Axis propaganda analysis reveals how they’re lying
Enemy’s morale attack can be summarized under seven headings, as disclosed by Office of Facts and Figures
The Office of Facts and Figures, which has closely studied Axis propaganda since the attack on Pearl Harbor, has issued a statement saying that propaganda attacks against the United States can be summarized under seven headings:
-
To make Americans feel that they are weak – militarily, economically, politically and culturally – and that it will be impossible for us to win this war.
-
To make Americans feel deprived – increasingly so as time goes on. To this end, the Axis not only plays up the hardships that will be suffered, but also stresses the futility and needlessness thereof.
-
To make the various American groups – political, religious, racial, nationality, economic, regional – feel threatened by each other and thus to divert our attention and energies from the war effort to internal group hatred and conflict.
-
To make Americans feel threatened by their allies – British domination, Russian Bolshevization, etc. – and thus to divert our attention and energies from fighting the common enemy to distrust and conflict within the United Nations.
-
To make Americans feel that they are not threatened by the Axis – that the Axis does not wish to invade the Western Hemisphere and could not do so if it wished to – and that our interests would best be served by cooperation with the Axis powers.
-
To make Americans feel guilty and divided in conscience and thus to implant conflict and indecision over the justice and morality of our war activities and war aims.
-
To make Americans fear the future regardless of the outcome of the war – that our economic and social structure will inevitably be destroyed.
A brief analysis of the propaganda themes developed by Axis propagandists since Dec. 7 may illustrate some of the means used in their efforts to accomplish these objectives. Such an analysis may also be of value in placing future OFF reports on enemy propaganda in perspective.
American ‘war guilt’
In the period immediately prior to the Pearl Harbor raid, the primary theme of Axis broadcasts to the U.S. was American guilt for the sharpening Far Eastern crisis. The United States was accused of encircling Japan, and the Japanese radio had already begun to develop the theme of “Asia for the Asiatics” which was to be pressed with such intensity a few weeks later. Germany was endeavoring to convince the United States that the reorganization of Europe was a fait accompli, that our intervention was impossible and undesirable.
Immediately after the Axis declaration of war upon the United States, all Axis transmitters concentrated on the American war guilt theme. The extension of the war to the Far East was laid at the door of the administration and those elements which Axis propaganda claims dominate the administration (Jews, plutocrats, communists, British, singly or in combination).
‘American weakness’
At the same time, in order to impair our morale and maintain their own, Axis propagandists began their program of verbal attack upon American military and economic power. Our material resources, our civilian and military morale, our strategic position and military leadership, all came in for their share of minimization and ridicule.
As Japanese successes in the Far Eastern Theater developed, Italian and German transmitters focused their attention upon the Far Eastern front.
‘Asia for the Asiatics’
As Japan’s pace in the Far East accelerated, the urgency and intensity of her propaganda kept pace. Japan painted herself as irresistible, as fighting for the cause of the Asiatic peoples against the exploitation and imperialism of the United States and Great Britain. This theme, with all its variations calculated to appeal to the Filipinos, Malayans, Burmese, Chinese, Indonesians and Indians, was pressed hour after hour, day after day, in all languages of the East, and in tones of the stronger exhortation.
At the same time, other Japanese commentators broadcasting to the Japanese Empire have continually urged caution upon their people, asserting that the war was to be long and that great civilian hardships lay ahead.
Attacks on the British
Toward the end of December, with the rapid advance of the Japanese forces down the Malayan Peninsula and the beginning of Japanese action in Burma, the Axis transmitters began their major propaganda offensive against the British Empire. This offensive was built up around a large number of themes, some of which continue through the present period.
The main arguments developed by the Axis in this propaganda offensive are as follows:
-
England is ruled by a decadent aristocracy.
-
The British Empire is disintegrating, and Australia, New Zealand and Canada are turning to the United States.
-
The decadent British ruling class is being supplanted by a Bolshevik regime.
-
South Africa is really pro-Axis, but is held by a clique of British imperialists.
-
India’s interests lie with the “New Order,” not with her British oppressors.
-
The United States is being used as a British catspaw.
-
British troops are barbarians, committing atrocities in Malaya and Africa.
-
The British cannot have the interests of occupied Europe at heart, since she is responsible for its starvation.
As the preliminary negotiations for the Inter-American Conference of Foreign Ministers began in the early part of January, the Axis propaganda theme of the incompatibility of the interests of the United States and Central and South America (intended primarily for Central and South American consumption) took on ever larger proportions. By the third week in January, this campaign had reached its peak. The Axis propaganda efforts designed to block American efforts at the conference were built out of the following arguments:
-
The purpose of the United States at the conference was to subordinate Central and South America to American plutocratic imperialism.
-
The United States is a country of materialists, Protestants, atheists, communists who are threatening the interests of Catholicism.
-
The United States and Central and South America are incompatible, economically and culturally.
-
The Axis and Central and South America supplement one another economically and have common cultural interests.
-
The United States is weak – military and economically; Central and South American nations who break off relations with the Axis or declare war are betting on the wrong horse.
-
The Central and South American nations which cooperate with the United States will be punished by the Axis after the victorious conclusion of the war.
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, statements were made over the Berlin shortwave, accompanied by longwave broadcasts and “leaks” from neutral sources, from which the inference could be drawn that all was not well on the German home front. More recently, similar “leaks” have been appearing. These statements, because they were against the interests of Germany, were widely credited by the American public.
It would seem that the purpose of this line was either to divert the attention of the American public from the dangers in Europe to the dangers in the Pacific, or to instill in the American public a false sense of security. The German Propaganda Ministry was thus turning bad news to its own purposes.
‘Bolshevization’
Although the “Bolshevization” theme in Axis propaganda is one of the persistent ones, its intensity naturally varies with events. The conference between Eden and Stalin occasioned a large volume of propaganda asserting that England was being Bolshevized and had secretly agreed to domination of Europe by Stalin. When Sir Stafford Cripps returned from Moscow in January, Axis transmitters began to speculate about his future and that of England, calling Cripps the “Kerensky of Great Britain.”
During the second week in January, there began to appear in increasing frequency in German transmissions to North and South America a large number of “news” items concerning economic activities in Europe. Romanian grain plantings had exceeded expectations. A new factory was being built in France. Belgium had signed a new trade agreement with Italy. Prices for electrical current in Germany had been reduced. In the occupied countries, the Reichsmark was cheerfully accepted and retained because people were viewing it as a stable currency. Spain was constructing a new oil refinery, etc. etc.
Taking all these items together, it became apparent that Nazi propagandists were endeavoring systematically to build up the impression among listeners of a constructive new Europe, establishing new enterprises, forming economic and cultural connections and satisfied with German “guidance.”
Fortress of Europe
As talk of an English and American offensive against the European continent became frequent among the United Nations, German and Italian transmitters undertook to discourage this offensive spirit. Beginning in April, the German radio talked at great length of the invincibility of the German position along the European coast. That such an offensive action would be defeated with tragic losses for the United States was repeated frequently. At the same time, the impossibility of mustering sufficient shipping and material to carry out such an offensive was stressed.
We have been recently advised by a German commentator to be realistic, to take the British Western Hemisphere possessions, and to forget about offensives against “invincible Europe.”
For some time past, the German radio has hinted that the real danger to the United States and Great Britain lay in the Far East. This effort has grown more explicit with a recent German transmission purporting to quote a New York newspaper editorial which maintained that England and Russia can take care of themselves, and that Japan is the real danger.
‘Not America’s war’
Much of the Axis propaganda output in one way or another implies that:
This is not America’s war.
In this sense, Axis “peace propaganda" is an old story used whenever they desire to immobilize an opponent until they can deal with him on more favorable terms. However, the term “peace propaganda” is used in the narrower sense of direct appeals for America to withdraw from the war, or assertions from which this conclusion would be an obvious inference. This type of explicit “peace propaganda” reached its climax abut the time of the fall of Singapore, when all Axis transmitters were emitting large quantities of talk urging us to revert to the “traditional American isolationist policy.”
This talk continued from day to day and from week to week, reaching a high point when the Nazis on March 18 established “Radio DEBUNK,” a “phony” freedom station, pretending to broadcast from the United States, but actually broadcasting from Germany.
Beginning with the second week of April, the German “peace offensive” was somewhat stepped up in intensity. Nazi propagandists now began to exhort Americans to:
…act and act now.
We were told to elect isolationists at the next election! Keep American forces from going abroad! Take back the country from the Jews! Go to libraries and read about the villainies of the British! Listen regularly to the German radio! Organize and act against the administration!
‘Defenders of the faith’
In recent days, “Radio DEBUNK” has begun a campaign suggesting that the United States make a “negotiated peace” and climb on the Axis bandwagon for a share in the profits of the “New Order.”
All during the Rio conference, the Axis radios addressed special attention to the Catholics of the Western Hemisphere (this theme of “defenders of the faith” has been followed with varying intensity ever since the German attack on “atheistic” Russia).
As was indicated above, the United States as a whole was portrayed to Central And South America as dominated by Protestantism and “atheistic communism.” In broadcasts to the United States, the administration was described as dominated by atheists and Freemasons and as hostile to people of the Catholic Church.
Another theme which is pressed continually but not in such volume as those discussed above is that of the unreliability of American news sources.
When Singapore fell, Axis propagandists reached for the files of American and British newspapers and periodicals, quoting at length statements asserting the invincibility of the Singapore Fortress. When the United Nations issued their communiqué on the Battle of the Java Sea, the Japanese particularly pointed to earlier American, British and Dutch claims as illustrating the “propaganda” character of American information.