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Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi is an animated propaganda short film produced by Walt Disney and released on January 15, 1943, by RKO Radio Pictures, directed by Clyde Geronimi and principally animated by Ward Kimball. The short is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by American author Gregor Ziemer.

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Walt Disney: Education for Death - The Making of the Nazi (1943) - video Dailymotion

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Soviet WW2 Propaganda Cartoons depicting Hitler

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SOVIET PROPAGANDA FILM   VICTORY OF USSR & SOCIALISM in WWII 50414

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Armer Hansi is a short created by Deutsche Zeichenfilm GmbH, a German animation studio that was set up by Joseph Goebbels, the German Minister of Propaganda and National Enlightenment. This was done on the orders of Adolf Hitler, who wanted Germany to make cartoons that could rival Disney.
It's about a bird who leaves his cage and falls in love with another bird outside of it's species, who is met with many problems. The bird eventually finds a female bird of it's on species and "lives happily ever after".

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An animated short based on a poem by German poet Friedrich Ruckert. The short goes straight to the point of painting Jews as parasites. It is about a golden tree that is home to little birds. At least, until a Jew comes along and plucks all its leaves except one.

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Vom Bäumlein, das andere Blätter hat gewollt (1940) English subs

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Momotaro’s Sea Eagles is a Japanese short created in 1942 but released in 1943. It is based on the 1941 Pearl Harbor bombing and even contains live footage of the attack. The short features Japanese folklore character, Momotaro, who leads a group of Japanese animal soldiers, airplanes, and ships to attack Pearl Harbor, which they refer to as “Devil’s Island.”

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Momotaro's Sea Eagles 1943   B&W ⁄ 37 mins

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Dottor Churkill is an Italian cartoon starring wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as Doctor Churchill. It parodies the famous Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story line. However, this time, Winston Churchill is a wicked half-human half-monster who drinks a chemical concoction to become the good Dr. Churchill.

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"Ici Londres..." The French radio service that gave the resistance hope

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Secret Messages for the Free French Forces (1940-1944)

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Nimbus Libere is a short (2 minutes, 33 seconds) created by the Nazis for occupied France. It features Disney characters and was intended to mock the Allied aer

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Great animated cartoon about Adolf Hitler. It features a parody of the song 'Run, Rabbit Run' and the words are shown across the top of the screen. The cartoon features Adolf firing the starting gun for the war, being shot at by shells in his tank and being chased by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who hits him on the head with a rolled umbrella.

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WWII cartoon about Hitler's peace pudding (1939)

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WWII Homefront "Women Of Steel" 1943 (full)

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1942 BRITISH WWII PROPAGANDA FILM  "FORWARD COMMANDOS!"  RAYMOND SPOTTISWOODE FILM 85504

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1942 BRITISH WORLD WAR II  PROPAGANDA FILM   "LISTEN TO BRITAIN" WARTIME ENGLAND 63584

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Within the last few years, the World War II British propaganda poster "Keep calm and carry on" has become ubiquitous around the World.

What many people don't know is that the poster only saw limited distribution during World War II - the 2.5 million copies printed were held back and intended for us only in times of crisis, which (thankfully) never came.

However, the British government produced a whole range of other posters, many of which did see the light of day.

Recently the UK's National Archives has decided to release over World War II 2,000 art works on Wikimedia. We've had a look through the 330 or so artworks that have been uploaded so far, and included some of our favorite examples of posters we found - some of which made it to print and some which didn't. Inside are orders to keep quiet, stop waste and work hard.

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19 Incredible British Propaganda Posters From World War Two

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Within the last few years, the World War II British propaganda poster "Keep calm and carry on" has become ubiquitous around the World. What many people don't know is that the poster only saw limited distribution during World War II - the 2.5 million copies printed were held back and intended for us only in times of crisis, which (thankfully) never came.

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The word 'propaganda' might suggest some form of misinformation - yet in boosting morale during World War Two, the British government had to maintain a careful balancing act. While employing a range of psychological tricks, they had to be seen to be as truthful as possible. "The Ministry of Information (MOI) had been disbanded immediately after World War One because official propaganda had become too easily associated with lies and falsehood," historian David Welch, author of the new book Persuading the People: British Propaganda in World War II, tells BBC Culture. "In World War Two when the MOI was re-established the Ministry was acutely aware of the cynicism associated with propaganda. It was agreed that, with the exception of harmful and unbelievable truths, whenever possible the truth should be told."

Rage against the machine
The posters, pamphlets and films included in Persuading the People reveal the range of approaches the MOI used throughout World War Two. One of them went by the title of the "Anger Campaign". "The MOI had initially decided that 'truth' should be the main weapon with which to attack the enemy in the minds of the public," writes Welch. "However, after the bitter and dramatic events in the summer and autumn of 1940, the MOI launched its Anger Campaign and British propaganda took a more drastic approach by emphasising the brutality of Nazi rule."

In the war's early period, within the MOI there was "an impatience and an implicit lack of confidence in the public - a belief that they were, according to Lord Macmillan, the Minister of Information, 'patient, long-suffering, slow to anger, slower still to hate'... that the working man in particular had little comprehension of the consequences of a Nazi victory and was, therefore, in need of a sharp dose of stiffening."

The Anger Campaign aimed to deliver a shock that could break through what the MOI saw as a "dangerous complacency" with lines like "The Hun is at the gate. He will rage and destroy. He will slaughter women and children". In a radio broadcast by the author JB Priestley for the BBC General Overseas service, Priestley described the 'bright face' of Germany: music, art, and beautiful landscapes. But, he warned, "after the Nazis came ... the bright face had gone, and in its place was the vast dark face with its broken promises and endless deceit, its swaggering Storm Troopers and dreaded Gestapo, its bloodstained basements".

Rumour has it
"The ordeal of Total War - even more so than the Great War - required that civilians must also 'fall-in' and participate (and possibly suffer) on a massive scale in the war effort," Welch tells BBC Culture. "Morale came to be recognised as a significant military factor and propaganda emerged as an essential weapon in the national arsenal. Really for the first time, World War Two witnessed a 'people's war' that was every bit as important as the war fought on the fighting front."

Part of that involved alerting the public to spies in their midst. The fall of France and the Dunkirk evacuation, writes Welch, "gave rise to the belief that a 'Fifth Column' had been operating as an advance guard for the German army". The MOI's "Careless Talk Costs Lives" campaign focused on the idea of an 'enemy from within' and urged people to be discreet. "As a last resort they were asked to inform the police about indiscreet characters such as 'Mr Secrecy Hush-Hush', 'Miss Leaky Mouth', or 'Mr Pride in Prophecy'," writes Welch.

V is for Victory
One of the most successful campaigns, "V for Victory", was launched by the BBC in July 1941. "It was inspired by Victor de Laveleye, former Belgian Minister of Justice and director of the Belgian French-speaking broadcasts on the BBC, who urged his countrymen to use the letter V as a 'rallying emblem' since it is the first letter of the French word for victory ( victoire), the Flemish and Dutch words for freedom ( vrijheid) and, of course, the English word 'victory', making it a multi-national symbol of solidarity," explains Welch. The campaign urged listeners in Nazi-occupied Europe "to show their support for the Allies by scrawling the letter V wherever they could."

Universal language
The Morse code for the letter V (dot-dot-dot-dash) appeared to be echoed in the first four notes of Beethoven's 5th Symphony; Douglas Ritchie of the BBC's European service made it the theme song for his radio programme. "Listeners began to replicate the sound any way they could as a symbol of resistance," writes Welch. "Across occupied Europe, people daubed the V symbol and tapped out the sound to show their solidarity." While the slogan was aimed at the occupied nations, says Welch, "it took off in Britain. On 19 July 1941, Winston Churchill referred approvingly to the campaign in a speech - from which point he started using the V hand sign."

Turning an enemy into an ally
While the MOI played on existing stereotypes for some of its campaigns, it needed a different approach for others. "Stereotypes proved more difficult in the case of the USSR (an enemy turned ally)," says Welch. "The MOI got round this by largely ignoring the Soviet ideology and concentrating on 'comradeship' and fighting a common enemy - 'Their Fight is Our fight'."

This poster says "Long Live the Red Army! Greetings from the British People". After Soviet forces recaptured Stalingrad in February 1943, the MOI organised an evening of celebration at the Royal Albert Hall with readings from Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud. The government declared a "Red Army Day", marked in British cities with pageants and music. "Joseph Stalin, who had previously been depicted in British propaganda as a deceitful and conniving dictator, was suddenly transmogrified into an avuncular 'Uncle Joe'," writes Welch. "By focusing on the courage and fighting spirit of the Russian people and presenting Joseph Stalin as an avuncular nationalist, British propaganda was able to sidestep any possible inconsistencies with its treatment of the Soviet Union in the pre-war period."

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The psychological tricks used to help win World War Two

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The word 'propaganda' might suggest some form of misinformation - yet in boosting morale during World War Two, the British government had to maintain a careful balancing act. While employing a range of psychological tricks, they had to be seen to be as truthful as possible.

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The Ready Ones: American Children, World War II, and Propaganda

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January 26 - May 15, 2015

Propagandists made the war a battle between good and evil, democracy and fascism. They also asked children to share in the war effort.

In response, many children took on more responsibilities. Ruthie Kallandar explains that boys and girls felt "if that's what it was going to take" to win they "were willing to do it." Stories from people who were children during World War II and the objects in this exhibit animate the past and inform us of a time when war took over daily life. The memories of the people in this exhibit and their wartime actions show the power of propaganda's messages and its lasting affect on their lives. Propaganda posters, children's books, and classroom assignments demonstrate how propagandists reached children and involved them in the national war effort.

The exhibit tells the history of World War II and the lasting affect of propaganda on children through objects from the past and the memories of participants like Don Kallander. "As a twelve or thirteen-year old kid it seemed like you were really doing something, [even though] sometimes it did not feel like very much," remembers Don. Thousands of children like Don did their patriotic duty by collecting scrap metal, saving their dimes to buy war bonds, and doing whatever was "necessary" for the war effort.

Motivated by propaganda, boys and girls also contributed thousands of hours and tons of material for ammunition, bombs, and military vehicles. "There wasn't a question at that time about the fact that it was necessary, whatever that was," says Ruthie Kallander. Propaganda flickered across movie screens and hummed over the radio. Schools adopted its values and taught their students that good citizens did whatever they could for the war effort. Parents read books that told their sons and daughters to buy war bonds and hate the enemy. Children absorbed it, but remained unaware of its influence. "Any child who went through that period it is a part of their personality," says Barbara Wright Reed, "the hard work, the chores, and feeling part of a larger thing; a part of the country." Children's memories and their wartime actions show the power of propaganda's messages and its affect on their lives.

Two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on Japan, Italy, and Hitler. President Roosevelt determined that he needed to "win the war" and "win the peace" ( full speech here).

To fulfill his goals, he personalized propaganda and told Americans it was their duty to fight for world peace and that victory would bring a better life for all. Six months after his speech, President Roosevelt created the Office of War Information (OWI). The OWI produced or regulated the majority of propaganda with its own goals and strategies. It believed that propaganda should follow a "strategy of truth," which delivered a simple messages based on "facts." Roosevelt "hindered the development" of the OWI ( Winkler 20), however, by creating other government organizations like the Office of Facts and Figures (OFF). The OFF censored calculations given to the OWI. When the public discovered this it almost ruined the OWI. To recover its reputation, the OWI redirected its goals towards home to programs "aimed at generating support for the war" ( Winkler 54). Its new approach advocated the sale of war bonds, encouraged participation, and sustained morale.

Even though President Roosevelt and the OWI had different goals the dual approach succeeded because many Americans supported the war. Children especially approved of it because they did not question it. "I thought that everything they told us was the truth," says Barbara Wright Reed. "I did not realize until much later it was not."

An Inescapable Reality

In the morning, boys and girls ate sugarless cereal and margarine on their toast. In the afternoon, their schools taught them to be democratic citizens. In the evening, children like Jim Blount dug trenches with friends and played war. At night, some sat around the radio to hear where "Killroy" was on the map. "It affected every part of your life," confirms Jim. He saw propaganda posters for gas rationing that made him question, "is that necessary?" for every car that passed. The war dominated life; few could escape its influence.

Parents
Some surviving children believe that propaganda did not influence them. They think their parents motivated them, but what motivated their parents? The propaganda industry used parents to repeat its messages to children. Books such asThe War-Time Handbook for Young Americans (1942) explained that good citizens were patriotic. That meant helping the war effort by growing victory gardens, collecting scrap metal and rubber, eating all of their dinner, and behaving well for their parents. Parents tried to involve their sons and daughters in the same ways. Propagandists recognized parents' important role and used that relationship to involve both parent and child.

An Obligation to the Effort
By making children "a partner" in the war, President Roosevelt obligated them to the cause ( full speech here). Jim Blount's grandfather worked up to seven days a week as a molder in Hamilton, Ohio. When he came home after an 8 or 11-hour day he worked his .25-mile victory garden in an old canal bed. Jim's grandfather "felt like anything he did for the war wasn't enough." Jim followed his grandfather's example and gave whatever he could.

Jim acted much like the children on the Office of Education's Schools at War Program poster, We Are Ready: What About You? Join the Schools at War Program (1942), which shows "correct demonstrations" of "good citizenry." The Office of Education's poster displays several idealistic children participating in the three major fronts: scrap metal collecting, war bond sales, and patriotic support. Jim gathered paper, collected tin foil for school scrap drives, and saved his mother's cooking grease for bullets and homemade soap. He also took all the left over produce from the Victory Garden and "gave it to anyone who passed by" all behaviors of an ideal child and citizen.

Propaganda such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Be a Victory Farm Volunteer in the U.S. Crop Corps See Your Principal (1943) poster shows "real children" taking adult roles by actively picking crops to help short-handed American farms. Some schools displayed posters and added shop classes. In those classes students built model airplanes for factories and taught them the necessary skills for war jobs. Don and Dean Kallander took on adult jobs and responsibilities during the war. Sixteen-year-old Don felt a "sense of duty" to work at a screen door factory in Tacoma, Washington after school and on weekends. Dean volunteered as an assistant air raid warden. While Dean was in charge during an air raid, all six of his houses had their lights off and their black out shades down. Dean explains that, "when you realize that most of the seventeen and eighteen year olds were going to war, the thirteen and fourteen year olds has to pick up the slack"

"I would sit up at night and just worry about how I was going to get another dime," recalls Mary Sue Kallandar.

She and her friends were avid gum chewers and penny candy eaters. They vowed to stop spending their dimes on it and used them for bonds. When someone caved and bought gum they scraped the tin off the wrappers and turn it in for scrap.

Many boys and girls felt bound to the war effort and sacrificed beyond their means. Mary Sue's school in Murray, Kentucky, insisted its students buy more war bonds. It encouraged children to buy more through the "Buy a Jeep" program. She and her classmates loved jeeps because only soldiers used the exciting vehicles. The first civilian model was not available until after the war in 1945. Mary Sue's school raised over a thousand dollars for the Jeep. As a reward, she and other members of the student council rode in the rare automobile.

Shaken by the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, children feared the Japanese would bomb their homes or attack them.

Jackie Blount was just three years old at the war's start but the attack on Pearl Harbor gave her nightmares that lasted years after. "At night, swinging in the corner of my room, I would see a tiny Japanese man with a large palm leaf." Terrified, she pulled the covers over her head and pleaded for him to go away. "I would not put my arm out or leg out because I was afraid that if I did he would cut it off with his sword."

Other children watched the skies for the enemy. When a plane passed Barbara Wright Reed's house in Oxford, she immediately ran inside to hide in her closet. "My biggest fear was that the Japanese would bomb Oxford," she says. Children rarely saw planes because many commercial airlines temporarily stopped domestic flights for the war. The OWI produced plane-spotting books for children and adults to help them identify enemy and friendly planes. The government also conducted air raid drills to prepare civilians for an enemy attack. Plane spotting books and air raid drills tried to help Americans plan for bombings, but air raid drills created more panic than a sense of being prepared.

The American public justified racism and hatred towards the Japanese because Pearl Harbor "was personal."

Propagandists confirmed many Americans' hatred of the Japanese and created a sense of "otherness" because they did not look like the average American at that time. Japanese became sharp-toothed, cockeyed monsters who preyed on the innocent.

World War II propagandists did not create the same type of propaganda against Germans they classified "good Germans" as innocent victims and "bad Nazis" as products of Hitler's brainwashing. Many Americans already blamed Germans for the First World War. During World War I, The Committee on Public Information (CPI) attempted to create a similar caricature, the "German Hun." It did not to convince Americans, because they discovered the CPI made up stories about the "barbarism" of the Hun. It also failed because many Americans were of German descent, which complicated relationships with German-Americans. "There were no Japanese people around us so we could hate all of them," says Mary Sue.

For children on the West Coast, hatred of Japanese did not come as easily. Dean Kallander lived in Tacoma, Washington during the war. "There were rumors about the Japanese," says Dean. A large population of Japanese lived in Seattle and the surrounding valleys. He and his father bought vegetables from them. "My father observed that the internment of the Japanese had nothing to do with disloyalty. It was just a land grab for their productive farms." After President Roosevelt interned them, their farms ruined and never recovered from their absence.

Many surviving children now recognize that the negative representations were wrong and no longer hate Japanese people. For some, lingering tensions towards the nation of Japan remain. Some traveled the world, yet "have no desire" to visit Japan. Others admit they cannot bring themselves to buy Japanese cars.

"Retrospect is very interesting," says Ruthie Kallander. "At the time I don't recall any of the information we got as being propaganda. There wasn't a question about the fact that it was necessary whatever that was."

Children's recollections and their war-related participation show the power of propaganda's messages and its affect on them. When asked why they participated almost all said they felt like they could never do enough for the war effort. Dean explains, "It was not something [we] needed to do, it was something [we] had to do." Propagandists obligated children to the cause by constantly asking them to "be ready" and to do whatever was "necessary" for it.

Children became an integral part of the war effort, but it also became an important part of their identity. "[Propaganda] has a permanent effect," says Mary Sue Kallander, "you can't deny it." For many children what they did for the war determined their self worth. Barbara Wright Reed says war-related activities "made them feel a part of something bigger than themselves, a part of the country." Children's labor filled the desperate need for ammunition, bombs, and military vehicles. They volunteered thousands of hours and collected tons of material. Their pains and endurances embodied the belief that victory required their involvement. "We were not perfect," says Barbara, "we were all victims of propaganda."

This exhibit is a part of Katherine Wills-Wright's masters' thesis. She conducted all of the interviews from surviving children in the Oxford, Hamilton, and Tacoma area. The participation of community members and the cooperation of several other organizations were integral to this project. Special thanks belongs to:

The Walter Havighurst Special Collections for its staff, archives, support, and exhibit space

The Butler County Historical Society for its loan of several artifacts and posters

The Smith Library of Regional History for its loan of several artifacts and poster

Lee Hendley at the Tacoma Washington Historical Society for his efforts to scan and send photographs of the Kallander brothers

The participants of this thesis project, thank you for sharing your memories and your personal items for this special project

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Miami University Libraries Longform | The Ready Ones: American Children, World War II, and Propaganda

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January 26 - May 15, 2015 Propagandists made the war a battle between good and evil, democracy and fascism. They also asked children to share in the war effort. In response, many children took on more responsibilities. Ruthie Kallandar explains that boys and girls felt "if that's what it was going to take" to win they "were willing to do it."

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Il Duce e la folla: Benito Mussolini a Torino (1932)

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Mussolini: Propaganda and Cult of Personality

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Italian Fascist Propaganda in WWII | Overview, Techniques & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Learn about Mussolini propaganda and Italian propaganda during WW2. Understand the Italian fascist symbol and discover the propaganda techniques…

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[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e speak so often of World War II as "Hitler's war" that we sometimes forget he wasn't alone. At his side was the Italian Duce, Benito Mussolini. They forged as much of a friendship as two emotionally stunted men could manage; they worked together to drag Europe into war; and they stayed loyal to one another, after a fashion, until the very end. Today we regard one of them as the greatest monster in human history-and that fact has tended to distort or crowd out our image of the other. In fact, we sometimes forget about Mussolini altogether.

That's why Mussolini and Hitler is such a welcome addition to the World War II library. Christian Goeschel restores the Duce to the wartime narrative, pointing out how essential the German-Italian alliance was to the coming of World War II, and how critical the personal relationship of the two men was in forging the Axis alliance.

Goeschel is at his best discussing their mutual visits, expressed in ever more grandiose, and sometimes even ridiculous, propaganda displays. They were beauty pageants, in a sense: Fascist spectacles meant to awe the locals and the world. Consider Hitler's May 1938 visit to Rome, with its endless ranks of marching men and modern weaponry, tens of thousands of flags emblazoned with swastikas and fasces, and hordes of cheering spectators. These visits almost never featured substantive discussions between the two dictators, but rather were showcases for "powerful images of friendship and unity." Fascist historians actually likened Hitler's coming to Rome to Charles V's April 1536 entry into the city after his victory in the conquest of Tunis. It's easy to sneer at all of this as empty posturing, but Goeschel notes that such displays of power are a coin of the realm of diplomacy and foreign affairs.

The reality behind the unified pageantry was quite different. Even before the war, the Germans had nothing but contempt for the fighting qualities of their Italian allies, and many Italians saw their new friends from the north as thinly disguised barbarians. Indeed, we might say that the two groups least likely to be fooled by Hitler and Mussolini's posturing were ordinary Germans and Italians.

Goeschel concludes with an eye to historical memory. After the war, both sides blamed the other for defeat: German generals railing on in their memoirs about Italian military incompetence, the Italians turning themselves into passive bystanders and helpless victims of German violence who, by some cruel twist of fate, had wound up on the wrong side in World War II. Such revisionism was a soothing form of historical amnesia that allowed them to forget the years of enthusiastic support for Mussolini's violent regime. Perhaps this very fine book will help them to remember. ✯

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Mussolini and Hitler, Propaganda Partners in Crime

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dropcap]W[/dropcap]e speak so often of World War II as "Hitler's war" that we sometimes forget he wasn't alone. At his side was the Italian Duce, Benito Mussolini. They forged as much of a friendship as two emotionally stunted men could manage; they worked together to drag Europe into war; and they stayed loyal to one another, after a fashion, until the very end.

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What is Propaganda?

This article provides a variety of examples of Italian WW2 propaganda posters and postcards. But what was its purpose? Let's look at a propaganda definition:

The spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.

For Italy, the purpose of their information campaign was to help Benito Mussolini achieve his goal of Italian success in the war, even if it only meant concessions by the Allies.

Mussolini was a journalist and editor in his youth, so he understood the power of words and images. He used the power of imagery and phrases to shape public opinion in Italy.

Gino Boccasile

Born in Bari, Italy on 14 July 1901, Gino Boccasile was the most prolific and well-known artist of Italian fascist propaganda.

Prior to his fame as a fascist illustrator, Boccasile suffered an unfortunate accident as a child. He lost vision in his left eye when quicklime accidentally entered it while playing in a construction zone.

A talented artist from the start, Gino Boccasile moved to Milan, Italy in 1925 to study graphic design. He would later find work in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Paris, France. But he eventually returned to Italy in the 1930s.

Boccasile was a strong supporter of Mussolini. When Italy joined the Second World War, he joined the War Department as a graphics illustrator. He created many of the most noteworthy posters and postcards pertaining to fascist propaganda.

Following the Italian armistice, Gino Boccasile sided with the Repubblica Sociale Italiana (RSI) and worked in their Propaganda Department. He also became a lieutenant of the Italian SS.

Following the war, Boccasile was arrested but later acquitted as a fascist collaborator. He found it extremely difficult to find work but eventually reinvented himself. He regained acclaim by creating various product ads out of his office in Milan. Boccasile passed away on 10 May 1952.

Other notable Italian WW2 propaganda illustrators were Dante Coscia (1912 - 1986) and Giulio Bertoletti (1919 - 1976).

Italian WW2 Propaganda Posters

The following represents a sample of various Italian WW2 propaganda posters. We have included additional selections from the Spanish Civil War as well as the United States which focuses on Italy.

(Visited 3,650 times, 2 visits today)

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Italian WW2 Propaganda Posters - Comando Supremo

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This article provides a variety of examples of Italian WW2 propaganda posters and postcards. But what was its purpose? Let's look at a propaganda definition: The spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.

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Japanese Propaganda pt. 1 (Japanese Propaganda Corps, Philippines 1942)

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WWII Japanese Pearl Harbor Propaganda "Sea Battles Off Hawaii & Malaya" 1941 (full)

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Japanese news films about attack on Pearl Harbour (1946)

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When the Japanese were trying to get the Philippines on their side, they used propaganda such as this. It shows Filipino people desiring to join with Japan. This would give the Filipinos looking at the propo a sense of comfort that their fellow Filipinos wanted to join with Japan too.

WELL FOUGHT AND WELL DONE

This exhibits the same ideals as the propaganda shown to the left.

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When the Japanese were trying to get the Philippines on their side, they used propaganda such as this. It shows Filipino people desiring to join with Japan. This would give the Filipinos looking at the propo a sense of comfort that their fellow Filipinos wanted to join with Japan too.

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Japanese propaganda from the Second World War

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Against a blood-splattered background, a brown, turbaned man is shown with his forefinger outstretched, angrily pointing, almost out of the poster and at the viewer. Upon closer examination, the gory red background reveals piles of skulls and massacred bodies. The text, appearing in sections across the page in Hindi and Bengali, recalls pivotal moments in the subcontinent's history: the 1765 Massacre in Dhaka, the first war of Indian independence in 1857, the 1919 Amritsar massacre, and the First World War sacrifices in 1918. The singular thing that all these crucial moments have in common is the failings of, and the conflict caused by, the British in India, and as if addressing that, the final piece of text in the centre of the poster reads, "The English claim to understand and care for Indians. But the 300 years of exploitation..."

This poster, dropped into Assam by the Japanese in 1944, is eerily reminiscent of others from history. It has the same directness of War Minister Lord Kitchener's " BRITONS [Kitchener] Wants You!", which was published in 1914 as a call to join the First World War and inspired Uncle Sam's infamous " I want YOU for US Army ". It has the same urgency. Above all, the poster is a crystalline example of the psychological advertising and conversion attempts employed by the Axis powers in the Indian subcontinent during World War II.

"During the Second World War, the British and Japanese governments fought a fierce propaganda war in South Asia to influence mass opinion in their favour," said Parthasarathi Bhaumik, assistant professor of comparative literature at Jadavpur University and a British Library Chevening Fellow. "They exploited all available media-wireless, film, print and live performances... The aim was to discredit the opponent and to project their own side as the true friend of South Asian people."

India dragged in

On September 03, 1939, at 8.30 pm, the voice of Viceroy Lord Lithlingow rang through the frequencies of All India Radio, announcing that His Majesty's Government was at war with Germany - and as a colony of that government, so was India. "I am confident," he said, "that India will make her contribution to the side of human freedom rather than against the rule of force."

This announcement sent leaders of the Indian National Congress into rage and frenzy. India's involvement in the Second World War had begun, although the Viceroy had neither consulted his advisors nor the Legislative Assembly or Indian leaders. The Congress leaders were torn. On the one hand was the hostility towards Nazi oppression and a desire to end it, and on the other was the sheer necessity of non-cooperation with the British Empire unless they took concrete steps towards Home Rule in India. How could one expect the soldiers of India to die for the freedom of a nation that denied them the very same right?

Decades before, during the Great War, 1,302,394 Indian soldiers had travelled across the black waters to fight for King and Country in unknown lands. For the most part, the recruitment was voluntary, since this was a time when there was a belief in the rule of the King and notions of izzat, or honour. But World War II, set in motion against the backdrop of the struggle for independence in India, was not the same. Though nearly 2.5 million Indian soldiers in all participated in the war, the British were tormented by events on the home front, such as the Quit India Movement in 1942 and the Great Bengal Famine in 1943. What was also harrying them was the rise of the Indian Independence League, a political organisation that was headed by leaders like Subash Chandra Bose and Rash Behari Bose, who were collaborating with the Axis powers.

India was of interest to all. Its strategic location, its abundance of natural and financial resources and armed power had proved it to be an attractive territory in the South Asian theatre of the War, for both the Allied powers to retain, as well as Axis powers to gain.

A folio in the British Library, labelled Japanese Policy in Regard to India since the outbreak of the War of Greater East Asia up to the end of May 1942, has detailed and chronological notes provided to British officers on the activities of Japan, including its occupation of Malaya (1941) and Burma (1942). The Japanese were at the very threshold of India, threatening the Empire's dominance. There are records of captured Sikh soldiers from these wars being given the option of either joining the Indian Independence League under Bose, or facing persecution, imprisonment or execution. "Japan openly showed her interest in India," the document reads, "and Premier General Tojo publicly announced that the Indians should take this opportunity and revolt in order to drive the British out of India, thereby gaining for themselves, their independence."

This interest in India led the Japanese to start a fascinating propaganda effort to convert, as if it was for the benefit of India herself, the Indian soldiers and civilians to the side of the Axis powers. In Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War, journalist-writer Raghu Karnad describes how after the fall of the city of Rangoon to the Japanese, the air was filled with "thousands of fluttering leaflets. These were propaganda cartoons...depicting starving Indians ground under the heels of fat imperialists or turbaned jawans being kicked out of evacuation lorries by blond-haired Tommies."

Psychological armoury

The National Army Museum in London holds the original copies of several of these propaganda leaflets-known as Dentan in Japanese-printed on durable, long-weave Japanese paper. These can be quite obviously divided into batches based on the style of imagery and printing technique, but it is clear that within each batch, the scribe and the artist have remained consistent. The pro-Japanese, anti-British posters detail the discrimination, racism, xenophobia and inequality propagated by the Empire, and focus on "Asia for Asians" or the idea of racial grouping. A poster shows five different Asian men, including a Japanese soldier, all united and raising a toast, suggesting that Asians can live in harmony. An injured figure (donning the British flag) is falling from the globe. The text reads, "This is an apt occasion to drive out the English from Asia."

These posters emphasise on intense psychological conversion, and they were distributed to troops and civilians, particularly along the border regions. They also fluttered down from circling airplanes across the battlefields in Europe, North Africa and Burma, hoping to convert the Indian soldier. In The Raj at War: A People's History of India's Second World War, historian Yasmin Khan writes, "Although [the troops] had been trained to ignore Axis propaganda, some of it reaching the Indian troops was extremely unnerving...it was directed at the weakest spots in the psychological armoury of the sepoys. It played on their homesickness, anxieties about hunger and home and on their desire for the war to end."

Each poster evokes a moment of misery under the Empire, and some even attempt to give alternative outcomes, should India free herself from the shackles of the Raj. The approach to south Asian figures is strange and sardonic, in a sweeping, over-generalised way - men and women drawn out as dark and meagre, with protruding eyes and a pointy chin. The highly stylised approach is evocative of cartoons, even manga, in places. The colours, still remarkably well-preserved, are often either garish or muted in tones - depending upon the printing techniques of lithography or offset.

Several figures are repeated. Among them are the rotund, crude caricature of Winston Churchill-portrayed as the ambassador of the Empire-and the figure of a dark, sparsely-clothed, furious-looking Indian, who is often holding a weapon over the British Prime Minister. This dark, turbaned figure, appearing time and time again, can be viewed as a metaphor for self-empowerment against the Empire.

There is a desperate image of a woman-perhaps the embodiment of Mother India-holding a dying body and standing among a sea of bodies at the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919. In the background can be seen a slew of Indians holding sickles and other weapons, a fluttering tiranga with Gandhi's chakra emerging from within the crowd, chasing uniformed men carrying rifles. The text in Hindi and Bengali reads, "Any Indian whose blood doesn't boil at the memory of the Amritsar massacre cannot be called an Indian. This is the golden opportunity for revenge." This can be seen as a haunting reminder of Jallianwala Bagh, particularly juxtaposed against the fact that soldiers, fighting in World War I for the British, would have only just returned home to be greeted by news of the massacre. The sheer consideration for detail and nuances from history in the poster is really quite remarkable.

In another image, Churchill can be seen at the centre of a web, his head placed upon the body of a spider that has spun a web of submission. In his hands is a bag of gold coins-riches from the subcontinent-and around him are submissive figures of Indians in pleading or praying positions. They are clothed like ascetics, and their hands are shown folded in devotion, portraying the peace-loving nature of the locals. The caption, when translated, reads, "An unprecedented opportunity to win freedom presents itself. Awake, arise and destroy the English shackles."

Another poster shows Churchill seated at a table eating meat carved in the shape of India-allegorical of the sheer consumption of the subcontinent by the Empire-while a British officer carves the form of a Union Jack into the back of a withering Indian, whose hands and feet are bound with chains. Behind Churchill is a dark figure, holding a stick and coming towards him in anger. The text reads, "Beat the devil with sticks and save India."

Yet another poster evokes the tragedy of the Great Bengal Famine, depicting a British couple, possibly based on Churchill and his wife, indulging in a lavish meal of succulent meat and wine, while beneath the dinner table lie starved Indians. The text reads, "Kill all the British who are sucking Indian blood."

There is another image that shows the thumbs of mulmul workers being cut in Dhaka and their looms destroyed so they can no longer weave the historic cloth locally. This leaflet referenced the "deindustrialisation of India," where Britain all but destroyed the cotton industry by imposing export duties and forcing the population to purchase imported British cotton. A similar image shows Churchill himself cutting off the hands of a weaver. There is another one that depicts what the conditions of life are under the British rule-death, disease and famine-and what they could be, should India gain independence-peace and prosperity.

There is a sole poster depicting a fluttering Japanese flag along with its grand armies-taking up more than half the page, a sign of the vastness of support and power-and the flags of Britain and America in another corner-much smaller and meeker in comparison. In the foreground, Churchill can be seen treating shackled Indians like slaves, and perhaps for the first time in this poster, one can see a difference in the kinds of facial features of the Indians, representing, we can assume, different communities. Behind Churchill, as always, is the figure of the dark turbaned man.

What is striking is the combined use of language and historical imagery in these posters, which served a two-fold purpose-to lure the common man with the prospect of a better life free from the Empire, and secondly, to attempt to convert the sepoys to the side of the Axis powers. Propaganda aimed at civilians seems to be mostly in Hindi, Bengali or Burmese and evokes plight and strife. In contrast, propaganda aimed towards the sepoys-martial races-seems to be in Urdu, the language most commonly read across the fighting belt of Undivided Punjab.

In this strand of propaganda, historian Yasmin Khan discusses one poster with the omnipresent figure of the sepoy's wife. There is a chubby child in her arms and one of the Urdu captions on the page reads: "After bidding farewell to you, we kept on looking for you on the horizon." The poster is labelled Milap, or reunion. There is no text in Gurmukhi or Nepalese, and so one can assume that the Axis powers knew it would be near-impossible to convert the Sikh and Gurkha soldiers, who since the Revolt of 1857, had remained loyal to the British Army.

So who was helping create these images? A series of posters bears the signature of the "Azad Hindostan League." They are mostly text-based, appealing to fellow Indians in several languages (Urdu, Bengali, Burmese, English) to join their cause for independence, and help Nippon-Japan-in driving out the Devil-England-from India. The handwriting seems amateurish for a local and in places, reminiscent of the finesse of Japanese calligraphy, particularly in the smaller lines of text. There are several instances of hyphenation, line-breaks or merging of words in unusual places. In light of these oddities, it might be fair to conclude then that even if members of the Azad Hindostan League were consulted in the creation of these posters, it was the Japanese hand that rendered them.

Though this paper war is fascinating and a remarkable attempt at conversion of allegiances, it did not yield the desired effect it had intended. In retaliation, the British embarked on their own endeavour, printing and distributing pro-British, anti-Japanese and anti-German flyers within India and Burma, hoping to keep the loyalty of their most precious colony.

Images courtesy National Army Museum, London, and museum curator Jasdeep Singh. Translations from Bengali to English by Sujaan Mukherjee.
The folio from the British Library, near the conclusion, reads, "Japan has so far miscalculated...this wishful thinking led her to believe that the occupation of India would be a simple and an easy matter, but...Japan has been forced to call a temporary halt to her plans." Ultimately though, the Second World War flattened out the Raj, leaving England a victor on the war front but a pauper almost everywhere else. The crumbling structures of imperial governance-no doubt, made weaker by all forms of rebellion, including the perpetuating propaganda from the Axis powers-paved the way for eventual Home Rule in 1947.

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How Japan carpet bombed India with posters against Britain during World War II

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Against a blood-splattered background, a brown, turbaned man is shown with his forefinger outstretched, angrily pointing, almost out of the poster and at the viewer. Upon closer examination, the gory red background reveals piles of skulls and massacred bodies.

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Japanese Propaganda Posters of World War II

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A look at Japanese propaganda posters of World War II.

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On the eve of the Nazi occupation, spies in Paris try to outguess each other On the eve of the Nazi occupation, spies in Paris try to outguess each other On the eve of the Nazi occupation, spies in Paris try to outguess each other

The Last Time I Saw Paris

Set during the "False War" between the declaration of war in September 1939 and the invasion of Belgium in the Spring of 1940, THIS IS Paris is one of the Warner Brothers Teddington Studio productions, meant to get around blocked funds and film quota restrictions. Ann Dvorak is an American dress designer who is suspected of being a Nazi Fifth columnist; Ben Lyon is an American journalist who thinks he has a line on Dutch industrialist Robert Morley, who he thinks is a Nazi; and Griffith Jones is a British Intelligence officer cooling his heels, in love with Dvorak, who is told that he has to spy on her because she is suspected. Then the Blitzkrieg begins and All is Revealed.

The movie is a mix of good scenes, clichés and some sloppy editing -- the Teddington stuff survive in poor condition. The leads are all good and there are the usual faces familiar to lovers of old movies in small roles: Miles Malleson as a put-upon newspaper librarian and Hay Petrie as a carnival owner are their usual delightful selves. Elisabeth Welch sings Rogers & Hart's "There's a Boy in Harlem" in a welcome appearance. Over all though, it's a cheap quota quicky with a propaganda message.

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By what name was This Was Paris (1942) officially released in Canada in English?

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On the eve of the Nazi occupation, spies in Paris try to outguess each other On the eve of the Nazi occupation, spies in Paris try to outguess each other On the eve of the Nazi occupation, spies in Paris try to outguess each other The Last Time I Saw Paris Set during the "False War" between the declaration of war in September 1939 and the invasion of Belgium in the Spring of 1940, THIS IS Paris is one of the Warner Brothers Teddington Studio productions, meant to get around blocked funds and film quota restrictions.

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PARIS, FRANCE, 08/25/1944, PARIS LIBERATION _ CIVILIANS AND GERMAN PRISONERS IN THE ST - LMWWIIHD239

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Animated Soviet Propaganda - Fascist Barbarians: Fascist Boots Shall Not Trample Our Motherland

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"These are not Hollywood sound effects"

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The Thrifty Pig 1941 WWII Anti Nazi Propaganda Cartoon

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American Girl as a Nazi Wonder Weapon - Axis Sally

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Casablanca, which brought together the combined star-power of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, remains one of the best-loved movies ever produced in Hollywood. But the film, which hit the silver screen on November 26 1942, is more than just a love story set in Morocco. Released in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - which propelled a reluctant United States to enter World War II - the film was actually a classic piece of propaganda cinema masquerading as popular entertainment.

When war broke out in Europe in September 1939, the United States was the only major power with neither an intelligence nor a propaganda agency. But this all changed after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Just as intelligence would be essential for shaping and directing political and military objectives in Europe and Asia as the conflict spread, propaganda would be vital for supporting the American war effort by shaping and directing American ideas and beliefs in relation to the conflict.

In June 1942, the office of war information (OWI) was set up to promote the war effort and was given the task of developing campaigns to enhance public understanding of the war at home and abroad. A key element of this was the co-ordination of government information activities, as well as liaising with the press, radio, and - crucially - motion pictures.

In effect, the OWI was charged with selling the war. After experimenting with propaganda in the form of posters and documentaries, the OWI turned to more imaginative sources. Its director, Elmer Davis - formerly a reporter with the New York Times and CBS - made this key observation:

The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people's minds is to let it go in through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realise they are being propagandised.

Hollywood would play a significant role in this. For box office reasons as much as political ones, Hollywood was eager to harness the medium of entertainment to support the war effort. And so several popular films made at this time - including Mrs Miniver (1942), The More the Merrier (1943), This is the Army (1943), Since You Went Away (1944) - combined traditional artistic and entertainment concerns with a purposeful political dimension.

The agency issued specific guidelines, as well as reviewing scripts and early cuts of films, making suggestions for insertions or deletions. It required film makers to consider seven questions before producing a movie:

1. Will this picture help win the war?

2. What war information problem does it seek to clarify, dramatise, or interpret?

3. If it is an "escape" picture, will it harm the war effort by creating a false picture of America, her allies, or the world we live in?

4. Does it merely use the war as the basis for a profitable picture, contributing nothing of real significance to the war effort and possibly lessening the effect of other pictures of more importance?

5. Does it contribute something new to our understanding of the world conflict and the various forces involved, or has the subject already been adequately

6. When the picture reaches its maximum circulation on the screen, will it reflect conditions as they are and fill a need current at that time, or will it be out-dated?

7. Does the picture tell the truth or will the young people of today have reason to say they were misled by propaganda?

A beautiful friendship

At the heart of Casablanca is a concern with the implications of American isolationism in the context of the threat posed to Europe by Nazism.

Elements of the dialogue between characters in the film echo and then argue with contemporary American foreign policy attitudes - offering reasons to engage. Bogart is perfectly cast as cynical bar owner Rick, an American formerly living in Paris who has fled the German occupation to open his Café Americain, which has become a melting pot of wartime nationalities. Rick advances what had traditionally been a popular American justification for isolationism:

I stick my neck out for nobody. The problems of this world are not in my department. I'm a saloon keeper."

But for Roosevelt's administration - and for increasing numbers of Americans - the attack on Pearl Harbor had shattered any lingering illusions that America might turn its back on the world. From this perspective the story of Casablanca is the story of Rick's transition from aloof to engaged. This is made explicit by the owner of the Blue Parrot cafe, Signor Ferrari (Sydney Greenstreet), who tells Rick:

My dear Rick, when will you realise that in the world today, isolationism is no longer a practical policy?

But more dynamic than these relatively subtle pieces of dialogue is the famous scene where Rick clearly takes sides, showing the audience who he believes are the heroes and the villains of the European conflict.

A contingent of German officers is singing nationalist songs. Victor Lazlo (Paul Heinreid), a heroic resistance fighter who represents the nobility and sacrifice of the oppressed Europeans, demands that the band play La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. The band look to Rick, who nods assent and in that nod he relinquishes his isolationism. The anthem is rousingly played and the Nazis, who initially try to sing more loudly, are drowned out by the patrons singing in unison and they give up. By identifying with Rick, moviegoers were encouraged to make the same choice.

Casablanca is a dramatic, heartbreaking movie, an unsurpassed classic from Hollywood's golden era. But it is also an extremely effective piece of propaganda cinema, persuading an American audience reluctant to commit to another European conflict to set aside its isolationism simply by dramatising the heroism of the European resistance to Nazi Germany.

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You must remember this: Casablanca at 75 - still a classic of WWII propaganda

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Casablanca, which brought together the combined star-power of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, remains one of the best-loved movies ever produced in Hollywood. But the film, which hit the silver screen on November 26 1942, is more than just a love story set in Morocco.

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EARLY WORLD WAR II AMERICAN PROPAGANDA NEWSREEL "AMERICA'S CALL TO ARMS" 25112

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Nazi Germany - Pictures of the Madness (1937 - 1939)

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What is Mein Kampf and What Does It mean?

Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was part autobiography and part political treatise. Mein Kampf (which means "My Struggle") promoted the key components of Nazism: rabid antisemitism, a racist world view, and an aggressive foreign policy geared to gaining Lebensraum (living space) in eastern Europe.

When and Why Did Hitler Write Mein Kampf?

Hitler began writing Mein Kampf in 1924 in Landsberg prison, following his conviction for high treason for attempting to overthrow the German republic in November 1923 in the so-called Beer Hall Putsch. Although his coup failed, Hitler used his trial as a pulpit to spread Nazi propaganda. Largely unknown before this event, he gained immediate notoriety in the German and international press. The court sentenced him to five years imprisonment, of which he served less than 9 months. With his political career at an all-time low, he hoped that publishing the book would earn him some money and serve as a propaganda platform to air his radical views and attack those whom he accused of betraying him and Germany.

He originally titled the book 4 ½ Jahre Kampf gegen Lüge, Dummheit und Feigheit. Eine Abrechnung (4 ½ Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice. A Reckoning), but ultimately it was shortened to Mein Kampf. In 1925, the Nazi Party's publishing house (Franz Eher Verlag) issued the first volume. The second volume appeared the following year.

In the summer of 1928, Hitler wrote a second book in which he further outlined his foreign policy views, but it was never published. The text was not discovered until 1958 when the typed manuscript was discovered in the US National Archives among the millions of pages of documents seized by the United States after the end of World War II.

The Rise of the Nazi Party, Mein Kampf, and Propaganda

Mein Kampf was not an immediate best seller. The first edition of 10,000 copies largely sold out and a second edition was published, but sales quickly slackened thereafter. This quickly changed in 1930, when the Nazi Party made huge gains in the parliamentary elections. In 1928, the Nazis held only 12 seats in the German parliament ( Reichstag) out of almost 500. In 1930, they captured 107 seats, and in summer 1932, 230 seats, becoming the largest political party represented there. Sales of Mein Kampf increased accordingly. By late 1932, almost 230,000 copies had been sold.

Following Hitler's appointment as German chancellor on January 30, 1933, Mein Kampf's popularity soared and made the author a multi-millionaire. That year alone more than 850,000 copies were sold. Through aggressive marketing the publisher pressured the public, German institutions, and Nazi organizations to purchase copies. The Nazi propaganda machine's transformation of Adolf Hitler from a common German soldier and politician into an infallible, god-like leader greatly boosted sales as well. By the end of 1944, more than 12 million copies had been printed; most of them after 1939.

To increase sales, the Nazi publishing house created special or commemorative editions, including ones in braille, for newlyweds, and for Hitler's 50th birthday in 1939. In addition, it authorized translations of the book into various languages, including English.

Mein Kampf after World War II

Following Nazi Germany's defeat in May 1945, the Allies began to systematically remove Nazi propaganda (including books, maps, films, statues, flags, and symbols) from libraries, universities, stores, buildings, and city streets. According to the directives laid out at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences of Allied leaders, Germany was to be purged of militarism and Nazism so that it could be transformed into a democratic society that would never threaten world peace.

In keeping with these policies, Allied occupation officials removed Mein Kampf and other Nazi texts from circulation and prohibited their re-publication. American authorities subsequently transferred the copyright to the Bavarian government, which used its legal power to prevent the re-issuing of Hitler's book in Germany and elsewhere, with the exception of the English-language versions. In spite of its efforts, the Bavarian government was never able to fully stop the reprinting of Mein Kampf. It has been published in a variety of languages in hard copy and in electronic form on the Internet.

On midnight of December 31, 2015, the copyright for Mein Kampf expired, ending the Bavarian government's official control over the book. In preparation for this deadline, Germany's respected Institute for Contemporary History in Munich has published a critical edition of the work, which contextualizes Hitler's ideas and details the tragic role Nazi racial ideology played in the Holocaust.

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

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Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was part autobiography and part political treatise. Mein Kampf (which means "My Struggle") promoted the key components of Nazism: rabid antisemitism, a racist world view, and an aggressive foreign policy geared to gaining Lebensraum (living space) in eastern Europe.

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More than 70 years after the end of World War II, these Nazi propaganda posters are still terrifying and horrendous. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party used all their might to delude Germans, and the world, into justifying war and the mass murder of nearly 6 million Jews. These images, courtesy of the <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/" target="_blank">United States Holocaust Memorial Museum</a>, are a haunting reminder of Hitler's hate-filled, violent bigotry.

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Haunting World War II Nazi propaganda posters

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More than 70 years after the end of World War II, these Nazi propaganda posters are still terrifying and horrendous. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party used all their might to delude Germans, and the world, into justifying war and the mass murder of nearly 6 million Jews.

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"Is propaganda, as we understand it, not also a form of art?" asked Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister, in June 1935. The question may have been rhetorical, but at the time, the Nazis had already been in power for almost two-and-a-half years.

They had long laid the foundations for their reign of terror that would culminate in World War II and the Holocaust. It was a regime based on intimidation, murder and control that would not end until 1945.

Propaganda posters as weapons of war

Adolf Hitler didn't lose any time in getting the military ready for war, and he made sure that civilians would toe the line, too. While the troops were equipped with new tanks, airplanes and submarines, the people on the home front were fed endless newsreels in movie theaters, heard a deluge broadcasts on the radio, and saw propaganda posters wherever they turned.

Sylke Wunderlich examines the significance of these posters in her book Propaganda of Terror, which features more than 200 illustrations and focuses on art and ideology.

"I think the artistic style of the posters contributed greatly to the fact that they were so successful in influencing the masses," Wunderlich told DW, adding that she means they were "successful" in the sense of Nazi politics.

She highlights that the Nazis had never shied away from copying the most effective Socialist and Communist strategies, even well before the Nazi party had risen to power in 1933. In terms of their style and iconography, posters and placards depicting the likeness of Adolf Hitler could have easily been a product of the revolutionary left - if they had instead shown a picture of Rosa Luxemburg or Karl Liebknecht instead.

The 'modern' aesthetic of the Nazi regime

The posters were designed by staunch Nazi supporters, including graphic artist and architect Ludwig Hohlwein. His propaganda posters were so successful that after World War II, Hohlwein was banned from working for many years.

But there were also some Bauhaus students involved in the designs, such as Herbert Bayer, who made posters for the Nazi regime before migrating to the United States in 1938. Wunderlich argues, however, that accusations saying that Bayer had allowed himself to be roped in by the Nazis - even if only for a while - are somewhat unfounded. She says these allegations do not take into account the fact that freelance graphic artists had to make a living and survive under the Nazi regime, too.

Wunderlich says that perhaps they were even deliberately approached by the Propaganda Ministry "for their modernity." The Nazis wanted to set themselves apart from the Weimar Republic and its style. They wanted to present themselves as a nation "that is modern, that is new and that is different."

Wunderlich argues that this is exactly why there is no contradiction between the modern appearance of these posters' motifs and the racist ideology at the heart of the Third Reich: The images employed photographic collages, clear lettering and pictorial language - "definitely something people that appealed to people at the time."

Mouths to feed, posters to design

Herbert Bayer, whose Bauhaus teachers included Johannes Itten, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, eventually did fall out of favor, however. Some of his works ended up in the 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition, finally giving the artist - who had always considered himself to be apolitical - a good reason to turn his back on Germany. Bayer's case is an extreme example of the contradictions of the Nazi regime's cultural policy, as well a poster designers' opportunistic behavior.

Sylke Wunderlich says that poster art at the time was considered to be a "quite spectacular" medium outside of Germany as well. It was seen as "very modern and constructive." The National Socialists used the pictorial language of poster art to seduce and incite the masses against Jews and Bolsheviks from the beginning, and later against all opponents of the war.

The picture-perfect facade of the aesthetically pleasing images continued to fuel Nazi support for years. It only began to crack much later, when the National Socialists started to lose in battle.

The Nazis' cultural ambassador

After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazis' propaganda machine continued to run smoothly - until the defeat in Stalingrad in early 1943. Photographer and director Leni Riefenstahl played a central part in helping the Nazi regime maintain a good image.

Her films of the Nuremberg Reich Party Congresses and of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin were advertised boldly beyond the borders of the Third Reich. This was done with so much finesse that even foreign countries were fooled by the Nazis' veneer: Riefenstahl's ambivalent masterpieces were awarded many prizes, including a first prize at the Venice Film Festival and a gold medal from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The seeds of mass seduction were sown particularly well with her films Triumph of the Will and Festival of Beauty, which embodied technical and aesthetic perfection.

Marketing for the films used the Nazis' preferred film poster style. Modern art was used "to convey this terrible, dictatorial state with a beautiful, modern, clean appearance," says Wunderlich. Their strategy clearly worked, "or else the crowds would not have fallen for this policy," says the art historian.

How Hitler and the Nazis defamed art

Much "degenerate art" in the Gurlitt collection

Over 21,000 works of "degenerate art" were confiscated. Estimates on the number subsequently sold differ; sources estimate 6,000 to 10,000. Others were destroyed or disappeared. Hundreds of artworks believed lost turned up in Cornelius Gurlitt's collection - and reignited the discussion.

Author: Julia Hitz (rf)

Targeting youth

"One people, one Reich, one leader!" was the motto projected on many of the posters that cemented the personality cult around Adolf Hitler. But Hitler was rarely seen alone in the pictures - he typically had an audience of children and young people. Few escaped the Nazis' demand for total subjugation to their misguided cause. Boys were expected to join the Hitler Youth (HJ) and girls joined the League of German Girls (Bund Deutscher Mädel, BDM).

At face value, many of the propaganda posters of the Nazi era were quite harmless; some even reflected great artistic talent. It isn't difficult to imagine why they would be enticing to so many. Indeed, thanks in part to its propaganda art, the Nazi state could rely on the support of the majority of Germans - at least for as long as there were no bombs falling on Berlin and on other German cities.

A divisive exhibition

For years after the war, it was next to impossible to address many aspects of the Nazi dictatorship, including the finer points - like the aesthetic language of the regime's propaganda posters.

In 2012, 67 years after the end of World War II, an exhibition on Nazi poster art at the Munich Stadtmuseum triggered heated debates. The left-leaning Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper said that the images shown at the exhibition, titled "Typography of Terror - Posters in Munich from 1933 to 1945," depicted "nothing but propaganda." For many, the iconography of Nazi posters remains a controversial topic, to say the least.

Critics of the Munich exhibition accused its curators of providing insufficient context for the posters. Visitors were left alone with the pictures "[i]n the hope that ... their ludicrous nature would just expose itself."

Thomas Weidner, who was the head of the department of graphics and painting at the Munich Stadtmuseum at the time, said that the descriptions of the posters did provide context but conceded that "exhibitions on National Socialism are always a delicate topic."

Glorification of Nazi propaganda?

Wunderlich, too, has drawn ire for her unabashed approach of dealing with Nazi posters in the book, which was published in German and English. But the Berlin-based art historian stresses that she has no influence on the fact that right-wing extremists might take pleasure in her analysis.

Yet the author certainly cannot be accused of trivializing the Nazi aesthetic - quite the contrary. If anyone were to buy her book in search of the glorification of Nazi propaganda, they will certainly regret their purchase: it is a revealing analysis of the dangers behind the poster art of the Nazi era.

How the Nazis promoted anti-Semitism through film

Anti-Semitism from the perspective of Charlie Chaplin

During the war, Hollywood produced a number of anti-Nazi films that condemned anti-Semitism. Charlie Chaplin humorously portrayed Hitler in "The Great Dictator" in 1940. After the war, Chaplin said he would have acted differently, had he been aware of the extent of the Nazis' extermination policy against the Jews.

Author: Jochen Kürten (sh)

This article has been translated from German by Dagmar Breitenbach

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How the Nazis used poster art as propaganda | DW | 30.11.2020

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"Is propaganda, as we understand it, not also a form of art?" asked Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister, in June 1935. The question may have been rhetorical, but at the time, the Nazis had already been in power for almost two-and-a-half years.

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Stalin's radio broadcast to the Soviet people (3 July 1941) [Subtitled]

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During World War II, homeland production became a significant part of the war effort for Allied and Axis powers. The contribution from the various home fronts had an invaluable impact on the war's resolution. It also uncovered various new issues for governments to deal with, including rationing, manpower allocation, home defense, and evacuation of citizens in the wake of air raids.

In World War I, the powers had learnt from the positive and negative experience, and their mobilization of economic output contributed greatly to supporting combat operations. As well as efforts to boost morale, another campaign that sticks with people were the various scrap drives for metal, rubber, and rags.

Alongside this, the entertainment industry during this period was often controlled by the government to depict the war positively and keep civilian spirits high. The government also censored the majority of mass media entertainment in much of the world, across popular platforms such as radio, film, and music.

Radio

Radio was the cheapest form of entertainment, and it was the most popular medium during World War II. The accessibility and availability meant it fueled propaganda and could reach a large number of citizens. Radio helped entertain and inform the population, encouraging citizens to join in the war effort.

One of the most popular shows in Britain during the time, Tommy Handley's It's That Man Again was able to reach up to 40% of the British population. However, the success of radio propaganda during World War I, went on to inspire fascist and social regimes during World War II. Effective radio propaganda arrived in the form of news reports by Edward. R. Murrow. He covered the Battle of Britain and nightly bombing raids in London, with his vivid imagery capturing the nation's imaginations.

In America, broadcasting was offered twenty-four hours a day in an effort to keep citizens engaged, and 90% of American families owned a radio during World War II. However, propaganda was not well received, reminding citizens of the efforts used in World War I. This led President Roosevelt and others to attempt to convince the people that the government was not out to censor information but inform the public. One of the most successful radio program methods the American government used was the "you technique". This method put the listener directly in situations like battle or being in a military camp by addressing them personally.

In Nazi Germany, radio was an important propaganda tool. Just a few short months after the outbreak of World War II, German propagandists were transmitting close to 11 hours of programming a day, with the majority of the transmissions in English as well. Their focus was on eroding the pro-British sentiment, and propagandists also focused on certain groups such as capitalists, Jews, and specific newspapers and politicians.

Joseph Goebbels, German propaganda minister, called the radio the "eighth great power", noting the influence of radio in promoting the Third Reich. Goebbels approved a mandate in which millions of cheap radio sets were subsidized by the government and distributed to citizens. Germans also delivered their messages to occupied territories and enemy states. One of their main targets was the United Kingdom where William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) regularly broadcasted. In the United States, there were Robert Henry Best and Mildred Gillars (Axis Sally).

Prominent Shows

In World War II, American GIs in the Pacific and European theatres of war heard anonymous voices on the radio. These played selected American music and pushed the virtues of Japanese and Nazi causes. GIs were encouraged to stop fighting and made false claims of American defeats and Japanese or Nazi victories. They even referred to specific units and individuals. In some instance, they mentioned the names of loved ones back home. GIs dubbed the voice from Japan "Tokyo Rose"; the two from Germany were called "Axis Sally" and "Lord Haw-Haw".

Tokyo Rose

Iva Toguri had become stranded in Japan after visiting her sick aunt. She had been refused entry back to the United States after the attacks on Pearl Harbor and soon worked at Radio Tokyo as a typist. While some were put off by her early pro-Americanism, they eventually came to trust her.

Radio Tokyo soon wanted a female broadcaster for their "Zero Hour" program, and Toguri was asked for by name. The show itself was a series of propaganda-tinged skits, biased news reports as well as popular American music to degrade morale. Her prominence on the show led her to become branded one of Japan's most notorious propagandists. After the war, she was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. However, she was later pardoned by President Ford.

Axis Sally

Mildred Gillars was an American broadcaster employed by the Third Reich to proliferate wartime propaganda. While America urged its citizens to return home after the outbreak of the war, Gillars chose to say in Germany because of her fiancé, who was a German citizen. After her husband's death on the frontlines, she began working as an announcer with Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG), German State Radio.

When the attacks on Pearl Harbor occurred, she announced her allegiance to the East. However, faced with imprisonment, she signed an oath of allegiance to Germany. While she had appeared on various chat shows, her biggest success was "Home Sweet Home". This program was aimed at exploiting fears about the home front, casting doubt and fear. Her other shows included "Midge at the Mike", "G.I.'s Letter box" and "Medical Reports", which was peppered with American songs and defeatist propaganda.

Gillars was convicted of treason in the United States in 1949; she captured in post-war Berlin. The U.S. attorney general dispatched prosecutor Victor C. Woerheide to find her. He had only one lead: Raymond Kurtz, a B-17 pilot shot down by the Germans. Woerheide eventually found Gillars. She was indicted on September 10, 1948. She was eventually sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Lord Haw-Haw

William Joyce was German radio's most prominent English-language speaker. His propaganda show "Germany Calling" was broadcast to audiences in Great Britain on the station Reichssender Hamburg. The program lasted from 1939 to 1945, when the British Army overran Hamburg. His show attempted to demoralize British, Canada, Australian and American troopers, as well as the British population within broadcast range. While the British public were discouraged from listening to the show, almost 6-million regular and 18-million occasionally listens tuned in across Great Britain.

At the end of the war, he was captured by British forces at Flensburg, close to the German border at Denmark. Troops spotted a disheveled man gathering firewood. When he was questioned by them, he reached for his fake passports. Believing this an act of aggression, he was fired on by soldiers. He was then convicted and sentenced to death on September 19, 1945.

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Radio Propaganda in World War II | Historical Spotlight | News | Wargaming

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During World War II, homeland production became a significant part of the war effort for Allied and Axis powers. The contribution from the various home fronts had an invaluable impact on the war's resolution. It also uncovered various new issues for governments to deal with, including rationing, manpower allocation, home defense, and evacuation of citizens in the wake of air raids.

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The reign of Josef Stalin was a time of terror, mass executions, brutal collectivization, and the most horrific war the world has ever seen.
Officially, Stalin's Soviet Union was a land of peace, progress, harmony, and - most of all - unending love for and devotion to Stalin himself. He was "the father of nations," "the gardener of human happiness." His image was everywhere.

"Centuries will pass, and the generations still to come will regard us as the happiest of mortals, the most fortunate of men, because we lived in the century of centuries, because we were privileged to see Stalin, our inspired leader," gushed one Soviet writer.

Historians around the world are still working to uncover the real story of these "most fortunate of men."

THE GULAG

The Stalin era was one of rapid economic development for the Soviet Union. State propaganda lauded the huge infrastructure projects that were put up at breakneck speed, transforming a rural, agricultural empire into an industrial power. But many showcase projects - such as the Moscow-Volga Canal, the Belomor Canal, and the Trans-Siberian Railroad - were built partly or entirely by prisoners in Stalin's notorious Gulag, a network of prison camps set up across the country.

A map of the U.S.S.R. with Gulag concentration camps marked.

From 1929 until Stalin's death in 1953, an estimated 14 million people passed through the Gulag. About 1.6 million people died there. Those in the camps were provided meager food, minimal medical care, inadequate clothing for the often-brutal weather conditions, and a near-total lack of modern tools and machinery.

The Gulag was set up along economic lines, with most camps being assigned specific economic tasks within the framework of the industrialization drive - logging, mining, the construction of industrial projects.

After World War II, more than 1 million Soviet soldiers who had survived Nazi prison-of-war camps were shipped off to the Gulag.

After Stalin's death in March 1953, the communist state began to dismantle the Gulag system. Political prisoners began to be released in 1954, and the system was officially canceled by an Interior Ministry decree on January 25, 1960.

COLLECTIVIZATION

Stalin's goal of rapidly transforming the Soviet Union into an industrialized power drove the push to increase agricultural production, both to feed growing numbers of workers and to generate hard currency to buy foreign technology through grain exports. His solution to this problem was collectivization - forcing all private farmers to give up their land and work for enormous state-owned, state-managed agricultural enterprises.

Between 1929 and 1939, the percentage of farmland controlled by collective farms went from less than 5 percent to more than 99 percent.

But the Soviet peasantry resisted Stalin's drive with all its might - denouncing collectivization as "a second serfdom" and a betrayal of the Bolshevik revolution that had promised them "peace and land." In addition, the religious peasants came to believe widely that the Soviet government was the Antichrist and that joining a collective farm would condemn them to hell.

The heavy-handed mismanagement of collectivization and the active resistance of the peasants led to horrific famines in the early 1930s.Scholars estimate around 3.5 million people died in Ukraine alone in a disaster that many Ukrainians argue amounted to a policy of genocide against them. (More contentious figures, like those from the All-Ukrainian Association of Holodomor Researchers, estimate as many as 10 million died.).

More died in European Russia, Siberia, the North Caucasus, and Central Asia. Hunger and despair drove as many as 1.5 million people to emigrate to China.

Stalin's goal of rapidly transforming the Soviet Union into an industrialized power drove the push to increase agricultural production, both to feed growing numbers of workers and to generate hard currency to buy foreign technology through grain exports. His solution to this problem was collectivization - forcing all private farmers to give up their land and work for enormous state-owned, state-managed agricultural enterprises.

Passersby no longer pay attention to the corpses of starved peasants on a street in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 1933.

Between 1929 and 1939, the percentage of farmland controlled by collective farms went from less than 5 percent to more than 99 percent.

But the Soviet peasantry resisted Stalin's drive with all its might - denouncing collectivization as "a second serfdom" and a betrayal of the Bolshevik revolution that had promised them "peace and land." In addition, the religious peasants came to believe widely that the Soviet government was the Antichrist and that joining a collective farm would condemn them to hell.

The heavy-handed mismanagement of collectivization and the active resistance of the peasants led to horrific famines in the early 1930s.Scholars estimate around 3.5 million people died in Ukraine alone in a disaster that many Ukrainians argue amounted to a policy of genocide against them. (More contentious figures, like those from the All-Ukrainian Association of Holodomor Researchers, estimate as many as 10 million died.).

More died in European Russia, Siberia, the North Caucasus, and Central Asia. Hunger and despair drove as many as 1.5 million people to emigrate to China.

FORCED MIGRATIONS

The Soviet Union was - unlike past imperialist states - to be a harmonious multiethnic construction. "Friendship of the peoples" was one of its most ubiquitous slogans, and Soviet leaders claimed they had solved the "nationalities problem." However, between 1939 and his death in 1953, Stalin implemented policies of forced resettlement, or deportations, against many of the Soviet Union's ethnic minorities.

The Soviet Union was - unlike past imperialist states - to be a harmonious multiethnic construction. "Friendship of the peoples" was one of its most ubiquitous slogans, and Soviet leaders claimed they had solved the "nationalities problem." However, between 1939 and his death in 1953, Stalin implemented policies of forced resettlement, or deportations, against many of the Soviet Union's ethnic minorities.

World War II era deportees.

He used the brutal policy against Poles, Romanians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Volga Germans, ethnic Finns, Crimean Tatars, Crimean Greeks, Kalmyks, Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, Koreans, Chechens, Ingush, and others.

It is estimated about 6 million people were subjected to forced migration, of whom about 1.5 million died. Most of the deportees were resettled in remote locations in the Far East or Central Asia. In some cases, more than 40 percent of a deported population died of disease or hunger.

In his famous 1956 de-Stalinization speech, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said the Ukrainians only avoided the same fate because "there were too many of them and there was no place to which to deport them."

The policy of deportation continued on a smaller scale even after Stalin's death. In 1959, Chechens who had been allowed to return to Chechnya were forced to move from the mountains to the lowlands. Likewise, in the 1970s, several mountain groups in Tajikistan were forced to move to the plains.

THE GREAT TERROR

The period from 1936 until 1938 is known as the Great Purge (or Great Terror). During this brief time, roughly 1 million people were executed or died while in custody. During the peak period of terror in 1937 and 1938, Stalin's security organs carried out an average of 1,000 executions a day.
n its initial phases, the purges focused on the security organs themselves and then on the Communist Party. Almost all the leading revolutionary figures from Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's time, the so-called "old Bolsheviks," were executed, many after being tortured and subjected to humiliating show trials.

Later, Stalin cast his net wider, ruthlessly eliminating intellectuals, leaders of various ethnic and religious groups, "anti-Soviet elements" from the Tsarist period, foreigners or those with foreign ties, and others.

Stalin personally oversaw the purges in great detail. Soviet archives reveal that he personally signed execution orders for 40,000 people. He often made notations next to individual names, urging the secret police to step up the torture.

After Stalin's death, a Soviet commission declared that he had "committed a very grave crime against the Communist party, the socialist state, the Soviet people, and the worldwide revolutionary movement." During Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika period, many purge victims were posthumously rehabilitated.

Stalin's archenemy, Leon Trotsky, who was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1929 and murdered by an agent of Stalin's secret police in Mexico in 1940, has never been rehabilitated.
The Great Terror had deadly consequences for those closest in power to Stalin. The 1924 Politburo had nine members who met a violent death or committed suicide.

M. Frunze
chloroform poisoning (1925)

F. Djerjinski
natural (1926)

L. Kamenev
executed (1936)

M. Tomski
suicide after show trial (1936)

G. Zinoviev
executed (1936)

N. Buharin
executed (1938)

J. Rudzutas
executed (1938)

G. Sokolnikov
murdered in prison
(1939)

L. Troțki
assassinated with an icepick (1940)

WORLD WAR II

World War II - called the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union - was a defining event of the Stalin period. The war on the Eastern Front was the most enormous and costly conflict in history and made the decisive contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

World War II - called the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union - was a defining event of the Stalin period. The war on the Eastern Front was the most enormous and costly conflict in history and made the decisive contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Soviet ruler Josef Stalin and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop look on as Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Moscow on August 23, 1939.

Of the 70 million people estimated to have died in World War II around the globe, more than 30 million - soldiers and civilians -- died on the Eastern Front. The Soviet Union alone suffered more than 20 million dead.

Stalin's legacy in the war is mixed. He is criticized for authorizing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Germany, which partitioned central Europe and gave Hitler a green light to begin the war knowing the Soviet Union would be sidelined.

Historians also argue that Stalin's prewar purge of the military leadership and his decision to advance forces into vulnerable positions in Poland, Bessarabia, and the Baltic States contributed to the country's enormous losses in the early months of the war.

But the rapid industrialization of the 1930s laid the groundwork for the Soviet victory. Unlike Adolf Hitler, Stalin learned from his mistakes: he gradually appointed fiercely capable commanders, and he largely abandoned Communist ideology in favor of a more motivating religious-patriotic one.

Today, many of those who still view Stalin positively cite as their main argument his role in securing the victory that left the Soviet Union a global superpower.

170.5 million Population of Soviet Union after the war

26.6 million Soviets died

The Soviet population
decreased by 14% during the war

STALIN TODAY

According to polls at the time, in 1988 less than 1 percent of survey respondents in Russia said that Josef Stalin would be remembered "as a major figure of the Soviet era" in 20 to 30 years. Now, however, Stalin has the highest positive rating of any figure in Russian or Soviet history.

According to polls at the time, in 1988 less than 1 percent of survey respondents in Russia said that Josef Stalin would be remembered "as a major figure of the Soviet era" in 20 to 30 years. Now, however, Stalin has the highest positive rating of any figure in Russian or Soviet history.

Forty-eight percent of Russians think Stalin played a positive role, while only 22 percent rated him "harshly negatively," according to a 2012 poll by the independent Levada Center. In polls conducted in 1988, that figure was 60 percent. At the same time, the percentage of people who admit that they "know nothing" about the Stalin period has increased from 30 percent in 1988 to 70 percent in 2012.

Sociologists explain Stalin's rehabilitation by citing the change of generations; the loss of personal experience of the Stalin period; and the generally positive portrayal of Stalin and the Stalin period in the media, films, and literature. The state has also "taken control" of the teaching of history in the schools, and the main lesson taught is that Stalin was able to create a global superpower despite some "excesses."

SOURCE: ITAR-TASS, Anne Applebaum, Gulag, a History (Anchor, 2004), Public domain, Pavel Polyan, Not by One's Own Will (Memorial, 2001), GF Krivosheev, Russia and the USSR in the, Wars of the 20th Century (Olma Press, 2001)

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STALIN PROPAGANDĂ ȘI REALITATE | Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

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The reign of Josef Stalin was a time of terror, mass executions, brutal collectivization, and the most horrific war the world has ever seen. Officially, Stalin's Soviet Union was a land of peace, progress, harmony, and - most of all - unending love for and devotion to Stalin himself.

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Here are several posters of Soviet World War II agitation.

"Mercilessly annihilate fascist saboteurs"

"The West - road to victory!"

"To the West!"

"Every swing of the hummer strikes the enemy"

"The more metal - the more weapons!"

"Transport is the own brother of Red Army"

"The people and the army are invincible!"

"Join the army of front-line women. Women-at-arms are soldiers helpers and friends!"

"We will show the contemptible fascist murderers how Soviet sailor can fight!"

"Hit harder, son!"

"Komsomol member should be the hero of the War"

"We will defend the city of Lenin" (Leningrad)

"The valiant troops hit the enemy harder! To the West for the full liberation of Soviet land!"

"One bullet - one German"

Tags: posters · propaganda · Soviet past

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The propaganda of Soviet Union during World War II

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Here are several posters of Soviet World War II agitation. "Mercilessly annihilate fascist saboteurs" "The West - road to victory!" "To the West!" "Every swing of the hummer strikes the enemy" "The more metal - the more weapons!" "Transport is the own brother of Red Army" "The people and the army are invincible!"

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Propaganda during Soviet times came in poster form. Some messages stirred patriotism in the fight against Adolf Hitler's invading forces, while others slammed illiteracy and laziness.

They also bashed the greed associated with capitalism:

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in 1917, which overturned the tsars and led to the Soviet Union. Posters at the time showed positive images of workers and the promise of a new future.

The posters also shamed the lazy worker:

And urged support for the Red Army and socialism:

After the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks instituted a literacy campaign:

Another inspirational poster promoted healthy exercise:

During World War II, as German forces battled to take control of Moscow, posters depicted Soviet forces putting the squeeze on Hitler:

As the Space Race raged between the USSR and United States in the 1950s and 1960s, images showed high-flying patriotism:

The Soviet Union was the first to launch a satellite, Sputnik 1, and a human into space, Yuri Gagarin. With Apollo 11, the U.S. landed the first humans on the moon in 1969. Crews from the two countries now work together aboard the International Space Station.
Editor's Note: The PBS NewsHour is airing a series this week called Inside Putin's Russia. Tuesday's installment describes how propaganda is used in Russia today.

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These Soviet propaganda posters once evoked heroism, pride and anxiety

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This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Take a look back at Soviet propaganda in poster form.

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The Nazi party used radios to spread its message to new followers, especially pushing the argument that Germany had been wronged by the Treaty of Versailles

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Nazi Germany Propaganda: The Radio (1923-45)

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Use this primary source imagery to analyze major events in history.

Suggested Sequencing

Introduction

World War II presented an existential threat to the United States in many ways. Thus, the country mobilized its resources and citizens on an unprecedented scale to meet the industrial and manpower demands of war. However, the war effort did not just involve physical entities like guns, planes, and soldiers. The U.S. government was very aware of the psychological burdens of war and recruited leading artists and filmmakers to create propaganda to influence the public and motivate Americans to support the war.

Sourcing Questions

1. Why did the U.S. government create propaganda?

2. Who helped the government create the propaganda materials?

Figure 1: War Manpower Commission recruitment poster by Lawrence Wilbur, 1944. Printed by the Government Printing Office for the War Manpower Commission.

Figure 2: U.S. Navy recruitment poster by McClelland Barclay, 1942.

Figure 3: War Manpower Commission poster. Photograph by Alexander Liberman, 1943.

Figure 4 : Victory Bonds poster by G. K. Odell. Figure 5 : Car-sharing poster by Weimer Pursell, 1943. Printed by the Government Printing Office for the Office of Price Administration

Comprehension Questions

Historical Reasoning Questions

1. Consider the current conflict the U.S. is engaged in against terrorism around the world. Do you see propaganda like these posters to encourage assisting in the war effort? If not, why?

2. This United States Navy Recruiting Station poster was created as part of the propaganda effort during World War I. What similarities and differences do you notice between this and the second picture?

Image 1: https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/its_a_womans_war_too/images_html/longing.html

Image 2: https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/man_the_guns/images_html/man_the_guns.html

Image 3: https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/united_we_win/images_html/united_we_win.html

Image 4: https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/warning/images_html/keep_these_hands_off.html

Image 5: https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/use_it_up/images_html/ride_with_hitler.html

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World War II Propaganda Posters, 1941-1945 - Bill of Rights Institute

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Use this primary source imagery to analyze major events in history. World War II presented an existential threat to the United States in many ways. Thus, the country mobilized its resources and citizens on an unprecedented scale to meet the industrial and manpower demands of war.

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How was propaganda used in World War One?

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How was propaganda used to change people’s views during World War One? Find out in this year 5/6 Bitesize Primary History guide.

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"This blog gives insights into the history of government – its development, its departments and some of the roles and people involved."

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Britain's involvement in the Second World War began at 11am on 3 September 1939. The declaration came after eleven days of mounting international tension and was just one part of a flurry of governmental activity. Over three million people had already been evacuated, five million posters had been printed, 15 million ration books awaited delivery, thousands of temporary civil servants had been employed, and a handful of new government departments were ready to organise life on what was referred to as the 'Home Front'.

The Ministry of Information was among the most high profile of these new departments. The Ministry was in many ways an unprecedented experiment in the British government's control of communication. It was designed as 'the centre for the distribution of all information concerning the war'. This meant that, unlike its First World War namesake, it would be responsible for both the issue and censorship of news.

Censorship in the Second World War

Press censorship in the Second World War worked on a principle of self-enforcement. Newspapers were issued with guidance about topics that were subject to censorship and invited to submit any story that might be covered by these so-called 'Defence Notices'. Submitted stories would be scrutinised by the censor and redacted in accordance with the guidelines. Any information of potential military significance - from weather reports, to the exact location of troops - would be removed.

If a story were suitable for publication, it would be returned to the newspaper bearing an official stamp, with any changes marked in blue pencil. Any story that was not 'Passed for Censorship' was liable for prosecution if it were found to contravene the guidelines. Reports directly issued by the Ministry of Information were censored before release.

The system was designed to strike a balance between press freedom and national security. But it was only a week before it came to the brink of collapse. This was a result of a chaotic attempt to apply retrospective censorship to news about the arrival of the British Expeditionary Force in France. Subsequent events led to a crisis in government, stoked press hostility, and threatened the very existence of the Ministry of Information.

The Story Breaks

The crisis began at midday on Monday 11 September when an official broadcast in Paris wrongly announced that British troops were engaged in offensive action against Nazi forces. The claim was subsequently repeated in a second broadcast by the French author Roland Dorgeles. Before long, it had been cabled to the USA and spread worldwide by the United Press and Reuters press agencies.

In London, where news about the British Expeditionary Force had been subject to a D-Notice since the first landings on 4 September, officials in the Ministry of Information concluded that any military value in the news had been lost. And so they wrote to the War Office requesting that reports about the existence of British troops in France should be released.

It was 9pm before the War Office confirmed to the Chief Censor that the story could be released and 9.40pm before the decision was transmitted to the Ministry of Information's Press Room. With the assembled journalists anxious to make their morning editions, many decided to submit drafts that had been prepared from the press agency reports of Dorgeles broadcast. These reports included the claim that British troops were engaged in active combat. Because the Censorship Division was under strict orders to confine the news to the bare fact that troops had arrived in France, all such reports were passed back to the War Office for further vetting. Their contents caused the military authorities considerable worry.

From Censorship to Chaos

Leslie Hore-Belisha, the Secretary of State for War, was informed of the situation within an hour of the first reports reaching the War Office. He held an emergency telephone conversation with the Ministry of Information's Deputy Director at 11pm but was unconvinced by the Ministry's assurances. Fearing that the censors would not be able to protect vital information from leaking out, Hore-Belisha decided that the War Office would re-impose its original ban on the news at 11.30pm.

This decision forced the Ministry of Information to make a desperate request for retrospective self-censorship. It was explained that the previous decision was void and that any such mention could result in prosecution. Indeed 'All possible steps' would be taken to protect 'the national interest'.

The Ministry was certain that editors would alter their front pages to ensure compliance with the new ruling. The Home Office, which had been contacted directly by Hore-Belisha, was not so sure and one unnamed senior official decided additional measures were necessary. Scotland Yard were instructed to arrange the seizure of all newspapers, police officers were deployed to newspaper offices and wholesale newsagents throughout Britain, roadblocks were erected in Fleet Street, and newspaper trains were stopped en route from London. The situation was widely described as one of 'chaos' and 'complete confusion'.

The Ministry of Information continued to petition the War Office but their pleas were ignored. Things became almost farcical when the Ministry's French equivalent (the Commissariat Génèral à l'Information) released additional information about the British troops in the early hours of 12 September. This led to a second change of heart in the War Office and the ban was finally lifted at 2.55am. However, the decision came too late for some newspapers to include the story in their early editions, and many papers were delivered hours late on the morning of Tuesday 12 September.

Implications

The events of 11-12 September led to a storm of criticism in the press. An editorial in the Daily Mirror attacked 'muddle-headed bureaucrats' and accused the government of acting in a 'true Gestapo manner'. The Daily Mail pointed out that 'all of the details originally given were originally passed by Ministry of Information censors' and claimed that some had been 'suggested by Ministry officials'. This theme was continued by the Daily Express which singled out Hore-Belisha for blame.

The situation became more serious when Francis Williams, the editor of the Daily Herald, pressed the opposition Labour Party to find out why he had been woken at 1.45am to be told that the police had seized control of his office. The parliamentary debate held on Wednesday 13 September served to shift the blame back onto the Ministry of Information. This changed the nature of debate within government and the Ministry came under pressure to undertake radical reform.

After two weeks of further criticism, it was decided that the current system was broken beyond repair. The Ministry of Information's responsibility for issuing and censoring news was duly removed on 9 October 1939 and passed to an independent Press and Censorship Bureau. This episode brought the Ministry to the brink of collapse and necessitated a lengthy process of rebuilding that was not completed until 1942.

This was a defining moment in the British government's relationship with the press. It is one of many rich examples in The National Archives that illustrate the challenge of war for an open society.

Further Reading

The Ministry of Information is the subject of a major AHRC-funded research project being undertaken by the School of Advanced Study in collaboration with The National Archives and the Department of Digital Humanities at King's College London.

You can find out more at http://www.moidigital.ac.uk

See also:

Ian McLaine, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II (London: Allen & Unwin, 1979)

Robert Mackay, Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain during the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002)

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Chaos and Censorship in the Second World War

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Britain's involvement in the Second World War began at 11am on 3 September 1939. The declaration came after eleven days of mounting international tension and was just one part of a flurry of governmental activity.

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In the Second World War, television was scarcely known. Instead people received their diet of information from newspapers, radio and motion pictures. Government in turn used the media to get out their message and shape opinion, while those on the business end of information cooperated closely, almost as if they were an arm of the government. The war was total. The cause was just. Propaganda was not a dirty word.

The government was out to stop any news or talk that would damage the Allied cause, or make Canadians doubt the war effort. As in other nations at war, the Canadian armed forces censored militarily sensitive information, whether it appeared in soldiers' letters home or in the dispatches from war correspondents at the front. A civilian Directorate of Censorship within the Department of National War Services, formed in July 1940, was responsible for the security of information in newspapers, radio and film, as well as in postal and telegraphic communications. All mail from Canadian families to prisoners of war overseas was censored for information that might be passed on to the enemy.

The government's cheerleader was the Wartime Information Board. The Board's chief for much of the time was John Grierson, who also headed the National Film Board. Grierson, like other leaders, favoured "democratic" propaganda grounded in truth but conveying a buoyant optimism about the war. The results are to be seen in wartime motion pictures, radio broadcasts, books, magazines and theatrical presentations, as well as in newspapers. The mandate of the Board and other propaganda organizations was to ensure high morale and patriotic fervour.

The newspapers of the time were full of the war. The news pages were crammed with the long dispatches of foreign correspondents from far-flung fronts and the first-hand reporting about the Canadian forces by correspondents such as Ross Munro, Gregory Clark or Peter Stursberg. The business pages explained Canadian war production and the workings of the various programs to control wages, prices, trade and supply. The domestic sections discussed food rationing and advised homemakers how to make do with shortage. Full-page government notices on every subject from recruiting rallies to scrap metal drives were inserted into the newspapers. Even the heroes of the comics fought the common enemy.

Related Newspaper Articles

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Information, Propaganda, Censorship and the Newspapers

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The Canadian War Museum's World War 2 Online Newspaper Archives - Information, Propaganda, Censorship and the Newspapers - In the Second World War, the Government used the media to get out their message and shape opinion. The war was total. The cause was just. During World War 2, Propaganda was not a dirty word.

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"The Wartime Information Board (WIB) was created in 1942 to boost patriotism, morale, and public opinion of the war. Propaganda posters were one tool the Board used to that end. Breaking down how this historical document communicates its message can help us think more critically about the media we consume today."

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"This blog explores
the well-known and the lesser-known areas and people of Canadian history with the goal of poking holes into the idea that our nation’s history is just a big ol’ snooze fest."

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"Vintage WW2 ‘He’s Coming South’ Australian 1942 propaganda poster. ‘It’s Fight Work or Perish’ Australia feared invasion by Imperial Japan following the Fall of Singapore. Illustration of Japanese soldier with Rising Sun Flag emblem behind striding over Australia map World War II Second World War"

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This is a direct link to the State Library Victoria. I am unable to change the Facebook logo for some reason.

Nevertheless, this article outlines the stance of Australian politics during WWII.

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Australian propaganda was designed to maintain public anger about German atrocities and idealise Australian soldiers. Most pieces promoted enlistment in some way or another and the most violent propaganda images surfaced around the time of the conscription debates.

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Lindsay was a brilliant illustrator and he let his imagination loose in a series of vivid anti-German posters.  Here, the 'Hun' is not even human: a brutal gorilla-like monster reaching out to crush the entire world.  Lindsay makes the point that although the spilling of blood begins in distant Europe, it is steadily dripping towards Australia.

Norman Lindsay, lithograph, c.1915

Copyright H., C. & A. Glad.

Accession number: H141840

From the State Library of Victoria's Pictures collection.