United States Office of War Information

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The United States Office of War Information ( OWI ; German  Office for War Information of the United States ) was a US government agency for the dissemination of war information and propaganda during the Second World War .

organization

The OWI consisted of 13 June 1942 to 15 September 1945 and was out of the office for facts and figures emerged (Office of Facts and Figures). It processed information from the Office of Government Reports (Office of Government Reports), the Information Department of the Office of Crisis Management (Office for Emergency Management) and various departments of the 1941 established Office of the Coordinator of Information (OCI), which later became the Office of Strategic Services ( OSS). (Information for Latin America remained with the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA)).

The CBS reporter Elmer Davis was the White House appointed head of the 3,000 employees. Many writers, producers and actors / broadcasters openly advocated Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies and were considered "liberal". Others sympathized with the Soviet Union or were former members of the US Communist Party , of which 35 were removed.

Under pressure from Congress , the OWI funds for 1944 were cut and strict conditions were imposed on their use. It then worked mainly abroad to undermine the opposing morale . After its closure, the Foreign Ministry took over its foreign functions. The counterpart to the OWI in World War I was the Committee on Public Information .

activities

OWI was one of several federal agencies that were totally mobilized for victory. It coordinated government information and managed cooperation with print media, radio and film. In the beginning, truthful reporting, as reproduced in the film Casablanca , was planned. The OWI soon influenced all Hollywood film productions . Countless guidelines have been developed to ensure the conformity of the films. For example, the first question to film producers was: "Will the film help them win the war?" Manipulated opinions with negation or concealment of relevant information as well as sentimental symbolism were the result in the productions.

OWI also designed its own posters for the government warning of spies and saboteurs, and produced radio series and 16 mm films. Two photography departments of the disbanded Farm Security Administration provided photos of aircraft factories and women in the workplace during the first two years of the war. In the year it was founded, it established the Voice of America channel , which still exists today. " The four freedoms, " postulated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in a speech to Congress in January 1941, inspired Norman Rockwell to create four paintings with which the OWI toured the United States from 1943 and raised $ 130 million in war bonds . Other posters were designed by contractors such as Henrion Ludlow Schmidt .

Products:

  • Series of the Domestic Radio Bureau
    • This is Our Enemy (1942)
    • Uncle Sam , housekeeping
    • Hasten the day , home front
    • Chaplain Jim , NBC
    • An American in England , An American in Russia , Passport for Adams ( Norman Corwin )
    • This is war
    • The Schulzes of Yorkville
  • 267 film newsreels The United Newsreel

In 1945, the Office of War Information took the advertising character Betty Crocker that for components supplied by General Mills campaigned as a daily host of the radio show Our Nation's Rations (dt. The rations of our nation ), among others, for the purchase of war bonds and the donation of blood and recommendations spread about food handling. The various actresses who played Betty Crocker interviewed soldiers, officials and nutrition experts and informed the audience about issues ranging from the worldwide food situation to sending Christmas parcels abroad.

Together with the BBC , the office ran the propaganda station ABSIE (American Broadcasting Station in Europe) from April 30, 1944 to July 4, 1945. This station, broadcasting from London, also gave rise to the idea for a magazine to denazify Germans after the war. This first post-war magazine in German was called Today - a German illustrated magazine, published by the American military government .

literature

  • Allan Winkler: The Politics of Propaganda. The Office of War Information, 1942-1945 . Yale University Press, New Haven CT et al. 1978, ISBN 0-300-02148-8 , ( Yale historical publications Miscellany 118).
  • Howard Blue: Words at War. World War II era Radio Drama and the Postwar Broadcast Industry Blacklist . Scarecrow Press, Lanham MD et al. 2002, ISBN 0-8108-4413-3 , ( Studies and documentation in the history of popular entertainment 5).

Web links

Commons : United States Office of War Information  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Susan Marks: Finding Betty Crocker: The Secret Life of America's First Lady of Food. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8166-5018-7 . P. 107.
  2. ^ Heinz Norden in the Times of October 23, 1970, p. 14