World War 2
The Propaganda War
In towns and cities during the war years the pedestrian was bombarded with exhortations to help the war effort in every possible way. The leaflets and official posters included subjects from rationing registering for civil defence duties. In all the combatant nations these posters were the visible symbols of the war effort.
The poster was the principal instrument of persuasion and expressed, in the most direct terms, the preoccupations of a nation's leaders and the political, military and moral imperatives which drove them, from simple appeals to patriotism to the anti-Semitism of Nazi ideology. Radio, feature films and newsreels also played their part. Radio was used as a tool of 'black propaganda' by all sides, most famously by the Germans in the person of William Joyce, who broadcast Nazi propaganda from Hamburg and whose sneering mock-aristocratic tones earned him the derisive nickname of 'Lord Haw Haw'.
In Josef Goebbels, Nazi Germany possessed a master of the art of propaganda; dubbed the Demon King of Propaganda War. After the defeat at Stalingrad, Goebbels became an increasingly important figure in the drive to achieve the total mobilization of the German war economy. On the 24th of August 1944 he was appointed Plenipotentiary for Total War. Intoxicated with his own skills, Goebbels nevertheless failed to grasp the simple fact that even the best propaganda was no match for the military might of the Allies.
The Hollywood film factory adapted to wartime production with the minimum of disruption. The war had cut the major studios off from many overseas markets. But there was a huge increase in cinema audiences at home. War workers had plenty of money to spend and craved escapist entertainment.
The US government quickly grasped the importance of film as propaganda. The familiar movie genres - crime, thrillers, musicals and westerns - were adapted to accommodate popular war themes. Patriotism proved immensely profitable for the big studios such as MGM, Paramount and Warner Bros.
In 1943 the number of films dealing either directly or indirectly with the war, reached a peak. As the war drew to a close, there was a growing demand for pure escapism in the form of musicals or costume dramas.
Wartime revived the flagging British film industry, which produced a steady stream of stirring documentaries about the 'People's War'. These had a strong influence on mainstream features. Movies like; Millions Like Us - The Way Ahead and Waterloo Road focused their attentions on the lives of ordinary soldiers and civilians and brought a new feeling of realism to British cinema. In contrast, German wartime cinema consisted of a mixture of hymns to national history and military strength, anti-Semitic tracts and frothy escapism, all twisted and fabricated by Goebbels in a crude effort to control the German population through warped propaganda.