Propaganda in World War II
Propaganda in World War II had the goals of influencing morale, indoctrinating soldiers and military personnel, and influencing civilians of enemy countries. Both the Allies and the Axis powers used propaganda during the war.
Background
By the 1930s, propaganda was being used by most of the nations that joined World War II. Propaganda engaged in various rhetoric and methodology to vilify the enemy and to justify and encourage domestic effort in the war. A common theme was the notion that the war was for the defence of the homeland against foreign invasion.The Nazi Party propagandist Joseph Goebbels once wrote in his diary:
Britain
in created the Political Warfare Executive for the distribution of propaganda damaging to the morale of the enemy. Foreign language broadcasts of the BBC World Service were central to gaining influence over the German people. Goebbels, before committing suicide, remarked, "Enemy propaganda is beginning to have an uncomfortably noticeable effect on the German people.... British broadcasts have a grateful audience".The British used black propaganda techniques to deliver subversive messages directly to the German people by dropping leaflets and postcards. Some airborne newspapers and pamphlets were destined to other countries such as occupied France and Belgium.
The Hollywood film Mrs. Miniver by William Wyler told the saga of the British home front and ended with a sermon delivered in a church destroyed by Allied bombs: "This is the people's war. It is our war. We are the fighters. Fight it, then. Fight it with all that is in us, and may God defend the right".
Germany
The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda was established in. Goebbels, who was appointed by Adolf Hitler to lead the ministry, used radio, press, books, films, and all other forms of communication media to promote the Nazi ideology. Germany's defeat in World War I was emphasised to provoke German feelings of rage and anger. Germany's cultural achievements and military accomplishments built up national pride. The Allied armies were cast as butchers, the Soviets as inhuman beasts. The ministry censored opposing viewpoints.Germany's war against the Soviet Union was described by Nazi Party officials as Weltanschauungskrieg.
Soldiers on the front lines had limited access to information. Often, written materials were the most direct means of propaganda available. By, the 12th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht was given newspapers daily, a practice that continued during the occupation of Vendée, receiving also the field newspaper of the 4th Army, and the transcribed Wehrmachtbericht.
The Nazi Party recognized early on the value of radio receivers to transmit political propaganda. German troops were given such receivers that were used for entertainment and indoctrination. During Operation Barbarossa, the 12th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht were served by a travelling "radio van" that made the rounds carrying a very powerful receiver. The Panzergrenadier Division Großdeutschland and the 18th Panzer Division were also given radios.
Films were shown to German soldiers for entertainment and indoctrination. They were very popular with the soldiers, who had a "film van" accompany them during the occupations of France and The Netherlands. It was the most popular off-duty activity among the soldiers. The 18th Panzer Division converted schools in Prague to cinemas, a practice that they had learned from the Soviets.
The effectiveness of Goebbels' propaganda was diminished by Germany's defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943. Forced to concede the military defeat, he made a case for total war, which prolonged the war without altering its eventual outcome.
United States
Few Americans, after World War I and the Great Depression, supported fighting another distance war. However, after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Office of War Information, the main source of propaganda, was created by President Franklin Roosevelt in. Photographers documented various aspects of the American home front to undermine enemy morale. Some of the propaganda has been criticised as having racially charged content, such as the films of Frank Capra Why We Fight, which showed the enemy nations as inhuman. The involvement of the OWI in Hollywood has been noted for the creation of patriotic propaganda films such as Yankee Doodle Dandy, Pin-Up Girl, and Anchors Aweigh. Posters, movies, and cartoons helped recruit Americans to serve in the war.Production was presented as the critical factor in winning the war. Popeye and Bugs Bunny were shown fighting the Japanese, and a short film of Donald Duck attacking Hitler with a tomato was released by Walt Disney. Such efforts aimed to combine entertainment with awareness of the war effort.
Domestic propaganda
Domestically, Roosevelt's wartime propaganda supported the war by generating more soldiers, keeping the morale, and maintaining civilian workforce and production. The "hidden army" needed for weapons production and agricultural production was an important target of American propaganda during the war. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, a propaganda campaign focused on agriculture and directed at young men with the intention of reducing the one million American males who left farms during the war. Government-produced films from to featured stories of agriculture production during the war. In the propaganda film It's Everybody's War, the actor Henry Fonda explains the farmers' importance in the war effort and their role in sustaining their "brothers overseas". The theme of American masculinity in domestic wartime propaganda idealised men and patriotism, and poster art featured overtly muscular men carrying bayonets confidently into war or many tomatoes in baskets at home.Additionally, popular comics featuring Captain America and Wonder Woman reflected the war to their audience. Against the Axis powers, the comic characters fought to protect the United States and instilled patriotic themes to further sell the war to Americans.
Portrayal of race
Like in most other propaganda, the OWI commonly appropriated the "symbols and values" of enemies as a means of dehumanising them. Nancy Brcak and John Pravia make the argument that during the war, when Jim Crow laws were still enforced in America, the perceived "acceptance" of the "inferiority" of minorities became "clearly a part of US propaganda" and was especially employed in the Pacific War against Japan. In the Pacific, depictions of Japanese soldiers featured exaggerated stereotypical features. In some, Japanese soldiers were conveyed as sexually depraved and often as engaging in inhuman and evil acts.At home, African-Americans were encouraged to engage in war and to defend America. Surveys conducted by the OWI indicated African-Americans' contention with fighting for their race both at home and in the war. They found the war less important than the current race issues faced in America, unlike white Americans. The OWI went on to engage in a propaganda campaign aimed to generate a sense of belonging and loyalty with America and African-Americans. An initial piece of propaganda in, 2.5 million pamphlets of "Negros and the War," was largely distributed and argued that without America, African-Americans could not fight for their freedoms. The OWI also co-operated with Hollywood movie producers to try to depict African-Americans as integral and normal in films, such as in Stormy Weather and Cabin in the Sky. In the film Bataan, an African-American soldier dies heroically after he is involved in an earlier scene in discussing strategy and his American patriotism with his white platoon.
How, despite such depictions, the African-American characters were often stereotypes and remained inferior to other characters in both screen time and importance in the films. Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black found that "In a Columbia University study in ", out "of one hundred black appearances in wartime films, seventy-five perpetuated old stereotypes, thirteen were neutral, and only twelve were positive."
Pamphlet propaganda
The OWI coordinated the majority of the Pacific War propaganda, including pamphlets that intended to undermine the morale of Japanese troops. In the last months of the war, the Allies dropped 2 billion pamphlets over Japan. Pamphlets translated from English to Japanese, which were incorporated with Japanese symbolisms and cultures, derived from the use of Japanese prisoners-of-war to create more direct and effective propaganda pamphlets to spread over the Pacific. Near the end of the war in, pamphlets in English and Japanese stated "I cease resistance" and encouraged the surrender of Japanese soldiers. They also included promises of humane treatment upon surrender, Japanese culture remaining if the military surrendered, and the young and the sick being helped. The pamphlets may have contributed to the 10,000 troops surrendering in Okinawa, and they also further supported the use of the Allied pamphlet campaign for the OWI. The pamphlets also came to report bombing runs, to warn citizens of targeted cities, and to threaten the use of atomic weapons after the bombing of Nagasaki unless surrender occurred. The use of pamphlets continued until the end of the war in.Japan
during World War II presented the war as a defensive against the influence and the hostility of the West. It conveyed the Japanese as victims who would have to fight for their independence and freedom. Japanese propaganda commonly operated to demoralise Allied troops and often employed racial themes to degrade Western culture's oppression of Japan. Common Japanese propaganda depicted Roosevelt and the American people as "sexually depraved" and demons. To the Australian soldiers, a Japanese propaganda piece details an Australian soldier far from home and fighting while an American took his wife. The piece aimed to discourage American-Australian relations.Some Japanese propaganda was aimed towards African-American troops and took advantage of the racist climate in America to incite "anti-war sentiment." Propaganda was distributed that was designed to highlight Japanese morality in comparison to American racism and commonly noted that Japanese victory would ensure discriminatory freedom from white American oppression. It evoked the brutal history of African-Americans to further the propaganda's effect. The propaganda generated a variety of responses, in some cases it "resonate strongly" with African-American troops, a poll in highlighted that 70% had "misgivings about the importance of the war to them personally."