in and out on prominent people for added dramatic effect. Goebbels roused his audience with rhetorical questions; he was interrupted more than 200 times by shouts, slogans and wildly enthusiastic applause: