Battling With the Truth E-Book

Ian Garden

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 430

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

'Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.' – Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Dunkirk, Stalingrad, the Dieppe Raid: there were many bloody and gruesome conflicts fought during the Second World War, yet there was one vital and aggressive battle in which no blood was directly shed – that of the warring nations' battle with the truth. In Battling With the Truth (a follow-up to The Third Reich's Celluloid War) Ian Garden offers fascinating insights into the ways by which both the Axis and Allies manipulated military and political facts for their own ends. By analysing key incidents and contemporary sources from both British and German perspectives, he reveals how essential information was concealed from the public. Asking how both sides could have believed they were fighting a just war, Garden exposes the extent to which their peoples were told downright lies or fed very carefully worded versions of the truth. Often these 'versions' gave completely false impressions of the success or failure of missions – even whole campaigns. Ultimately, Battling With the Truth demonstrates that almost nothing about war is as clear-cut as the reporting at the time makes out. From the past, we can learn valuable lessons about the continuing potential for media manipulation and political misinformation – especially during wartime.

Leseprobe

This book is dedicated to my ever-supportive parents.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book could not have been completed without the assistance of a large number of individuals and institutions.

In terms of general research, I would like to thank Professor Simon Eliot and Dr Henry Irving for additional information arising from their own research into the history of the Ministry of Information (MOI); Anne Jensen from the Archive and Record Office of The Times; the staff at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, the British Library in London and the National Archives at Kew.

There are five other individuals who deserve special mention:

First, Professor Ruth Schröck, who has spent so much of her time over the last few years sharing with me her fascinating experiences of life in Germany during the Second World War. Her insight and knowledge have been irreplaceable sources of inspiration.

Second, Professor William Niven and his colleague, Nick Hayes, of Nottingham Trent University for all their assistance in helping me track down specific research materials. I wish Bill well with his own current project – a book about Hitler’s films – which is another subject close to my heart.

Third, Luc Braeuer and his colleagues for providing me with a number of excellent images, which I have been able to include in this book. Luc is a military historian and prolific author who runs a number of excellent war museums in France at Saint-Nazaire (Le Grand Blockhaus), La Rochelle and Quinéville.

Fourth, Steve Sullivan for his willingness to provide me with images featured on his excellent website, Blighty-at-War.net.

Finally, Helen Gillard for all her expert advice and feedback on the content and layout of this book.

There are, of course, many other friends and acquaintances whom I would like to thank for their numerous suggestions and invaluable support during the completion of this project. These include Hanna Awan, Janet Begrie, Campbell Black, Lothar Braun, Clare Brown, Yvonne Burgess, Jo de Vries, Jim Dunnigan, Ed Furgol, Malcolm Hay, Douglas Laws, Michael Leventhal, Ian Lewis, Angus Logan, Sheena McDonald, Bruce McHale, George Milne, Eva Pearson, Hilary Swanson, Brian Taylor, Mark Taylor and, of course, Chrissy McMorris and her colleagues at The History Press.

It is always difficult with a book of this type, researched and written over a long period of time, to succeed in acknowledging the assistance given by so many different people at various stages in its preparation, so I apologise in advance for anyone whose name has been omitted inadvertently.

Where necessary, every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of all materials used but, notwithstanding, I express my apologies for any omissions.

CONTENTS

      Title

      Dedication

      Acknowledgements

      Introduction

  1  The Control of Media Censorship during the Second World War

  2  Countdown to War

  3  The Road to Dunkirk

  4  The Battle of Britain

  5  Saint-Nazaire – ‘The Greatest Raid Ever Made’

  6  The Dieppe Raid

  7  Operation Chastise – the Dambusters Raid

  8  The Bombing of Cities

  9  El Alamein and the Desert War

10  The Battle for Stalingrad

11  D-Day and Beyond – the Invasion of Mainland Europe

12  The Destruction of Convoy PQ17

13  The Massacre in Katyn Forest

14  The ‘V’ Rockets and the Bombing of Peenemünde

15  Operation Market Garden

16  The Battle of the Bulge

17  Conclusion

      Select Bibliography

      Copyright

INTRODUCTION

In war, truth is the first casualty.

(attributed to Aeschylus, Greek tragic dramatist – 525 BC to 456 BC)

On the afternoon of 16 October 1939, about twelve German bombers arrived over the River Forth on the east coast of Scotland, dropping bombs over the famous rail bridge and almost hitting a train that was crossing the bridge at the time. Fighters were scrambled from local aerodromes, and a couple of bombers were shot down. It was the first raid by the Luftwaffe over Britain, and it was reported as having been a complete failure. Indeed, such was the euphoria surrounding this first downing of German planes by Spitfires that a thrilling documentary was released a few months later. This film recreated the incident with dramatic dogfight footage and gave the distinct impression that the rail bridge had been the main target – hence why the incident came to be known as the Forth Bridge Raid.

The British media coverage of the raid was actually quite wide of the mark. The Forth Bridge had never been the bombers’ intended target. The Germans had actually been hoping to attack HMS Hood but, as it was not to be found on the river, they had turned their attention to three other naval ships sailing near the Forth Bridge. Press reports not only suggested that damage to these ships was minimal and that naval casualties were light but also indicated that as many as six German planes were shot down that day. This was not entirely accurate.

Damage to one of the ships was actually quite significant and no fewer than sixteen sailors were killed and a further forty-four wounded. Little of this was made public at the time and, in fact, only two German planes were shot down with a third crashing in Holland on its way home.

So, while certainly a significant result for the British, the whole incident was perhaps not quite the complete triumph implied nor as one-sided as was suggested, especially when it is discovered that the only reason the raiders were able to reach their target at all was because of the failure of the nearby radar system at Cockburnspath.

However, if the British gave a somewhat misleading impression of the raid, then the Germans were equally dishonest. They claimed that two British cruisers had been badly damaged and that they had shot down two fighters, with two of their own aircraft reported ‘missing’. Given that the Germans did not shoot down any British planes whatsoever and that they actually lost three rather than two planes of their own, it just goes to show how the Germans tried to make just as much propaganda out of this confrontation as the British, In fact, the British and the Nazis were both prepared to play rather fast and loose with the truth and, by so doing, both sides were able to claim success.

Now, the false reporting of a single incident may not seem of much significance. However, the misleading coverage of this event was symptomatic of the sort of practices that persisted throughout the war, not just with regard to the reporting of individual incidents but also of whole campaigns.

Take, for example, the Battle of Britain. I have a good German friend who had been resident in Berlin for much of the war and who only moved to Britain in the 1960s. I was quite shocked when she explained to me that she had never even heard of events such as the Battle of Britain until she came to live in this country. She had found it necessary to ask people what was meant by this term since, for her, the whole war was against Britain. It seemed to me totally inconceivable that any ordinary German citizen who lived through the war could have been unaware that there had been a specific ‘life or death’ air battle between Britain and Germany in 1940, let alone that it was a battle Germany had lost and which, arguably, changed the whole course of the war. And yet, such ignorance of this and similar events was undoubtedly the case.

In effect, history has shown us time and again that the root cause of conflicts between nations often lies in the failure of either side to understand the underlying motivations and perceptions of the other. Add to this the deliberate manipulation, misrepresentation or concealment of the facts by the respective governments of each nation, both prior and subsequent to conflict, and the seeds of a long and bitter dispute can be sown.

A recent example of such a scenario is to be found in the conflict in Eastern Europe with the annexation of the Crimea by Russia and the continuing unrest in eastern Ukraine. For many Ukrainians and many countries in the West, the issue was portrayed as the illegal and belligerent actions of Russia in occupying and seizing the territory of a neighbouring sovereign power. For most Russians, the annexation of the Crimea was seen as the rightful repossession of territory that had been seized wrongfully and reassigned to Ukraine in the 1950s, albeit that the majority of its people are Russian-speaking and feel a greater affiliation towards the East. Many of the people who live in these territories actually share that view, and if there is a perception – true or otherwise – that they are a disadvantaged or even persecuted minority in a foreign land, then it is easy to understand how this could provoke such anger and resentment as to lead to war.

We find stark similarities in the disputes leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War. The loss of much of their territory in Europe, the seizure of their colonies and the dismantling of their armed forces left many Germans feeling persecuted, especially when many held to the mistaken belief that their army had not actually been defeated in the Great War and that surrender had been forced upon them through betrayal by capitalists, communists and Jews. In Central Europe, there is no doubt that there were instances where communities of ethnic Germans, who had been relocated to new countries such as Czechoslovakia or to expanded countries such as Poland, were treated poorly by their new governments and, when the time was right, Hitler was able to exploit such grievances for his own political purposes.

Perception is important, and sometimes it is only with hindsight and when a conflict is sufficiently remote from future generations of survivors that it is possible to analyse objectively the motivations behind each side’s actions at a particular moment in the past. What we discover is that the truth is often blurred and never quite as clear-cut as politicians might want us to believe. For the peoples of the Allied countries to contend that they were totally in the right, that only their cause was just and that the Second World War was all Germany’s fault, was to fail to recognise that many Germans were just as convinced that they were in the right and that it was they who were threatened by a belligerent Britain and France, who had, after all, declared war on Germany. They would claim Germany was simply recovering territory that had been stolen from it after the Great War and defending the rights of ethnic Germans who, through no fault of their own, now found themselves citizens of a foreign country.

If each side had a different perspective on who was to blame for the very outbreak of war, then it is important to appreciate that once the war had begun, the deliberate manipulation of truth about subsequent events and battles in the war served only to widen the gap in understanding between the two sides – both of whom exploited events for propaganda purposes.

Such was the importance of this propaganda battle that both sides were determined to control exactly what their peoples saw, heard or read about the war and the enemy.

This propaganda war was already partly examined in my earlier book, The Third Reich’s Celluloid War, which sought to explore the nature of the feature films, documentaries and television programmes the Nazis produced during their period in power and how this compared with what the Allies were screening.

One aspect that book was unable to consider was the role of newsreels and newspapers in influencing public opinion during the Second World War. This book seeks to fill that gap by selecting a number of key events and battles from the war and examining how accurately these were portrayed by both sides. The intention is to try to identify which side was more truthful in its presentation of the war, both to its own people and to the world at large.

The findings are often surprising and quite alarming. There are many instances where both sides massaged the truth for their own audiences – even about the very same event – and frequent examples of the authorities not only concealing vital facts but failing to report bad news altogether. It all helps to explain why, for much of the war, ordinary citizens on both sides were absolutely convinced that their country was fighting a just war and that their side would eventually be victorious.

1

THE CONTROL OF MEDIA CENSORSHIP DURING THESECOND WORLD WAR

INTRODUCTION

Hitler had always been jealous of the effectiveness of the British propaganda machine during the First World War and its portrayal of the Germans as a ruthless and dangerous adversary. In his book, Mein Kampf, he even went as far as to criticise the German hierarchy and press for having been so conciliatory as to suggest that the German nation shared responsibility for the outbreak of the Great War. Hitler would have laid the blame fairly and squarely on the British and French, and he was determined that once the Nazis assumed power in 1933, there would be no question of the German press reporting anything other than what was permitted by the newly founded Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, led by Joseph Goebbels.

As for the British, having grown rather complacent because of the very success of their own propaganda initiatives during the First World War, the first thing they did after that war was to shut down their Ministry of Information. This was in the naïve belief that it was no longer required and, even if such a requirement did arise again in the future, that it would be able to be re-established without any great difficulty.

This introductory chapter explains how, despite their quite different methods of media censorship, both the Germans and the British were able to exercise relatively tight control over the output of their respective media throughout the war – ensuring that the maintenance of the morale of the general public and their armed forces was paramount at all times, even if this often meant the concealment or misreporting of the truth about the conduct of the Second World War.

Hitler was always jealous of Britain’s and Ireland’s more effective use of propaganda during the Great War – as can be seen in the nature of this Irish recruitment poster. Library of Congress (LOC) 2003668413

THE BRITISH MINISTRY OF INFORMATION

Structure

Despite the fact that General Ludendorff and Hitler had often complained that Germany’s defeat in the Great War was as a result of Britain’s superior use of propaganda, Britain actually had no official propaganda agencies in place in 1914. Instead, a hotchpotch of surprisingly successful propaganda organisations emerged which, rather ironically, were established in direct response to Germany’s use of propaganda. It was only in March 1918 that Lord Beaverbrook was handed responsibility for establishing a specific Ministry of Information (MOI) which would co-ordinate all Britain’s wartime propaganda activities. It was divided into three sections to provide complete control over domestic, military and foreign propaganda. Somewhat appropriately, it would seem, the foreign department was led by John Buchan, the prolific author whose most famous spy thriller, The Thirty-Nine Steps, had been published only three years previously.

Typically, however, as soon as peace was declared, the MOI was all but dissolved, and much of its former propaganda work reverted to the control of the Foreign Office.

It was not until 1935 that a government committee was formed for the purpose of preparing guidelines for the establishment of a new MOI in the event of the outbreak of another war. While it was agreed that its primary responsibility would be to issue official news and public announcements, it was also charged with generating propaganda that would not only sustain civilian morale within Britain but would also influence opinion overseas.

While the individual services’ departments were allowed to retain their own press officers, the MOI was certainly intended to be regarded as the primary centre for the distribution of all information relating to the war. Its personnel were to be accommodated in the University of London’s Senate House on Malet Street. The original plan was to allocate responsibility across five divisions but, by the spring of 1939, this number had increased to sixteen.

Prior to the commencement of war, the British Government had resolved that the press in the United Kingdom would not be required to submit material for censorship approval prior to publication but rather that the press would submit to a policy of voluntary censorship. Indeed, the press would be subject to the same restrictions as all other citizens and organisations in Britain in that its activities would be controlled by Defence Regulations.1

The Ministry of Information was housed in the University of London’s Senate House throughout the Second World War. Wikimedia Commons/An Siarach

The specific Defence Regulations of most relevance to the media were Regulation Nos. 3 and 39b.

Regulation No. 3 made it an offence for anyone to: obtain, record, communicate or publish […] any military or other information […] which would or might be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy.

Regulation No. 39b made it an offence for anyone to: endeavour, whether orally or otherwise, to influence public opinion […] in a manner likely to be prejudicial to the defence of the realm or the efficient prosecution of the war.

There is no doubt that, at the commencement of war, there were several government and services’ department officials who would have been quite happy if the reporting of everything to do with the war could have been banned. However, it was quickly recognised that this would have been a propaganda coup for the Germans and likely to undermine civilian morale. The press had to be allowed to keep the general public informed about the progress of the war and, to assist the press in understanding how this task could be legally fulfilled, a booklet called Defence Notices and Press Instructions was circulated to all newspaper editors and censors at the outbreak of war. It contained an extensive list of banned subjects about which it was decreed information should not be published without prior guidance from the appropriate government censorship department.

This booklet was of great benefit to news editors, who were only too willing to submit possibly contentious articles for censorship control since, if approved, they would be stamped as ‘Passed for Publication’and, armed with such official authorisation, editors knew that they should be safe from prosecution for breaching any Defence Regulations.

It was not, however, of much help to censors, who were having to make instant decisions as to what information might or might not be of interest to the enemy. Hence, lists of additional banned subjects would be issued on almost a daily basis, in response to the latest developments, to give censors and editors further guidance as to what might or might not be acceptable.

Most of the Defence Notices were quite understandable, such as not reporting the success of, or any mishap to, or any movement of his Majesty’s forces, aircraft or ships of war. Other Notices were less clear as to when and how they might apply, such as one under the heading ‘Advertisements and Appeals’, which decreed: ‘special precautions should be taken to prevent the publication of letters or advertisements inviting officers and men to communicate with strangers.’

A couple of noteworthy points arise from the Press Instructions that prefaced the actual Defence Notices.

First, as has been mentioned above, the press was being asked to adhere to a process of self-censorship. However, there was obviously some concern that this voluntary arrangement might not succeed, as could be seen in the thinly disguised threat: ‘As in 1914–1918, the censorship of the press, other than of press telegrams, will, for the present, be on a voluntary basis. Power is, however, taken […] for the imposing by Order, of compulsory censorship either generally or in relation to particular matters.’

Second, it was made quite clear that the censors would only have the right to remove inappropriate material: ‘after the deletion of words or sentences which may in themselves be objectionable, additions to or further exclusions from the text are not made by the Ministry except to preserve the sense.’

In other words, there was a clear undertaking from the MOI that its censors would not be altering copy or massaging loss statistics for propaganda purposes. Of course, this still did not guarantee that the initial information, fed to the press from the individual services’ departments via the MOI, was accurate.

Likewise, the MOI seemed to find it necessary to protect its own position by declaring that: ‘Permission to publish constitutes no guarantee of the accuracy of the news passed. Each item of news is judged entirely from the point of view of its effect on the conduct of the war, irrespective of its truth or falsity.’

That is to say, censors may well have known that an item to be published was untrue or gave a false impression but as long as it did not fall foul of the Defence Regulations, it could still be published.

Day-to-day Operation

In practice, every London newspaper and every provincial newspaper with an office in London had one or more of its representatives based at the MOI in London. Their role was threefold. First, they had to inform their offices of official communiqués issued by Ministry officials. The newsroom was housed on the ground floor of the Senate Building and a large bell would be sounded to signal the release of each new press release.2 Second, they had to liaise with the censors regarding any copy that their editors had submitted for approval. Two drafts of proposed material would be sent to the censors in the basement via a system of pneumatic tubes. One copy would be returned with any changes marked in blue and bearing an official MOI stamp. The journalists would then phone or cable the amended copy to their head offices. Third, they had to interact with those representatives of other key Government departments who were in the best position to provide the press with additional information on any subject.

All the large news agencies such as the Press Association and Reuters also employed staff at the Ministry of Information. When it came to censorship, all the news agencies with their headquarters in Britain had secured an agreement with the Government whereby their incoming messages were not censored before delivery. This was agreed only in return for a guarantee from these agencies that they would submit for censorship all such incoming news from overseas that had to do with the war before it was circulated to individual newspapers for publication. Newspapers that received information from overseas directly were also spared pre-censorship, but they were left to make their own decisions as to whether such information needed to be submitted for censorship approval prior to publication.

Correspondents of overseas press were required to obtain prior censorship approval for all material going overseas, whether it was being communicated by mail, cable, wireless or telephone. This aroused a certain resentment among foreign correspondents, who were aware that the British newspapers had no such constraints and could export their newspapers overseas without prior censorship approval.

Operational Efficiency

Regrettably, in the early days of its creation, a large degree of tension not only existed between the MOI and the services’ departments but often also within the separate divisions of the MOI itself, since there was no clear definition as to where one division’s area of responsibility ended and another began.

The Newsroom in Beveridge Hall at the Ministry of Information. MOI Digital/Copyright University of London

Indeed, even after war was declared, there was still a considerable amount of uncertainty as to how the news should be controlled, not least because many of the new officials assigned to work at the MOI were ex-naval men who had little understanding of how media organisations worked.

At the outbreak of war, many censors even felt it was their duty to stop the flow of news about the war altogether. In his book, Blue Pencil Admiral, the Chief Press Censor, Rear Admiral George Thomson, was only too ready to admit the confusion that arose when the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) first landed in France, in September 1939. There had been initial landings as early as 4 September, and it was agreed that these should not be reported. However, following the main landing on 10 September, this news blackout seemed unnecessary, since the Germans were obviously already aware of this development, and by 12 September a Paris radio station had already broadcast the news to the wider world. Consequently, the censors agreed at 9 p.m. that evening that the press could report the simple fact that units of the BEF had arrived in France. However, the British general staff soon became alarmed that the press was creating human interest articles out of the news and that there was a real danger that details about the numbers of men involved and equipment they were taking with them would be of real benefit to the enemy. Consequently, the initial decision to allow publication was withdrawn two and a half hours later. Arrangements were made for any further publication of newspapers that evening to cease and for newspapers already in transit to be seized by the police at railway stations. Chaos ensued and, as it became evident that it would be impossible to prevent all the information being released, the prohibition was lifted once again.

In fact, this issue, together with repeated conflicts between the MOI censors and the individual services’ ministries, other public relations disasters and growing complaints about the large number of staff employed by the MOI, led to the transfer of the Ministry’s responsibility for censorship and dealings with the media to a separate Press and Censorship Bureau in October 1939.

Nevertheless, neither this change nor a significant reduction in Ministry staff did anything to resolve the underlying problems of continued friction between the new bureau, the Ministry divisions and the services’ departments.

Consequently, when Sir John Reith assumed responsibility for the MOI the following year, he concluded that the transfer of censorship responsibility had been a mistake and he initiated a series of changes that would eventually see the reintegration of the Press and Censorship Divisions into the MOI. Nevertheless, following a change of government and Churchill’s appointment as Prime Minister in May 1940, Reith was replaced by Duff Cooper. Cooper himself was soon to be condemned for seemingly wishing to introduce a form of compulsory press censorship more akin to the system employed by the Nazis and he was, in turn, replaced by Brendan Bracken, who would remain the Minister in charge of the MOI until the end of the war.

Regardless of the structure, mistakes were inevitable. Censors would have to decide, often at very short notice, if they needed to liaise with the individual services’ departments to check whether or not a piece of news could be released. Such was the Admiralty’s reluctance to release any information about the location of its ships that apparently there were occasions when, in their haste, the censors even removed mention of the likes of HMS Pinafore from articles submitted for appraisal. Particular confusion often arose when a piece of news affected more than one service or government department.

Hence, the press became increasingly frustrated at what it often perceived as unnecessary censorship controls. Take the example of the reporting of German bombing. The Air Ministry would allow the press to mention the names of cities in Britain that had been bombed only once they were absolutely certain that the Germans knew which cities they had actually attacked. When it came to bomb damage, there was often several weeks’ delay before the precise areas of a city that had been attacked could be identified and, as for industrial premises, it was even more important that there should not even be any indication of premises that had not been damaged.

The press became angry that it often could not report news that was already common knowledge and at a lack of consistency whereby articles about the same story might be approved for one newspaper and declined for another.

In fact, as the war progressed, many editors decided to publish articles that were at the very limits of what was permissible, and some newspapers were even considered to have exceeded these limits on occasions. The Daily Worker and The Week, both left-wing publications,were banned by the Government in January 1941 – although with little real justification – and the bans were lifted again in August 1942. The Daily Mirror was certainly considered a major culprit when it came to breaching Defence Regulation No. 39b and especially for its persistent criticism of the Government and British military leaders; it came very close to being suppressed altogether in March 1942. TheDaily Telegraph was also accused frequently of disclosing information that might be of military value to the enemy, and it was saved from having formal action taken against it in 1943 only because of the personal intervention of Churchill, who regarded it as a newspaper well disposed towards his Government.

What I find particularly surprising is that, throughout the war, the British press frequently just quoted verbatim what was being reported in the German press or by the German High Command about a particular incident. Not only could the reporting of such information have been regarded as damaging the war effort and being bad for morale, it would seem to have flown directly in the face of Defence Notice No. 6/Genwhich stated, ‘Great care must be taken in reporting statements which have appeared in the enemy press …’

It seems that as long as newspaper editors could show – whatever the original source – that the news emanated from publications already appearing in neutral countries, then they felt confident that their reporting of such news was not subject to censorship controls.

It is hard to believe that such an obvious loophole was never closed, especially as the British authorities never sought to deny the content of any German article reproduced in the British press. Instead, they held firmly to the stance,‘We have given our version of events. As a matter of principle we refuse to comment on the veracity or otherwise of any report being printed or released by the enemy.’

Newsreel

Apart from the censorship of the press, the MOI was also responsible for censoring the content of newsreel.

In fact, the authorities were initially rather caught on the hop as to what to do about newsreels. It had been assumed that, at the outbreak of war, the Germans would launch a heavy aerial bombardment, and hence all cinemas and places of entertainment would be closed. Consequently, there would be little newsreel coverage as there would be nowhere it could be screened. However, when the expected bombardments did not appear, and the cinemas reopened, then the MOI had to re-assess how to respond. At first, its own Films Division tried to produce suitable material, but much of it was too amateurish to be usable, and it was reluctantly accepted that, for information about the war, the British public would have to be served by the various newsreel companies.

There were five major newsreel companies operating in Britain during the war years, namely Movietone, Paramount, Pathé, Gaumont-British and Universal. None of these was controlled by the British Government.

By 1940, newsreels in the United Kingdom would be watched by more than 20 million viewers weekly – a figure that was to increase to 24 million by 1944. It was little wonder that a Government select committee concluded that of the three principal kinds of film – feature, documentary and newsreel – it was the latter that was the most important for propaganda purposes. Hence, newsreels came to be given priority in terms of film stock.

It was recognised quickly that unlike a newspaper, where it was impossible to control which articles or parts of articles its audience might actually read, a cinema-goer would have to watch a newsreel from start to finish. Therefore, the precise content and the order in which information might be presented was very important, since both these aspects could influence the reaction of the viewer.

Consequently, by the summer of 1941, a clear structure was put in place for the censorship approval of newsreel. First, employees from the Censor’s Office would go to the workplaces of each of the newsreel companies and view all pictorial material intended for inclusion in a newsreel. Next, commentaries proposed to accompany each newsreel had to be submitted separately to the Censor’s Office.

In fact, the newsreel companies were subject to far more direct censorship than the press since they had to submit their newsreels for approval, both prior to general approval being granted and also after they had made any required changes. Each Monday and Thursday, between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., completed newsreels were brought to the Censor’s Office at Malet Street for a final ‘scrutiny’ viewing. It was realised that only by viewing the final newsreel for themselves could the censors gain a real understanding of the impression it would make on the general public. It was always every newsreel company’s fear that it would be required to make more cuts at that point – something no company could afford to bear because of the further delay in distribution this would entail.

There were strict lists of ‘dos’ and ‘do nots’ to which newsreel was subject. For example, the press had been advised that a still photograph of air raid damage could be published only if it also showed at least 50 per cent that was undamaged. Similarly, when it came to newsreel, there was a rule that any scenes of air raid damage must start and end on an undamaged building. The rules were often altered to adapt to changing circumstances. Initially, for example, the newsreel companies had been subject to the general order banning all photographs of military subjects. This meant that, while the Germans could show their forces taking up positions, nothing could be screened about the BEF heading for France. This gave the Germans an unfair propaganda advantage, so the general ban was soon lifted.

Throughout the war, Britain did have one important advantage over Germany in that, through the press, radio and newsreel, it was able to communicate directly with a far larger percentage of its population than the Germans.

GERMAN PRESS AND NEWSREEL CENSORSHIP

It is somewhat ironic that, although Hitler had always thought the Germans had handled propaganda very badly during the Great War, there is little doubt that the determination by the British planners in the pre-Second World War years to establish their own MOI was largely driven by their recognition that the Nazis had already established their own very effective Ministry that was perfectly capable of ramping up its activities in a time of war.

In fact, following their election to power in January 1933, the Nazis had managed to establish their Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda only a couple of months later. This Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVP) was headed up by Joseph Goebbels and was initially divided into seven divisions. Goebbels had originally declared that its staff should never exceed 1,000. By comparison, the British MOI originally had a staff of 999 before it suffered sizeable cutbacks following criticism of its performance.

The focus of the RMVP was on propaganda, and this included responsibility for co-ordinating and controlling the content of the press as part of an overall responsibility for ensuring the spiritual direction of the nation. Goebbels believed that the most effective form of propaganda should be simple and at least based on some vestige of truth. In Mein Kampf, it is clear that Hitler was certainly not concerned that this should ever necessitate telling the whole truth, ‘Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side.’

When it came to control of the media, the three most important divisions of the RMVP were those that handled Broadcasting (Division III), National and Foreign Press (Division IV) and Films and Film Censorship (Division V).

Division IV also incorporated the ‘Wireless Service’, the news agency of the German radio, which supplied all Germany’s radio stations with news and broadcasts. Via its Press Chamber, the RMVP also controlled the guild that regulated entry into journalism. Only those who were ‘racially pure’ could be expected to attain or retain membership.

Hitler put Dr Goebbels in charge of the Nazis’ own Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in 1933. US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) 535184

Unlike Britain, control of what could or could not be communicated to the public was absolute and was achieved by the enforcement of a number of key initiatives that had been set in motion throughout 1933.

First, a number of emergency decrees were issued that had the effect of curtailing general freedom of speech and press liberty. Temporary suspensions could be applied to any publication whose content could endanger security and order, which challenged official regulations or which spread malicious rumours. These decrees were soon employed as a means of justifying a ban on all socialist and communist newspapers.

Second, the Nazis introduced a law whereby a named editor, a Schriftleiter, had to be appointed for each newspaper or sub-section of a newspaper, and that person would assume personal responsibility for the content of that section of the newspaper. Furthermore, such editors were required to be of Aryan descent, possess German citizenship and not be married to a Jew. They had to ensure that nothing was published that weakened the strength of Germany or was offensive to German honour and dignity. Indeed, the law required all journalists to ‘regulate’ their work in accordance with National Socialism as a philosophy of life and as a concept of government. In other words, reporting absolute truth was not the top priority. The penalties for non-adherence could be severe, ranging from simple dismissal to a period of imprisonment in a concentration camp. Suspension from membership of the Press Chamber alone would prohibit further employment in the press industry altogether.

Third, only approved journalists were invited to daily conferences at the RMVP with the Reich’s press chief. They would be issued with confidential instructions as to which stories should be reported and how any piece of news should be handled. The level of detail would include guidance as to the precise headlines to be used and even the content of accompanying editorials supporting the main articles.

Fourth, a new official news agency, the Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro (DNB), was created by the merging of Germany’s two largest news entities. The DNB accounted for almost 50 per cent of all the news appearing in individual German newspapers, and these would be instructed frequently that such and such a news article issued by the DNB had to be used in its entirety, without any alteration or addition. Just as in Britain, lists of banned subjects were issued and, once again, some of these seemed more relevant than others, such as instructions relating to the mention of the price of margarine or of attacks on women for wearing trousers.

Fifth, when the Nazis came to power in 1933, there were more than 3,500 newspapers being published – of which only around 120 were Nazi-controlled. Something urgent had to be done. So, rules were introduced in 1935 that sought to restrict the ownership of newspapers and the number of competing newspapers in any area. In conjunction with the ban on non-Aryan journalists and editors being involved in the profession, the result was to bring virtually all newspapers, directly or indirectly, under Nazi control. Leading newspapers with Jewish sponsors, such as the Vossische Zeitung and the Berliner Tageblatt, were soon forced out of business. Other renowned newspapers, such as the Frankfurter Zeitung and the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, survived only by divesting themselves of any Jewish ‘impedimenta’. However, their continued publication gave a rather misleading impression to the wider world of the continuing independence of at least some of the German press. Of course, the Nazis already had their own newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, the content of which was obviously always favourable to the Nazi regime. Its circulation was to increase from a mere 7,000 in 1923 to 1.7 million by 1945.

When it came to newsreel, the Nazis were soon quick to grasp the importance of this communication medium. Prior to the war, there were four competing newsreel companies operating in Germany, namely Universum Film, Twentieth Century Fox, Bavaria Film and Tobis. By September 1939, these had been consolidated into one company led by Universum Film and, by June 1940, a single weekly newsreel was released across Germany under the title Die Deutsche Wochenschau. Goebbels often personally approved the content and supervised the production of these newsreels, recognising that, in addition to radio, newsreel was one of the most effective means of promoting propaganda. Cinema audiences continued to grow through the early years of the war, as the German people sought to be entertained and distracted from its rigours. The Wochenschau newsreels typically ran for around twenty minutes and always preceded the main feature film. To ensure that all German audiences would be inspired and influenced by the propaganda contained in these newsreels, firm rules were introduced that ensured that cinema-goers were in their places prior to the newsreel being shown. Latecomers would be denied access to the main film. The producers of the German newsreels did also have one major advantage over the British in that whole teams of cameramen and war reporters were assigned to each of Germany’s fighting units. This provided a ready source of material from across all fronts whose content and tone were obviously always guaranteed to support Nazi ideology and give a positive spin to the progress of the war.

In the light of such censorship controls, this book will examine, in the chapters which follow, just how accurate and complete a picture of the conflict was being reported to the general public in Britain and Germany during the war years.

Notes

1The French adopted a different policy whereby each newspaper was required to submit its actual printing plates for review. The authorities would simply remove unacceptable comments from these plates, so that the final printed newspaper would be full of deletions. Such obvious and visual censorship was not good for public morale.

2The BBC would generally receive its news content from this same source, although the press was always suspicious that the corporation was given prior warning and had access to additional information.

2

COUNTDOWN TO WAR

INTRODUCTION

The origins of the Second World War were undoubtedly forged in the dying embers of the Great War. For Hitler and, indeed, the majority of the German people, there was complete incredulity as to how a country that had seemingly not been defeated in battle – certainly not on German soil at any rate – should still find itself obliged meekly to accept such an ignominious and draconian peace settlement as the Treaty of Versailles.

Nonetheless, just as a dying fire can be nurtured back to life by careful attention, Hitler and his supporters needed little encouragement to seize the bellows and eventually fan the growing flames of resentment into a blazing inferno. The Nazis exploited the bitterness felt by ordinary Germans and, step by step, won general support for policies that would result in a global war that engulfed three-quarters of the world and cost the lives of more than 60 million people worldwide. How could such an educated and civilised people be manipulated in this way?

If the Nazis had been masters in using propaganda to propel themselves to power, then they were to be just as astute when it came to the use of the German media in the reporting of the key events leading up to 3 September 1939, the date when Britain and France both formally declared war on Germany.

In the mid-thirties, both the British and German media tended to share a common stance with regard to Germany’s territorial rumblings in that their significance was largely downplayed. However, as the decade progressed, we began to see a gradual divergence in each side’s portrayal of Germany’s increasingly forceful geographic expansion, until the focus of each side eventually changed completely, and Germany felt compelled to prohibit the circulation of British newspapers within its borders because of the unpalatable nature of their anti-Nazi sentiments.

There are two clear questions which arise: First, to what extent did Hitler exploit the German media to persuade the German people that the gradual re-expansion of Germany’s borders, albeit in breach of the conditions laid down by the Treaty of Versailles, was completely justifiable?

Second, was there any real truth in the claim that the German minorities, who had found themselves redesignated as citizens of Czechoslovakia or Poland after the Great War, were being badly mistreated by their new governments and fellow citizens?

THE ROAD TO PERDITION

The aims of the Treaty of Versailles were threefold. First, to ensure that Germany would never be in a position to threaten world peace ever again; second, that the victorious powers should be reimbursed for the financial costs of the war and third, that Germany should be punished severely for the terrible cost in lives and resources that the Great War had wrought.

In practice, this meant that, in terms of its military forces, Germany saw its army reduced to 100,000 men, the complete loss of its tanks and military aircraft and its navy limited to six battleships. Territorially, Germany forfeited all its overseas colonies; Alsace-Lorraine was passed to France; the Saar Basin was placed under the control of the League of Nations; the so-called Sudetenland in the south became part of the newly created nation of Czechoslovakia; much of West Prussia, Posen and Germany’s other eastern territories were eventually to be handed to Poland, and Danzig became designated a Free City. Furthermore, Germany was required to pay the equivalent of more than £6 billion in reparations – a massive obligation that it would never be in a position to fulfil.

The penalties imposed on Germany were certainly severe and for many, even in Britain and France, they went far beyond what might have been considered as just and equitable.

Politically and economically weakened, post-war Germany gradually experienced a complete breakdown of authority, with rival communist and fascist groups vying for power. Frustration with the ruling government continued to grow, and Germans increasingly felt drawn towards the Nazi Party and its charismatic leader. Hitler exuded confidence. He created myths about Germany’s historic past and produced a firm ‘road map’ that would supposedly lead to Germany’s future success. He identified a series of scapegoats for Germany’s recent ills and intensified resentment against the victorious signatories at Versailles for refusing to reassess the level of Germany’s reparations.

Hitler was eventually elected Chancellor on 30 January 1933 and, having eliminated all meaningful opposition, he was able to press ahead with reform programmes that did succeed in reducing unemployment, albeit at the cost of massively increasing Germany’s national debt.

Heartened by the strength of support within Germany and conscious of a growing enthusiasm from those areas removed from German control, Hitler sought gradually to regain control over Germany’s lost territories.

REPOSSESSION OF THESAARLAND AND THE RHINELAND

The small territory of the Saar Basin in western Germany had been confiscated from Germany in 1920 and occupied by Britain and France under a League of Nations agreement that was due to last fifteen years. When this period came to an end in January 1935, a referendum was held in which more than 90 per cent of the voters indicated a desire to be reunited with Germany. Armed only with the moral backing of this ballot, Hitler took the bold step of ordering the reoccupation of the territory, and the League of Nations formally approved the reunification in January 1935.

Buoyed by this success and the lack of any meaningful opposition from Britain and France, Hitler then proceeded to reoccupy the Rhineland in March 1936. Rather surprisingly, quality British press reporting of this significant development was rather placatory. While not denying that this was a breach of the Treaty of Versailles, the general plea in editorials and letters to editors was not to overreact. There was a definite unwillingness to condemn Germany for reoccupying territory that nobody denied was German, and it was felt that the time was right for a new treaty to be agreed between all the key countries.

For the German press, the emphasis was on Hitler’s call to the world for peace and his proposal for a new non-aggression pact with France and Belgium. German readers would also have taken heart from the carefully selected headlines quoted from the rest of the world’s press. The following was a typical quotation, which appeared in The Observer:

There is no longer any reason why this area should be demilitarised and even less that it should be a French, Belgian or British area any more.

The general impression given to the German reader was that, while the rest of the world may have been expressing some disquiet at Hitler’s reoccupation, there was also a sizeable sympathy for his actions, and following Hitler’s offer to rejoin the League of Nations, there was general agreement that all sides should work together to agree a new treaty.

It is often said that the First World War arose because it was easier for the great powers to go to war to settle their differences than to try to find any other solution. Ironically, it was the very lessons learned from that mistake that led to the British and French being prepared to go to almost any lengths to appease Hitler twenty years later, rather than contemplate another damaging war for which neither they nor their respective populaces had any appetite. This drift to inaction was particularly clear in the case of the Rhineland. Hitler’s move to recapture the territory was largely based on bluff, as he simply did not have the necessary forces to retain possession if it had come to blows. Nevertheless, the French were reluctant to provoke another war, and the whole event was generally regarded as nothing more than the return of lands that really did belong to Germany. This laissez-faire attitude was not countered by the British, who were even more sympathetic to the opinion that the Germans did have a rightful claim to the lands.

Annexation of Austria