World War II Propaganda and Its Effects

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Table of Contents

What is Propaganda?
Tools of Propaganda
Nazi Propaganda between 1941-1945: Goals, Tools, and Effects
Soviet Propaganda between 1941-1945: Goals, Tools, and Effects
Notable Effects and Changing Impact of German and Soviet War Propaganda
Conclusions
Bibliography

Propaganda has always been one of the most important tools of the government. Having a group of people think alike and believe a particular agenda is very useful, as it eliminates doubts and perturbations and focuses its members on the completion of certain tasks. However, in the 20th century, propaganda has become a euphemism for lies, slander, and corruption aiming to brainwash the people into passivity in the face of evil or into committing atrocities in the name of obscure and unjust goals.[1]

While always present and utilized to push various agendas both within countries and across their borders, the first half of the 20th century could be considered the Golden Age of propaganda as a tool of control. The emergence of two ideologically inclined superpowers, such as Nazi Germany and the USSR, also meant the emergence of two powerful propaganda machines. The fierce military conflict between these nations, the bloodiest and fiercest theater of the Second World War, took the lives of more than 34 million people.[2]

At the same time, it showcased the power and usefulness of propaganda to unify the people under one goal, motivate them to sacrifice their lives for the cause, and commit atrocities and acts of heroism in the name of their leaders, their people, and their country. The purpose of this paper is to examine the confrontation between the German and the Soviet propaganda machines during the period of the Second Patriotic War (1941-1945), outline the goals and purposes of each, and identify the changes that both of them had on the psyches of both German and Soviet people.

What is Propaganda?

Before proceeding with the historical dissemination of the available facts regarding propaganda during the Second World War, it is important to understand the meaning of the word. Propaganda is a word of Latin origin, derived from the word “propagate,” or “to propagate.” For the first time, the word propaganda was utilized in 1622, as a name for a particular department within the Catholic faith responsible for external missions to non-Christian countries with the intention to spread the faith.[3]

Although initially the word was utilized with a religious connotation, its meaning in the 21st century is different. Modern dictionaries define propaganda as means of providing information that is not objective with the purpose of influencing the audience and altering their perception of facts by providing false or selective information in order to further a political agenda. Propaganda utilizes any means of conveying its message, be it the press, the radio, the news channels, demonstrations, word-of-mouth, etcetera.

The first historical evidence of propaganda being used as a political tool goes way back to the 6th century BC and the rise of Darius I of the Persian Empire.[4] The ultimate goal of propaganda, thus, is to influence the minds of the people in a particular way, and rulers have acknowledged the need for public support since the dawn of time.

Tools of Propaganda

Scholars of propaganda have identified over 60 effective techniques used in order to sway individual and public opinions in the direction required by those initiating a propaganda effort. While these tools are many, this chapter is going to cover seven staple propaganda techniques actively used by both sides of the conflict in order to either bolster their own civilians or troops or sow discord within enemy ranks. Some of these techniques are as follows:[5]

The demonization of the enemy. Perhaps, one of the oldest propaganda techniques. It involves dehumanizing the enemy by portraying them as something subhuman, evil, making it easier to justify any atrocities committed against them and any measures aimed against them.
Ad nauseam. This technique involves constant repetition of an idea or a slogan in order for the people to start believing it is true. Frequently used in various demonstrations or through other means of communication, such as radio, TV, and the press.
Appeals to fear. This technique is used in order to instill fear and dread of something within the general populace in order to advocate measures and decisions that are supposed to be aimed against such a development.
Demoralization. A set of propaganda techniques aimed at eroding the spirit of the enemy in order to cause discord, desertion, and instability within their ranks. Usually comes in the form of messages that depict the futility of struggle or directly offending the leadership of the opposing side.
Loaded language. This tool helps influence the listeners by using words that have either strongly positive or negative connotations in order to achieve a particular goal.
Media control. This technique usually goes in tow with Ad nauseam, as it involves the media presenting facts piece-meal or blatantly lying, but repeating the message enough for it to stay in the minds of the populace. Very similar to techniques used in classical conditioning, but on a much wider scale.
Exaggeration. Intentionally maximizing personal successes and victories, as well as the flaws and failures of the enemy while minimizing own failures and shortcomings. Frequently used by both sides of the conflict.

While during the confrontation between Nazi Germany and the USSR, both sides have utilized a much wider variety of methods and tools in order to win, these methods were the most visible and easy to spot. The propaganda war between these nations was multi-layered and had lasting effects on the psyche of both nations, some of which persist even up to this day.

Nazi Propaganda between 1941-1945: Goals, Tools, and Effects

Reich Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels is considered the architect of Nazi Germany’s propaganda machine and the father of modern propaganda in general.[6] He was among the first to recognize the potential behind media control and its ability to influence the minds of his nation. The effects of his propaganda were profound and immense, as up to the last days of the war, a good portion of Germans believed in close victory and continued to fight for an already lost cause.

The goals of Goebbels’ propaganda were changing as the war went on and were highly connected to the Nazi Party’s overall agenda as well as the situation on the frontlines. The overall purposes of his propaganda were four:

To bolster the morale of the troops.
To instill discipline as well as inspire loyalty, selflessness, and dedication to the cause at home.
To introduce the doctrine of Total War.
To breed hatred towards the Reich’s enemies based race and political views.[7]

Although German propaganda avidly used all informational outlets in order to convey its message to the masses; its primary tools were the cinema and the radio. At the beginning of the war, Germany was already a highly industrialized and wealthy nation, as riches from conquered countries were poured into Germany. The country’s military complex also produced numerous household appliances. Almost every German home had a radio, which exposed it to Goebbels’s propaganda on a regular basis.

Cinema was also very important in his propaganda efforts, as it allowed to convey a verbal message in addition to striking and patriotic visuals. Every movie showed at German theaters began with an obligatory 15-30 minute propaganda picture of Die Deutsche Wochenschau. Overall, out of 1300 German movies produced between 1941-1945, almost 200 were made with the sole purpose of propaganda.[8]

At the beginning of the war, German propaganda was largely motivated by the Nazi doctrine titled “Lebensraum,” which translates into “Living space,” which suggested a military push eastward in order to free those lands for the Germans. Freeing those lands, subsequently, meant the extermination of over 70% of the Slavic population occupying it and enslavement of the rest in concentration camps.[9]

To accomplish these inhuman goals, Goebbels needed to mold and prepared the German psyche into accepting the war as inevitable and being willing to commit atrocities in the name of the Reich. This preparation started at least a decade before the war. The Soviets were depicted as a threat to Germany and the Western way of life as a whole. The soldiers were being taught not to view the enemy soldiers and civilians as people, with crimes and atrocities against the civilian populace and prisoners of war being permitted by the official orders and documents of German high command. The soldiers were being convinced of a quick and easy victory, drawing parallels with France.

However, as the war went on, and it became apparent that the USSR would not be defeated quickly and easily, the tone of German propaganda began to change. Fact obfuscation and exaggeration techniques were used to great effect in order to convince the Germans that the war was still going as planned. At the same time, patriotism and selflessness for the cause were widely propagated as a means of increasing recruitment rates and bolstering the production by involving women and children.

Near the end of the war, when the situation was desperate, Goebbels’ propaganda started aiming at children as a makeshift replacement for soldiers lost in the Eastern front. Hitler Youths and Volksturm were widely utilized in a vain attempt to contain the Soviet offensive. Due to how effective and all-encompassing Goebbels’ propaganda machine was, many Germans lived in ignorance of the war until it came to their doorstep.[10]

However, Goebbels’ propaganda was not aimed at Germans and its allies alone. Working with the populations of occupied territories was paramount to the German war effort as well. Germans used loudspeakers and dropped leaflets on Soviet positions in order to convince the soldiers of the opposing side to switch sides or surrender. While these techniques were effective at the beginning of the war, as the crimes committed against POWs and civilians behind enemy lines were discovered, the effectiveness of German propaganda efforts against the Red Army dropped significantly.[11]

Due to the unpopularity of the Soviet government in some occupied areas such as Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus, attempts were made to separate and disintegrate the communities by creating myriads of factions that were supposed to be hostile to one another.[12] Other than that, Goebbels fueled nationalistic tendencies in those territories, which resulted in the formation of various collaborationist paramilitary forces such as the Russian Liberation Army, Polish SS legion, etc. Efforts were made to make the population support the occupation troops and refuse to engage in guerrilla warfare that was undermining the German lines. In occupied territories, leaflets, pictures, and loudspeakers were the main tools of propaganda, as peasant households did not have radios.

Soviet Propaganda between 1941-1945: Goals, Tools, and Effects

The Soviet propaganda machine started off, arguably, in the worst position when compared to its German counterparts. The beginning of the war was disastrous for the Soviets, with many divisions located near the Soviet-German border being surrounded and captured by the Germans. Mass surrenders, coupled with a lack of will to fight, promised to lose the war within months. Thus, the first and main goal of the Soviet propaganda machine was to bolster the country’s spirit and ignite the will to fight the foreign invaders.

The main propaganda instruments utilized by the Soviets were the press, word-of-mouth, and loudspeakers. Unlike Germany, the USSR was only rebuilding its means of production. The majority of the households did not possess any radios, which was a significant limitation. Fortunately, the results of the War on Illiteracy, which was conducted by the Bolsheviks in 1920-1930, managed to increase literacy rates among the Soviet people from 20-30% according to the data collected in 1916 to nearly 90% by the end of 1939, which enabled the use of the press and informative leaflets as primary propaganda outlets.[13] Word-of-mouth was also widespread.

In the Red Army, propaganda efforts were conducted by political commissars, who were re-introduced in 1941 in order to ensure loyalty among the commanders and troops. Their primary role involved reading informative leaflets to the troops and use personal knowledge and charisma in order to make propaganda more personified and efficient.

The three core motives found in almost all Soviet propaganda of that period revolves around hatred, heroism, and sacrifice. The atrocities committed by the Germans towards civilian populations of the occupied territories served as powerful propaganda fuel for Soviet soldiers. Pictures of executed civilians, villages and cities burned to the ground, murdered women and children were vastly more powerful than any rhetoric that German propaganda was able to provide.

The Soviets engaged in psychological warfare in an effort to demoralize German troops. One of the famous techniques used by the Soviets is the “Metronome.” Using loudspeakers, they broadcasted pleasant music over to the German positions, which was suddenly interrupted by a loud ticking of the metronome. During it, a somber voice informed the Germans that every 7 seconds, a German soldier dies. This technique was utilized to a great effect in the Battle of Stalingrad.

Motives of revenge were a powerful weapon of Soviet war propaganda. Soviet poets and writers managed to produce many hate-field poems with great utilization of loaded language to convey the atrocities committed by the Germans on Soviet soil. Examples of poetry and music used for propaganda purposes include Ilya Ehrenburg’s poem titled “Kill the German,” as well as “The Sacred War,” written by Alexander Alexandrov and Vasily Lebedev-Kumasi. Both pieces are extremely powerful in their own right, capable of instilling righteous anger and inspire soldiers and civilians alike to fight and toil in defense of their country.[14]

Notable Effects and Changing Impact of German and Soviet War Propaganda

One of the more notable effects of German and Soviet propaganda alike is that they both helped escalate violence against each other. German propaganda was more efficient in that regard. If we take a look at Soviet losses suffered during the war, out of 27 million dead, more than 10 million are civilian casualties. Although certain apologists argue that the majority of atrocities were committed by the SS, the sheer magnitude and number of civilian casualties, as well as overwhelming evidence obtained from various sources, suggests that regular Wehrmacht was also actively taking part in the subjugation and extermination of the civilian populace.[15]

The demonization and dehumanization of the enemy, propagated by German media, made this a reality. Soviet propaganda, who also used hatred as a weapon, is to blame for the atrocities committed by Soviet troops on German soil. The most famous and notable act of violence against the civilian population was in the aftermath of the Battle of Berlin, where thousands of German women were either raped or killed.[16]

Aftereffects of German and Soviet war propaganda are visible even in the 21st century. In Russia and many post-soviet republics, the word “fascist” is considered one of the worst insults, as it is used with a malicious connotation. The dismounting of Goebbels’ propaganda in Germany after the Second World War caused a nation-wide cognitive dissonance, followed by nation-wide feelings of guilt and effective dissemination of national identity.

The effectiveness of propaganda for either side largely depended on how it correlated with the reality of the situation at the frontlines. Soviet propaganda was on the back foot for the first year of the conflict, as it tried to inspire the troops by using unpopular political slogans and demanding loyalty to the Communist Party. However, once German war atrocities were exposed and the message changed from loyalty to communism towards loyalty to the Motherland, the effectiveness of Soviet propaganda was increased tenfold.[17]

German propaganda, on the other hand, was at its peak at the beginning of the war, when the promises of easy victory correlated with successes of the German Wehrmacht. However, after the Soviets managed to stop the Germans in the Battle of Moscow, and the perspectives of ending the war within a year became more and more unlikely, the effectiveness of propaganda among the troops began to drop.

The Eastern front turned out to be a nightmare when compared to relatively easy victories the Germans had in France, Poland, and the majority of Europe. Goebbels’ propaganda machine managed to deceive the German population at home, up until the point when Soviet artillery began shelling the city. Ultimately, no amount of brainwashing and propaganda was able to hide the truth of Germany’s imminent defeat.[18]

Conclusions

Although the word “propaganda” used to have a neutral connotation to itself, the application of it during World War 2 managed to demonstrate its terrifying power. Words alone were capable of moving armies, brainwashing entire countries, and having soldiers commit acts of terror that the world has never seen before. At the same time, tools of propaganda were used to mobilize the nations in times of great need, which changed the course of history.

Without propaganda, Nazi Germany would not have existed, and the nations of the USSR would not have survived the battle for survival. The legacy of these countries in the field of propaganda lives on; however, as many nations across the globe have adopted their tools in order to further their own political agendas. As long as there will be states and governments, propaganda will continue to exist. It is useful, to a degree, as a tool of the state. The challenge, however, is to prevent history from repeating itself.

Bibliography

Balfour, Michael. Propaganda in War. London: Faber & Faber, 1993.

Bartov, Omar. The Eastern Front, 1941-45: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare. London: Palgrave, 2001.

Burds, Jeffrey. “Sexual Violence in Europe in World War II, 1939-1945.” Politics & Society 37, no. 1 (2009): 35-73.

Cull, Nicholas, David Culbert, and David Welch. Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia 1500 to the Present. Oxford: ABC Clio, 2003.

Fateev, Andrew. Image of the Enemy in Soviet Propaganda. 1945-1954. Moscow: RAN, 1999.

Herz, Martin. “Some Psychological Lessons from Leaflet Propaganda in World War II.” Public Opinion Quarterly 13, no. 3 (1949): 471-486.

Kallis, Aristotle. Nazi Propaganda and the Second World War. London: Palgrave, 2005.

Pauley, Bruce. Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century. New York: Wiley, 2014.

Reese, Willy Peter. A Stranger to Myself. The Inhumanity of War: Russia: 1941-1944. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2003.

Short, Kenneth. Film and Radio Propaganda in World War 2. London: Croom Helm, 1983.

Sobolev, Ivan. Results of the Second World War. Moscow: IIL, 1957.

Thurston, Robert, and Bernd Bonwetsch. The Peoples’ War: Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

Vincent, Arnold. The Illusion of Victory: Fascist Propaganda and the Second World War. New York: Peter Lang, 1998.

Nicholas Cull et al., Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia 1500 to the Present (Oxford: ABC Clio, 2003), 23.
Omer Bartov, The Eastern Front, 1941-45: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare (London: Palgrave, 2001), 12.
Nicholas Cull et al., Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia 1500 to the Present (Oxford: ABC Clio, 2003), 7.
Balfour Michael, Propaganda in War (London: Faber & Faber, 1993), 9.
Aristotle Kallis, Nazi Propaganda and the Second World War (London: Palgrave, 2005), 54.
Bruce Pauley, Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century (New York: Wiley, 2014), 43.
Arnold Vincent, The Illusion of Victory: Fascist Propaganda and the Second World War (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), 20.
Kenneth Short, Film and Radio Propaganda in World War 2 (London: Croom Helm, 1983), 83.
Ivan Sobolev, The Results of the Second World War (Moscow: IIL, 1957), 19.
Arnold Vincent, The Illusion of Victory: Fascist Propaganda and the Second World War (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), 55.
Martin Herz, “Some Psychological Lessons from Leaflet Propaganda in World War II,” Public Opinion Quarterly 13, no. 3 (1949): 475.
Arnold Vincent, The Illusion of Victory: Fascist Propaganda and the Second World War (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), 91.
Robert Thurston and Bernd Bonwetsch, The Peoples’ War: Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 39.
Andrew Fateev, Image of the Enemy in Soviet Propaganda. 1945-1954 (Moscow: RAN, 1999), 69.
Andrew Fateev, Image of the Enemy in Soviet Propaganda. 1945-1954 (Moscow: RAN, 1999), 69.
Jeffrey Burds, “Sexual Violence in Europe in World War II, 1939-1945,” Politics & Society 37, no. 1 (2009): 50.
Willy Peter Reese, A Stranger to Myself. The Inhumanity of War: Russia: 1941-1944 (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2003). 140.
Arnold Vincent, The Illusion of Victory: Fascist Propaganda and the Second World War (New York: Peter Lang, 1998), 91.

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