OPENING MONTAGE:
- SONG: “Mister. Sister. It’s up to you.”
- FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT (speech to Congress): “We will gain the inevitable triumph.”
- GERMAN SOLDIERS (marching): “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”
- CARTOON GERMAN ARMY CHARACTER (held at gunpoint): “What a rifle!”
- SONG: “… who’d the boys go out and fight for?”
- BRITISH PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: “Do not be alarmed by noise in an air raid.”
TITLE CARD:
propaganda (noun)
a deliberate attempt to manipulate people’s actions, beliefs, and thoughts with a specific purpose or goal in mind.
SUSAN WILKINS, Director of Education, Int’l Museum of World War II:
Propaganda was everywhere in World War II. You would see it in newspapers, in handbills, in leaflets, in children’s literature, party games, toys. Posters were all over different town kiosks. Propaganda came across radio, propaganda came through film.
World War II happens at a time in history when these new forms of mass communication have come along, and propagandists take full advantage of that.
FILM EXCERPT Hollywood Victory Caravan, 1945, Paramount Pictures for the U.S. Treasury Department
Woman: “Mr. Hope, I haven’t thanked you for everything yet, so if you’re still selling kisses for a $50 war bond, I’ll take one, please.”
Man: “Well, there’s just a few left.”
WILKINS:
Most of the major combatant nations actually set up government bureaus, or offices, solely dedicated to the production of propaganda.
World War II is what we call a "total war." Total war is one that fully involves the civilian population. It involves their labor, it involves resources, it involves civilian infrastructure, all dedicated to providing the military with whatever it needs to succeed.
Estimates place the casualty total at about 60 million people, and over half of those were civilians. It’s long in duration, it’s vast in scope. To carry it on for that number of years, governments had to have the support of the civilian population, and propaganda was really the main way that governments decided they were going to do that.
FILM EXCERPT Words for Battle, 1941, U.K. Ministry of Information, Crown Films Unit:
“We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.”
WILKINS:
A lot of propaganda was directed towards civilians on the home front, directing them to do all kinds of things that was going to make the war effort possible.
FILM EXCERPT Conquer by The Clock, 1942, RKO Pathé:
“Forty-eight united states of a free and sovereign America are at war. Every American has his job to do, and the will to do it and the tools to do it with.”
WILKINS:
Civilians were asked to ration food. They were asked to buy war bonds to finance the war.
FILM EXCERPT The All-Star Bond Rally, 1945, Twentieth-Century Fox for the U.S. Treasury Department:
Woman pointing to a war bonds sales booth: “Look.”
WILKINS:
Even things like complying with blackouts and other civil defense routines.
FILM EXCERPT If War Should Come, 1939, The GPO Film Unit:
“You must be ready to obscure all lights in your house.”
WILKINS:
All manner of daily life was targeted by propaganda.
FILM EXCERPT If War Should Come, 1939, The GPO Film Unit:
“This hand rattle means gas. Put on your gas mask, and keep it on.”
WILKINS:
Because there were spies operating in every theater of the war, you see in every country this theme of “Be careful what you say” because you never really knew who you were talking to or who might be overhearing your conversation.
Propaganda was effectively used to unite the civilian population and at the same time to identify the enemy. In Germany, propaganda was used to dehumanize an entire group of people: the Jewish population. This made the creation of concentration camps and, later, death camps possible and led directly to the Holocaust.
You as a citizen don’t know that what you’re hearing or seeing or playing with is necessarily a tool of propaganda. People who are being brainwashed don’t know they’re being brainwashed. To some degree, you are sort of at the mercy of whoever is putting out that propaganda.
