To what extent was propaganda the Third Reich's most powerful tool?

Propaganda can be defined as information of a biased or misleading nature. Over the twelve-year course of the Third Reich, it proved to be a potent weapon in the hands of the Nazi regime. As with any other totalitarian dictatorship the Third Reich imposed a total ban on any independent sources of information. The government only wanted its message to get out; it sought total control over the hearts and minds of the German people and propaganda was a highly effective weapon in achieving this aim.
The Nazis refined propaganda almost to an art form, achieving at times a high degree of sophistication. Reich Propaganda Minister Goebbels was particularly effective in embracing the power of media such as radio, cinema, and newspapers to convey the Nazi creed. Films such as Triumph of the Will were incredibly innovative in their use of cinematic techniques, achieving great critical acclaim despite the unacceptable nature of its message.
At other times, Nazi propaganda could be willfully crude. It largely depended on which particular policy was being pushed at the time. Propaganda against the Jews, for example, showed none of the sophistication or aesthetic worth of Triumph of the Will. It was uniformly vulgar, pandering to the basest instincts of a population increasingly whipped up with anti-Semitic hatred. Although the ostensible message of such propaganda was explicit, its underlying message was more subtle. The Nazis were attempting, little by little, to dehumanize the Jews in order to prepare the German people for a more systematic policy of exclusion and ethnic cleansing.
If nothing else, Nazi propaganda was remarkably adaptable. Despite being a dictatorship, the government of the Third Reich couldn't completely afford to ignore public opinion. For example, the state policy of murdering those deemed physically or mentally disabled was deeply unpopular with the country at large, particularly among practicing Christians. So the Nazis had to tread carefully. And their circumspection was reflected in their propaganda, which refrained from addressing this controversial issue except through the language of scientific advancement.
There can be little doubt that propaganda kept the Nazi regime going longer than it ought to have done. Even when it was obvious that the war was lost and that the so-called "thousand year" Reich would last only twelve, most Germans still displayed a remarkable degree of personal loyalty to Hitler. This, more than anything, shows the cumulative effectiveness of several years of systematic propaganda by the state. The German people had internalized the pernicious Nazi narrative of a pure race fighting for its very existence against the barbarous hordes of Jewish-controlled Communists. Instead of challenging the regime, Germans looked to it to provide security in the face of Allied aggression.
One of the Nazis' main articles of faith was the belief in a complete unity of government and people, Reich and Volk, all fanatically struggling together to fulfill their historic destiny. It was, of course, a complete myth. But thanks to arguably the most sophisticated, innovative propaganda machine in history, that myth contained more of the truth than it really ought to have.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda