Propaganda

Truth and Lies in Times of Conflict

Tony Husband

• Publisher: Arcturus
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781782122791
• eBook ISBN: 9781784043384
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The best propaganda is made by the best artists. Posters have to be sharp, attractive and to the point, as well as exploiting ancient prejudices using techniques that sway opinion. They are designed to be understood in the blink of an eye from a distance of at least six feet and, if they don't appeal directly to the emotions, they should immediately be torn up and thrown away.This book features propaganda posters and cartoons by some of the world's greatest artists, including portraits of Napoleon by Gillray and Ingrès, Edward VII by Jean Veber, the drooling gorilla of German militarism by H R Hopps, Uncle Sam by James Montgomery Flagg, Hitler in several guises, and so much more.Within these pages, you'll find extraordinary art with a job to do. And from these ingenious images, you'll gain unique insight into the cultures that produced them.

‘The rank and file are more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious. In the long run, you will only achieve results in influencing public opinion by reducing problems to their simplest terms.’

Josef Goebbels

WORLD WAR II

Propagandists licked their lips and dipped their pens in poison long before the first shot was fired. This propaganda postcards celebrates the Nazi election victory in the Sudetenland in December 1938 -over 97 per cent voted NSDAP in the German-speaking region.

‘One people, one nation, one leader’: the cult of Adolf Hitler was in full flow by 1938 when Germany came together with Austria in a forced marriage that was known as the Anschluss. Nazi propaganda had the idea of Hitler the Messiah as its foundation stone and this image took the place of religious icons on the walls of many homes and places of work

Hermann Goering proudly sent out more than 100,000 copies of this photo of his daughter Edda’s christening in 1938, perhaps in the hope of eliciting gifts but also to rubbish the rumours about his virility. Hitler was the little girl’s godfather and may have contributed the christening gown which had swastikas embroidered into the hem. Because Goering’s ex-actress second wife, Emmy, was 45 and because her husband had been shot in the groin during the Munich putsch, Germans jokingly put the birth down to ‘immaculate conception’, but nothing was ever said to the future Reichsmarschall’s face. Well, not until an article was published by Julius Streicher in Der Stürmer, claiming Edda had been conceived by artificial insemination. Goering was incandescent with rage, but Hitler allowed Streicher to stay on as editor of the poisonous propaganda rag, which had played such a crucial part in the Party’s rise. Top Nazis all sought status through Hitler and jealousies were rife

A German propaganda unit arrives in Dunkirk with a movie camera on board, their mission to produce footage of the British setback for German newsreels. On the other side of the Channel, enterprising spin doctors set their minds to the task of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat by characterizing Dunkirk as a heroic retreat where everybody pulled together to rescue the British forces

A flaxen-haired Germany welcomes Austria, a figure who bears more than a passing resemblance to Adolf Hitler, into the Reich, 1938. The signpost which once indicated the different regions of ‘Greater Germany’ lies trampled underfoot and all that remains for the reader to do is complete the following, ‘Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein … ?’

Anti-British cartoon of 1939 from the satirical magazine Simplicissimus which takes us back to World War I to demonstrate the unequal relationship between Britain and France. ‘Well, Poilu, my friend, we make a lovely couple, don’t we?’ says the Brit. [Poilu literally means ‘hairy one’ and was used for French infantrymen in World War I]

Classic Waffen-SS recruitment poster printed by Obpacher AG, Munich, 1940. The Waffen-SS was the armed wing of the Nazi party and initially foreigners were forbidden from joining up. But soon they began to run short of manpower and had to relax the rules. By the end of the war approximately 60 per cent of the Waffen-SS were non-Germans

German cartoon which mocks the feebleness of the British and French faced with the might of Russia, 1939

Propa...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• The Derivation of ‘Propaganda’
• How to Win Friends and Influence People
• World War I
• Between the Wars: The Seeds of Conflict
• World War II
• Same Old Song
• Picture Credits
• Copyright