Propaganda in World War I

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Field postcard, around 1916: "Germany's enemies work with such means."
Наука Немцу (A lesson to the German), Russia 1914

The propaganda in the First World War was used against the own and the population of the war opponents in a more diverse way than before in interstate conflicts , whereby the greater dissemination of mass media in the warring states supported this means. All the states involved in World War I , the Central Powers as well as the Entente , made use of this type of warfare, but there are differences in the objectives and the manner in which they are conducted. For the first time in this war, in addition to posters , leaflets and newspapers , photography and film were also used as a propaganda medium (see: Propaganda film ) .

During the war years, the states participating in the war increasingly developed specialized authorities to coordinate the various media and targeted mass propaganda.

Type of propaganda and its goals in different states

The Central Powers and their allies

German Empire

The official bodies responsible for propaganda work in the German Empire around 1914 were primarily the war press office in the Great General Staff, which was located in Section IIIb. The Reichsmarineamt also had its own press and propaganda office, which, however, was largely integrated into the war press office in autumn 1914. In order to preserve the primacy of politics, however, the Foreign Office founded the Central Office for Foreign Service on October 5, 1914, from which the Military Office of the Foreign Office (MAA) (founded July 1, 1916) emerged through pressure from the military in 1916 . In return, Department IV (News) of the Foreign Office founded the "Military Film and Photo Office" in November 1916, which was then merged into the "Image and Film Office" (BuFA) in January 1917. All three state institutions each had their own "censorship office" to monitor the domestic and foreign press. In addition, at the time the war began, there were just over 20 private news and press organizations that pursued similar goals.

German war cinematographers on the Western Front, 1917
Propaganda caps from the First World War
German welfare card
Every shot - a Russ'! Every push - a French! Now let's thresh them!

German propaganda concentrated on emphasizing its own strength, strengthening morale on the " home front " and promoting war bonds and satirising English imperialism . There was also atrocity propaganda on the German side , which was just as pronounced as on the French and British sides. The false reports included reports of the alleged bombing of Nuremberg on August 2, or horror stories about the fighting style of Allied soldiers from the colonial areas (such as the Gurkhas in the British or Africans in the French army), who allegedly crawled to the German trenches at night and slit the throats of sleeping German field grays and soak their blood, or prisoners of war whose eyes Belgians would have gouged out.

In the last years of the war, the army command used photos of war-torn French cities to solicit the gratitude of the population for the soldiers for keeping the front away from their homeland. The Russian population, in particular, was vilified as a people by barbarians without morals or custom.

In October 1914 an appeal was made “ To the cultural world! "Published and widely disseminated, in which any German war guilt was rejected and the German army command was given blanket protection (" poetic mobilization "). This appeal, which was also prepared by government agencies and signed by 93 well-known artists and scholars, reflected a largely national-conservative attitude among many German intellectuals, which the writer Thomas Mann also joined in the further course of the war with his reflections on a non-political issue, published in 1918 .

The German navy operated a comparatively modern propaganda. Under Captain Heinrich Löhlein , the “Reichsmarine News Bureau” began sending messages about German naval warfare to neutral states immediately at the start of the war. Shortly afterwards, leaflets, posters and brochures with positive reports about the German fleet were distributed in neutral countries, particularly in Italy and the USA.

On the one hand, the army command issued strict censorship regulations that severely restricted the research of foreign journalists even at the beginning of the war, but on the other hand they allowed large-scale interviews in order to spread their view of the war internationally. The first dozen German correspondents began work on the fronts at the end of August. The British did not allow this until June 1915. In October 1914, the Central Office for Foreign Service under Matthias Erzberger started work in the German Foreign Ministry and supplied 27 agencies abroad with German-friendly reports. Since the British cut the Atlantic cable a few days after the start of the war , the Germans had to rely on radio communications . The strongest station in Nauen , however, reached as far as Mexico. The Overseas Service GmbH Transocean bought newspapers in neutral countries and gave new leaves out there. However, these efforts met with resistance in many places as late as 1914. In several neutral countries, the public quickly recognized the German information offensive as propaganda. In some cases, the governments of the German ambassadors forbade such an approach.

Even with the attack on Belgium at the beginning of the war, the German Reich found itself in the role of the aggressor, which also massively restricted its possibilities on the propaganda battlefield, which, however, increased those of its opponents even more. With the execution of thousands of Belgian civilians and the destruction of several cities, especially Leuven, the German troops destroyed almost all opportunities for positive foreign propaganda and gave the opposing powers ample material for their propaganda. This effect was intensified by the worldwide outrage over the execution of Edith Cavell by the German military, who, as a nurse, had helped escape Allied soldiers prisoner of war and also spied for France. In return, the German leadership tried to show that the English were not squeamish with "traitors" and "spies", but this hardly had any effect. The fate of the Irish freedom fighter Roger David Casement was the focus. He sided with Germany in 1914 and was executed for high treason in August 1916. This and the attempts to blame the British blockade for supply shortages in the German civilian population did not catch on in the global public.

On May 20, 1916, a war exhibition was opened in Hamburg , at which visitors were also shown looted items. A private exhibition set up in the ruins of Serre on the Somme Front in 1915 , which was also reported in the field magazine Der Schützengraben , used allegorical statues and inscriptions to ridicule the Allied heads of government and racially vilified the (opposing) colonial soldiers.

With the help of field postcards, the German Army Command attempted to show the people in their homeland normally horrific acts such as the destruction of cultural assets on the one hand as evidence of their own military success, on the other hand as the enemy’s own fault.
From 1917, attempts were also made to strengthen the perseverance of the soldiers and the population in the form of patriotic instruction . The German Grammophon Aktiengesellschaft produced also in the series Patriotic Zonophon shots to the best German warriors and their families at least 25 shellac records that orchestrated patriotic songs, marches or mini-dramas such as "The storming of Liege" (in playing down simplified and abbreviated form) contained.

An important medium of psychological warfare was the Gazette des Ardennes , a German occupation newspaper that was first widely distributed in northern France and Belgium and later throughout the French-speaking area. It was a joint effort by German and French journalists, which was able to continuously increase its circulation during the war years. The professional appearance of the Gazette des Ardennes and its high propaganda value were also recognized by the Allied side. Another, less subtle form of psychological warfare was the march of French prisoners of war through Lille before the eyes of the local population to symbolize the defenselessness of their own army. As a field postcard, this motif was used to convey the alleged incompetence of the opponent to the relatives at home.

Austria-Hungary

The responsible authority was the Kuk War Press Quarters (KPQ) (founded July 28, 1914).

The medium of film was used in Austria-Hungary through war newsreels and propaganda films. Frequently used methods were the degradation and ridicule of the enemy, the evocation of one's own strength ( Our War Fleet , 1914), the fighting and victory morale ( Victorious through Serbia , 1915) and the clarification of the need to support his country, be it through the report for military service ( Mit Herz und Hand fürs Vaterland , 1915) or by drawing war bonds ( Das Kriegspatenkind , 1915). The first war newsreel appeared in September 1914 and was produced by the Viennese art film industry . Films such as newsreels were subject to censorship, operators from hostile countries were expelled from the country at the beginning of the war, films from hostile countries were subject to an import ban, which gave the Austrian film industry a strong boost.

Posters and leaflets distributed glorifying graphics of soldiers or denounced the opposing warring factions with propaganda slogans such as "Every shot a Russ, every push a French, every kick a Britt, every slap a jap" and "Serbia must die". Caricatures were also a popular propaganda tool. Cartoons were also used as a propaganda tool. Prominent draftsmen and caricaturists of the time could be won for this: Theo Matejko , Karl Robitschek and Theo Zasche .

War exhibitions

From the beginning of July to October 1916, the first war exhibition was held in the Vienna Prater . In addition to Austria, the German Empire, Bulgaria and Turkey also took part. To illustrate the war among the population, various types of trenches and tunnel structures were created against the backdrop of current theaters of war. For popular amusement, figures in the uniforms of opposing soldiers served as targets in shooting galleries. Furthermore, film screenings and plays were organized.

The 1917 war exhibition was organized with the help of Egon Schiele and Albert Paris Gütersloh .

Artists and artist groups

At the beginning of the war, individual state press offices knew how to win over selected artists for war reporting and war propaganda.

In the course of the war, however, many artists changed their minds due to the obvious atrocities of the war, and in some cases even devoted themselves to counter-propaganda .

The literary group in the Vienna War Archives had the task of composing propaganda articles about "war heroes" for the press from war reports and "excellent" soldiers. The members included:

Other famous names appear as employees of the war press headquarters, more or less voluntarily:

The musical group in the war press headquarters of the Austro-Hungarian War Ministry took care of the organization of concerts and musical events at the front. Soldier songs were also collected. The music group in the war press quarters was divided into two groups, the cisleithan group was led in Vienna by the composer and conductor Bernhard Paumgartner , the transleithan group in Budapest was under the composer Béla Bartók . The music group's employees included:

Entente and allies

France

The responsible authority was the Maison de la Presse (founded February 1916).

In France too, intensive propaganda was used. Children were encouraged to become soldiers or nurses, and school dictates dealt with battles and atrocities committed by Germans.

The central concept of the propaganda was the Sale boche allemand or Boche for short . Furthermore, one focused on the representation of the German atrocities in Belgium and France. In addition to facts, rumors were also picked up that were supposed to stir up fear in the French population. The German soldiers were particularly accused of mutilations, such as cut off hands or breasts, and looting. In 1915 the physician Edgar Bérillon declared body odor to be a special German characteristic, since in “the German” special glands “fear or anger” would secrete “secretions” or uric acid would be excreted via the “foot sweat” .

Great Britain

British propaganda poster
British propaganda poster

Responsible authorities were the War Propaganda Bureau (founded August 1914), from 1917 Crewe House , the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee , for recruiting and the Parliamentary War Savings Committee , responsible for advertising war bonds.

Unlike the other war participants, Great Britain had no general conscription at the beginning of the war and was therefore particularly dependent on moral mobilization, especially since the enthusiasm of the British for war was initially much less than that of the other European peoples, despite a slight hostility towards Germans. In the first five months of the war alone, 2.5 million propaganda posters with 110 motifs were published. Sentences like "Europe at war - and where are YOU?" were ubiquitous. Young women were asked to hand a white feather to male civilians on the street as a symbol of their cowardice and shirking.

As far as war reporting was concerned, the British War Department initially took a defensive stance. This was to prevent the enemy from getting military information from the press. It was not until June 1915 that the ministry admitted correspondents to the front. In early September 1914, however, the establishment of a foreign propaganda department, the War Propaganda Bureau in Wellington House, under Charles Masterman began in the British Foreign Office . Unlike the German propaganda abroad, this institution did not work offensively, but initially even secretly. Initially, the Bureau tried to influence decision-makers in neutral countries through literary texts. Well-known writers such as HG Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle contributed to this.

In addition, different ministries each operated their own propaganda. The National War Aims Committee dominated domestic propaganda, and the Army's MI-7 intelligence division directed psychological warfare among opposing forces.

Only in the further course of the war did the British government focus on demonizing the enemy in order to strengthen the morale of its own soldiers, who were supposed to believe that they were defending civilization against the barbarians. Above all, the behavior of German troops in Belgium opened up numerous opportunities to do so during the first weeks of the war (" Rape of Belgium "), which the British implemented in May 1915 with the Bryce Report . The report accused German soldiers of chopping off Belgian children's hands and raping young girls in retaliation for partisan attacks. The Blue Book on the colonial crimes of the Germans also turned out to be invented after the war. The government was supported by the publisher Lord Northcliffe , whose press repeatedly accused the Germans of new bestialities.

After the nurse Edith Cavell was sentenced to death by the German military for espionage and executed in October 1915, both British and French propaganda used her death to legitimize the war. German attacks on civilian ships in the course of the submarine war provided further starting points for British propaganda.

A product of propaganda only marginally was the story of a German "corpse factory", in which glycerine for ammunition production is allegedly made from German dead . It was circulated in the spring of 1917. The state propaganda agency was only involved in that it initially did not correct this newspaper report against its better knowledge. The media themselves, on the other hand, were concerned about the ever more proliferating narrative. Only after the reports had been in circulation for several weeks did the War Propaganda Bureau publish its own brochure.

By January 1917, the Bureau worked with around 50 people in the Foreign Ministry. It was then, supplemented by previously independent departments that supplied the domestic and foreign press, transformed into an independent office at the instigation of Prime Minister David Lloyd George . In March 1918, the Ministry of Information began work with around 500 employees under the Canadian publisher Max Aitken . Also in early 1917, Crewe House was founded under Lord Northcliffe, a department of the Information Office, which concentrated on propaganda in the military and civilian population of the opponents, in particular on Austria-Hungary.

As early as September 2, 1914, Thomas Hardy , Rudyard Kipling and HG Wells , among others, met in London to coordinate a "poetic-literary campaign for government policy" ( W. Mommsen ). A few days later, forty British intellectuals made a joint statement on the moral justification for joining the war. The suffragettes Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst saw Germany as a "male nation" whose possible victory would be a "blow against the women's movement", which is why they urged conscription and welcomed women to ammunition factories ( N. Ferguson ).

United States

Destroy This Mad Brute - Enlist . US poster from 1917

The competent authority was the Committee on Public Information (founded April 1917).

In the United States, due to the political mood among the population until 1916, the government emphasized a "neutrality status". Corresponding laws were also passed in 1915. In general, the US press highlighted the moral superiority, military strength and the idea of ​​democracy in the US. Only when the events of the First World War, through sunk ships, the trade war on the oceans led by Germany, German acts of sabotage and espionage on US territory also reached the daily lives of US citizens, did campaigns such as Remember Belgium attempt to counter-indignation to wake up the people and thus increase a possible willingness to go to war. In addition, the famous I Want You campaign of the US Army was born, which was later used in World War II . Speeches by prominent actors such as Charlie Chaplin were also broadcast in public places. In cinemas, animated films repeatedly reminded of the RMS Lusitania and its sinking by the German U- 20 submarine .

The US-American propaganda media paid special attention to the subjects of "unrestricted submarine warfare", the increase in the wave of refugees from Europe and the position of the German Kaiser Wilhelm II, and repeatedly criticized the absolutist orientation of the German Reich.

rating

In the immediate post-war period on the German side, the realization that their own propaganda had had little effect, but the opposing propaganda had been all the more successful, was part of the stab in the back legend with which the military and political elite tried to put the defeat into perspective.

However, in recent years there has been a partial reassessment of German World War II propaganda. The British historian Hew Strachan emphasizes her considerable influence on public opinion in neutral states. Especially in the geopolitically significant Spain, the media policy of the Central Powers unfolded great effects and made a significant contribution to the country not intervening on the side of the Entente in the war. But today's research still assumes that the German and Austro-Hungarian mockery propaganda , which reduced the combat value of the opposing soldiers, was largely ineffective. At most, it had the effect that the people on the home front wondered why no quick victories could be achieved against such weak opponents. The war defeat came as a surprise to many Germans who had believed their own propaganda. In addition, the Entente powers had already cut all telegraphic connections between the Central Powers and overseas in the first weeks of the war, which meant that German propaganda could only reach the states in America and Asia indirectly via wireless telegraphy .

The British and French propaganda, which relied on demonizing the enemy, was much more effective. It succeeded in making its own population aware of a civilization's struggle against barbarism, and other states, such as the states of Latin America, have also been influenced by this propaganda. The Allied propaganda benefited from the fact that the troops of the Central Powers were almost everywhere on foreign soil and were thus assigned the odium of "aggressor" from the outset.

Propaganda means

"For the war orphans!" Propaganda poster Italy, 1919
The medium of film was emerging and was first used by the British from 1915, and from 1916 by Germany as a medium for influencing the masses and waging psychological warfare. The establishment of the Babelsberg film studios at this time, for example, initially aimed primarily at using "moving images" as a military propaganda medium.
Above all, the work of the front reporters with their, in part "shocking" photo documents from the immediate front area from 1914 on, had a clear impact on the public.
In the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, the Illustrated History of the World War , a weekly publication series, was published. The first issue appeared shortly after the start of the war in 1914. The target group was the local population, who were supposed to be given a detailed but one-sided view of the course of the war in order to keep morale high in their own country. Illustrated war reports from the current locations were published in the individual issues, with some data certainly also having historical relevance, while information on fallen and captured soldiers, captured war materials, etc. was drastically embellished in favor of the Central Powers.
World war! During the First World War,
Kriegs- & Ruhmesblätter was a weekly newspaper with reports on current war and front-line events.

literature

  • Jens Albes: Words like weapons. German propaganda in Spain during the First World War. Klartext Verlag, Essen 1996, ISBN 3-88474-494-1 .
  • Klaus-Jürgen Bremm : Propaganda in the First World War. Theiss-Verlag, Darmstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-8062-2754-3 .
  • Klaus-Jürgen Bremm: "Staatszeitung" and "Leichenfabrik". The domestic and foreign propaganda of Germany and Great Britain during the First World War in comparison. In: Austrian military magazine. Vol. 46, Issue 1, pp. 11-17.
  • The world war of images. Photo reportage and war propaganda in the illustrated press 1914–1918. (= Photo history. Issue 103). 2013.
  • Brigitte Hamann : The First World War. Truth and lies in pictures and texts. Piper, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-492-04590-1 .
  • Peter Hoeres: War of the Philosophers. German and British philosophy in the First World War. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2004.
  • Harold D. Lasswell: Propaganda Technique in the World War. New York 1927.
  • Wolfgang J. Mommsen : German and English poets in the First World War. In: The First World War. Beginning of the end of the bourgeois age. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-596-15773-0 .
  • Anne Morelli : The Principles of War Propaganda. To Klampen, Springe 2004, ISBN 978-3-934920-43-9 .
  • Joachim, Neander: The German Corpse Factory, The Master Hoax of British Propaganda in the First World War . http://universaar.uni-saarland.de/journals/public/journals/3/Komplettausgabe_tgBeiheft6.pdf ]
  • Ulrike Oppelt: Film and Propaganda in the First World War: Propaganda as media reality in topical and documentary films. Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-08029-5 .
  • Arthur Ponsonby : Falsehood in War-time : Containing An Assortment Of Lies Circulated Throughout The Nations During The Great War. George Allen and Unwin 1928, ISBN 978-1162798653 [1]
  • Martin Schramm : The image of Germany in the British press 1912-1919. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-05-004422-4 .
  • Hew Strachan : The First World War. A New Illustrated Story. Bertelsmann Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-570-00777-4 .
  • Hans Thimme: World War without weapons. The propaganda of the western powers against Germany, its effect and its defense . Cotta, Stuttgart 1932.
  • Ferdinand Tönnies : Critique of Public Opinion. 1922. Reprint: Alexander Deichsel , Rolf Fechner, Rainer Waßner (eds.): Ferdinand Tönnies complete edition . Volume 14, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2002, ISBN 3-11-015349-1 .
  • Gabriele Unverfetern: From the “perfidious Albion” to the “Cordon Douanier”. Posters and leaflets as an instrument of political propaganda - examples from the holdings of the Westphalian Economic Archives . In: Karl-Peter Ellerbrock: First World War, Civil War and the occupation of the clock. Dortmund and the Ruhr area 1914/18–1924. (Small writings: Issue 33). Society for Westphalian Economic History eV, Dortmund 2010, ISBN 978-3-87023-289-4 , pp. 121–196.
  • Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg , Wolfgang von Ungern-Sternberg: The appeal "To the world of culture!" The Manifesto of 93 and the beginnings of war propaganda in the First World War. with a contribution by Trude Maurer : III. The professors' war. Russian responses to the German appeal: To the cultural world. (Pp. 163-201). (People and structures. Historical and social science studies 21). 2nd expanded edition. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2013, ISBN 978-3-631-64167-5 .
  • Fritz Walter: I experience the world in the cinema. 100 years of cinema and film in Austria. Christian Brandstätter, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85447-661-2 , pp. 69-78.
  • Anton Holzer: The other front. Photography and propaganda in the First World War. 3. Edition. Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2012, ISBN 978-3-86312-032-0 .
  • In paper thunderstorms. 1914–1918: The war collections of the libraries (Les collections de guerre des bibliothèques) .

Web links

Commons : World War I propaganda  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eva Krivanec: War propaganda multimedia. Spectacle, Variété and cinema in the First World War. In: Henri Schoenmakers (Ed.): Theater and Media. Basics, analyzes, perspectives. An inventory. transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-8376-1064-2 , pp. 439-500, here: p. 496.
    The wartime in Austria. Cinemas in the war exhibition
    Vienna 1916. In:  Neuigkeits -Welt-Blatt , No. 109/1916 (XLIII. Year), May 12, 1916, p. 7, center right. (Online at ANNO ). Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nwb.
  2. Herbert Gantschacher "Witness and victim of the Apocalypse - The Austrian composer Viktor Ullmann in the First World War as an artillery observer witnessed the poison gas attack on the Isonzo front on October 24, 1917 near Bovec (Flitsch / Plezzo) and in the Second War as a victim of extermination by poison gas on May 18 October 1944 "Catalog for the exhibition in Arnoldstein (Carinthia / Austria) and the documentation center of the" New Culture "foundation in Prora on the island of Rügen (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania / Germany), ARBOS Klagenfurt-Salzburg-Vienna 2007/2008.
  3. Joachim Neander: The German Corpse Factory, The Master Hoax of British Propaganda in the First World War , in: theologie.geschichte , supplement 6, Saarland University, 2013.
  4. Hoeres, Peter: Journalistic mobilization. British intellectuals for the war 1914 . In: European History Thematic Portal (2008)
  5. ^ Catalog for the exhibition "Orages de papier / In Papiergewittern". This was shown in Strasbourg until January 31, 2009 in the 'Bibliothèque Nationale Universitaire'. Posters, field and rifle trench newspapers, diaries, letters, postcards, medals, chansons and other things sketched the mood of the society at that time ( www.bnu.fr , arte for the exhibition ( Memento des Originals from May 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arte.tv