Ministry of Information (UK)

Seat of the MoI, today the Senate House of the University of London

The Ministry of Information ( english Ministry of Information , MoI ) was a propaganda device in the UK in the last year of the First World War and during the Second World War .

history

A first British Ministry of Information was created during World War I; this had emerged in February 1918 from the War Propaganda Bureau ; its Directorate for Propaganda in Enemy Countries (Directorate for Propaganda in Enemy Countries) worked at Crewe House .

The MoI was revived in World War II. It created its own publications as well as publications for other institutions, including the Aviation, Transport, Education and War Ministry, the Combined Operations Command and the Ministry of Home Security , or provided the corresponding templates.

The MoI was housed in the Senate House , the building of the Senate and Central Administration of the University of London , which was requisitioned by the government for this purpose . He was responsible for the BBC , for which George Orwell worked. The facility and building served as a template for the Ministry of Truth in his novel 1984 . It also appears in the 1985 feature film Brazil .

Other ministries of information of the same name existed at that time, some in exile, in Greece, China and Poland. They produced similar works.

Artist on behalf of the MoI

• Cecil Beaton
• George Orwell
• John Hargrave
• Ernest Barker
• Laurie Lee
• CS Forester
• Freya Madeline Stark
• David Garnett
• Arnold Hugh Martin Jones (as Hugh Martin )
• Eric Linklater
• George Him
• Jan Lewitt

Information minister

• Lord Macmillan (September 4, 1939– January 5, 1940)
• Sir John Reith (January 5, 1940– May 12, 1940)
• Alfred Duff Cooper (May 12, 1940– July 20, 1941)
• Brendan Bracken (July 20, 1941– May 25, 1945)
• Geoffrey Lloyd (May 25, 1945– July 26, 1945)
• Edward Williams (August 4, 1945- March 31, 1946)

Counterparts of other warring parties

• News agency for the Orient , German Reich 1914–1918, semi-official propaganda agency for the Middle East: The director of the news agency from 1916–18, Prof. Eugen Wednesday , worked for the British Ministry of Information from March 1941 until his death in November 1942 .
• Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda , Nazi Germany

Publications

Chronological selection

• Final report from Sir Nevile Henderson on the circumstances which led to the termination of his mission in Berlin . Birkhäuser, Basel 1939. (Original: MoI. Institute of Education, London, Commande Papers No. 6115)
• How Hitler Made the War . HMSO, London 1939.
• John Hargrave : Propaganda The Mightiest Weapon Of All - Words Win Wars . Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., London 1940.
• Freya Stark : A Winter in Arabia . EP Dutton & Co., New York 1940. (US edition)
• Eric Linklater : The Northern Garrisons. HMSO, London 1941
• Front Line 1940-1941 . The official story of the Civil Defense of Britain. HMSO, London 1942.
• David Garnett : The Campaign In Greece And Crete . HMSO, London 1942
• Air Sea Rescue . An account of rescues at sea during World War II. HMSO, London 1942.
• Bomber Command Continues . The Air Ministry account of the rising offensive against Germany July 1941 to June 1942. HMSO, London 1942.
• Roof Over Britain . The Official Story of the AA Defenses, 1939-1942. HMSO, London 1943.
• Ocean front . The Story of the War in the Pacific 1941-44. HMSO, London 1945.
• Destruction of an Army . The First Campaign in Libya: Sept. 1940 – Feb. HMSO, London 1941.
• We Speak from the Air: Broadcasts by the RAF HMSO, London 1942.
• OVER to you. New broadcasts by the RAF HMSO, London 1943.
• Combined Operations, 1940-1942 . HMSO, London 1943.
• Cecil Beaton : Near East . BT Batsford, London 1943.
• East of Malta, West of Suez . The Admiralty account of the naval was in the eastern Mediterranean September 1939 to March 1941. HMSO, London 1943.
• The Royal Marines The Admiralty Account of their achievement 1939-1943 . HMSO, London 1944.
• There's Freedom in the Air . The official story of the Allied Air Forces from the occupied countries. HMSO, London 1944.
• The Eighth Army: September 1941 to January 1943 . HMSO, London 1944.
• Hugh Martin : The British Churches in War Time . HMSO, London, 1944
• Atlantic Bridge . The official account of RAF Transport Commands ocean Ferry. HMSO, London, 1945.
• Laurie Lee: Land at War . The Official Story of British Farming 1939-1944. HMSO, London 1945.
• Ernest Barker : Winston Churchill . MoI, London 1945
• Gabriele Clemens: British cultural policy in Germany 1945–1949: literature, film, music and theater. Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-515-06830-9 .

New editions

• Make Do and Mend . Imperial War Museum , London 2007, ISBN 978-1-904897-64-4 .
• How to Keep Well in Wartime . Imperial War Museum, 2007, ISBN 978-1-904897-65-1 .
• Merchantmen at War: The Official Story of the Merchant Navy: 1939-1944 . University Press of the Pacific, 2005, ISBN 1-4102-2359-0 .

literature

• George P. Thompson: Blue Pencil Admiral. The inside story of the Press Censorship. Law, Marston & Co., London 1947.
• Ian McLaine: Ministry of Morals. Home Front Morale and Ministry of Information in World War II. George Allen & Unwin, London et al. 1979, ISBN 0-04-940055-X .
• William J. West (Ed.): Orwell. The War Broadcasts. Duckworth et al., London 1985, ISBN 0-7156-1916-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gina Thomas: Shakespeare, the English patriot . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 21, 2016, p. 13
2. ^ JTA November 10, 1942: Prof. Eugene Wednesday, Famous German-jewish Orientalist, Dies in London