Anti-Serb sentiment increasingly infiltrated German Nazism after Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor in 1933. The roots of this sentiment can be found in his early life in Vienna, and when he was informed about the Yugoslav coup d'état that was conducted by a group of pro-Western Serb officers in March 1941, he decided to punish all Serbs as the main enemies of his new Nazi order. The propaganda ministry of Joseph Goebbels, with the support of the Bulgarian, Italian, and Hungarian press, was given the task of stimulating anti-Serb sentiment among the Croats, Slovenians and Hungarians. The propaganda of the Axis powers accused the group of persecuting minorities and establishing concentration camps for ethnic Germans in order to justify an attack on Yugoslavia and Nazi Germany portrayed itself as a force which would save the Yugoslav people from the threat of Serb nationalism. In 1941 Yugoslavia was invaded and occupied by the Axis powers.