Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War: National and Transnational Networks 9781350105126, 9781350105157, 9781350105133

Table of contents :
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Foreword
Communications and Propaganda and the Second World War
The home front
Notes
Abbreviations
Introduction
Notes
Chapter 1: The Ministry of Information on the British Home Front
Prewar planning
Unresolved questions
“Go to it”?
Efficiency over power
The Campaigns Division
Legacies
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 2: Lend to Defend: The National Savings Committee During the Second World War
Themed weeks
Competition
Notes
Chapter 3: A Citizen-soldier “Must Know What He Fights For and Love What He Knows”: The Work of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs between 1941 and 1945
Teaching the troops
Theater of war
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 4: Britain To-day, Bulletins from Britain, and Britain: Some Semi-official British Periodicals in the United States During the Second World War
Competing periodicals?
A new approach
Notes
Chapter 5: Teamwork: Carlton Moss, US Propaganda Film, and the Fight for Black Visibility in the Second World War
The Negro Soldier and African American Memory
Teamwork: Imagining Double Victory
Forgetting Teamwork: Double Victory Denied
Notes
Chapter 6: Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship in the Second World War
North Africa
The German surrender story
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 7: “The Rot Must Be Stopped Even at the Cost of Some Public Discussion”: Anti-Semitism in the Polish Forces as a Crisis of Policy and Public Information
Anti-Semitism and the soldiers
Poland
The UK
The activists
The Jewish community
Denouement
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 8: “For a German Audience We Do Not Use Appeals for Sympathy on Behalf of Jews as a Propaganda Line”: The BBC German Service and the Holocaust, 1938–1945
The BBC German Service in British foreign policy and war on Germany
From Kristallnacht to the outbreak of war, November 1938–August 1939
From the outbreak of war to the German attack on the Soviet Union, September 1939–June 1941
From the war against the Soviet Union to the defeat of Germany, June 1941–May 1945
Notes
Chapter 9: Inventing a New Kind of German: The BBC German Service and the Bombing War
The voice of Britain
Imagined audiences
Telling the truth about bombing
Notes
Chapter 10: Diverging Neutrality in Iberia: The British Ministry of Information in Spain and Portugal During the Second World War
Notes
Chapter 11: “Innocent Efforts”: The Brotherhood of Freedom in the Middle East During the Second World War
The Brotherhood’s origins, 1940–41
The Brotherhood expands, 1941–43
From oral propaganda to “Education for Citizenship,” 1943–45
The Brotherhood after the war
Notes
Chapter 12: “The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?”
Introduction
The BBC in India
Insights into BBC war programming
Imperial soft power and the BBC
Impact of BBC India programming
Conclusion
Notes
Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

ii

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War National and Transnational Networks Edited by Simon Eliot and Marc Wiggam

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2020 Copyright © Simon Eliot and Marc Wiggam, 2020 Simon Eliot and Marc Wiggam have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. Cover image: A corner of the Women’s War Work exhibition in Luton. (© Imperial War Museum [D 7326]) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-0512-6 ePDF: 978-1-3501-0513-3 eBook: 978-1-3501-0514-0 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents Foreword  David Welch Abbreviations Introduction  Simon Eliot and Marc Wiggam

vii xii 1

  1 The Ministry of Information on the British Home Front  Henry Irving 21   2 Lend to Defend: The National Savings Committee During the Second World War  Victoria Carolan 39   3 A Citizen-soldier “Must Know What He Fights For and Love What He Knows”: The Work of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs between 1941 and 1945  Stephen R. Thompson 53  4 Britain To-day, Bulletins from Britain, and Britain: Some Semi-official British Periodicals in the United States During the Second World War  Alice Byrne 67  5 Teamwork: Carlton Moss, US Propaganda Film, and the Fight for Black Visibility in the Second World War  Joseph Clark 81   6 Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship in the Second World War  Richard Fine 95   7 “The Rot Must Be Stopped Even at the Cost of Some Public Discussion”: Anti-Semitism in the Polish Forces as a Crisis of Policy and Public Information  James Wald 113   8 “For a German Audience We Do Not Use Appeals for Sympathy on Behalf of Jews as a Propaganda Line”: The BBC German Service and the Holocaust, 1938–1945  Stephanie Seul 131   9 Inventing a New Kind of German: The BBC German Service and the Bombing War  Emily Oliver 149 10 Diverging Neutrality in Iberia: The British Ministry of Information in Spain and Portugal During the Second World War  Christopher Bannister 167

vi

Contents

11 “Innocent Efforts”: The Brotherhood of Freedom in the Middle East During the Second World War  Stefanie Wichhart 185 12 “The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?” The BBC and India During the Second World War  Chandrika Kaul 203 List of Contributors Index

223 227

Foreword David Welch

Communications and Propaganda and the Second World War The use of war propaganda dates back 2,400 years to the Chinese general Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Sun Tzu, writing around the late sixth century BC, knew all about the power of persuasion: “For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” The First World War, however, marked a decisive turning point in the use made of state-sponsored propaganda in an organized, quasiscientific manner. Unlike previous wars, the Great War was the first “total war” in which whole nations, and not just professional armies, were locked in mortal combat. Propaganda was an essential part of this war effort, developing in all the belligerent countries as the war progressed. As a result, between 1914 and 1918 the wholesale employment of propaganda as a weapon of modern warfare served to transform its meaning into something more sinister, largely associated with “lies” “deceit” and “brainwashing.” Toward the end of the nineteenth century the introduction of new forms of communication had created a new historical phenomenon, the mass audience. The means now existed for governments to mobilize entire industrial societies for warfare, to disseminate information (or propaganda) to large groups of people within relatively short time spans. One of the most significant lessons to be learned from the experience of the First World War was that public opinion could no longer be ignored as a determining factor in the formulation of government policies. The legacy of the First World War was very important because it would largely determine how the belligerents viewed propaganda at the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. Thus, for all the negative connotations that have been attached to it, most governments were alert to the desirability in “total war” of utilizing propaganda

viii

Foreword

to present their case to publics both at home and abroad. In modern warfare, propaganda is required to (1) mobilize hatred against the enemy, (2) convince the population of the justness of one’s own cause, (3) enlist the active support and cooperation of neutral countries, and (4) strengthen the support of one’s allies. Having sought to pin war guilt on the enemy, the next step is to make the enemy appear savage, barbaric, and inhumane. Philip M. Taylor has observed that “the Second World War witnessed the greatest propaganda battle in the history of warfare.”1 For six years, the belligerent states employed propaganda on a scale that dwarfed that of all other conflicts, including the First World War. The Second World War was a battle between two new types of regime struggling for supremacy with one another in a battle for the future. Modern democracy and totalitarian dictatorship had both emerged from the First World War and the outbreak of hostilities 1939 was a testimony to their mutual incompatibility. There followed a struggle between mass societies, a war of political ideologies in which propaganda was a significant weapon. During the Second World War, authorities appropriated and controlled all forms of communication by means of strict censorship, in order to requisition them for propaganda process. In the totalitarian states such as Italy, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union this posed few problems, as the media—indeed the arts in general—had become part of the apparatus of the state. In the liberal democracies, on the other hand, the effort proved more problematic. Nevertheless, on the propaganda front Britain appeared to be better prepared than in the First World War. A new Ministry of Information (MoI) came into being within a matter of days after the declaration of war in 1939. But when set up, it was, to some extent, making up for lost ground. Morale would obviously be a crucial factor in enduring civilian bombing or a war of attrition, and the MoI would have to compete with totalitarian propaganda machines (of both Right and Left) that had already been in existence for several years. The new ministry lacked authority in Whitehall and suffered from a difficult relationship with the press, which accused it of censoring and withholding news, and more generally of bureaucratic muddle. What is more, when it was first established, the MoI had no means of investigating or monitoring public opinion. In fascist Italy, National Socialist Germany, or the Soviet Union, propaganda was to be controlled by the one-party state, but in Britain it was soon realized that if the MoI was to command the respect of the public then it should not be seen as the exclusive instrument of a single political party. The first Minister of Information, Lord Macmillan, was a Tory peer, prompting the Labour leader, Clement Atlee to remark that he “was not satisfied that the Ministry of

Foreword

ix

Information was not part of the Conservative machine.”2 Following the formation of Winston Churchill’s coalition government in May 1940, the perceived bias within the MoI was remedied. After two years of chaos, the system settled down to a remarkably effective process that aided the course of eventual victory. The MoI handled propaganda intended for home, Allied, and neutral territory, and the Political Warfare Executive dealt with enemy territory. The programs of the BBC earned Britain a powerful reputation for credibility that proved an asset long after the war ended. When Sir John Reith, the former director general of the BBC, was appointed Minister of Information in 1940, he laid down his two fundamental axioms: that “news is the shock troops of propaganda” and that propaganda should tell “the truth, nothing but the truth and, as near as possible, the whole truth.” George Orwell later observed: “The BBC as far as its news goes has gained enormous prestige since about 1940 . . . ‘I heard it on the radio’ is now almost equivalent to ‘I know it must be true.’”3 The incorporation of the censorship machinery of the Press and Censorship Bureau into the MoI in April 1940 (in contrast to the mistakes of the First World War when they remained separated) was an important organizational reform that reflected recognition of the need to integrate the control of news with the dissemination of positive propaganda. These principles were implemented so successfully that, according to Nicholas Pronay, “the press, the BBC and other organs of ‘news’ managed to maintain the trust of the British public at home and gained a reputation for Britain abroad for having even in wartime an honest, free and truthful media, yet which gave practically nothing of significance away to an ever-vigilant enemy.”4 By 1941 the system was operating so effectively that most observers were unaware that a sophisticated form of pre-censorship was in force, even within the BBC. This explains why Britain’s wartime propaganda gained its reputation for telling the truth when, in fact, the whole truth could not be told. The British convinced themselves that they were not in the business of propaganda but rather information—or if they were disseminating propaganda, it was “propaganda with facts”—and therefore not really propaganda at all!5

The home front In 1939–45 civilians were in the frontline as never before. Advances in the technology of war, particularly in aerial bombing, served to transform their experience of war. Other advances meant that radio and cinema were now firmly established as truly mass media, that reached mass audiences. As a result, it was

x

Foreword

now virtually impossible for any sections of the population to remain untouched either by the war or by news about it. Radio meant that Britain’s enemies, such as Nazi Germany, could broadcast directly to the British people—much as British broadcasters could address foreign audiences as far afield as Europe and the Middle East. This prompted Asa Briggs to describe the Second World War as “a war of words.”6 But it was, more importantly, also a war of images and sounds with the cinema emerging as the mass medium of the first half of the twentieth century. As the process of communications became more technological and sophisticated, the governments of all the belligerent states were conscious of the need to gauge the impact of propaganda. During the war, “feedback” agencies assessed the state of public opinion and the factors affecting public morale. In Britain, for example, this involved using the results of the Home Intelligence Reports and the socialresearch Mass Observation project, while in Germany the weekly reports of the SS Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst der SS) made it their business to gauge the mood and morale of the people. In the United States, pollsters employed sampling methods both for commercial polls—such as those conducted by Roper and Gallup—and public-interest polls, such as those generated by the Office of Public Opinion Research and the National Opinion Research Center. All the belligerents reinforced the central message of the First World War—the importance of citizens contributing to the war effort. In Britain, the theme of “your country needs you” manifested itself in the notion of a shared “people’s war”—a nation working together (as in the slogan “Let Us Go Forward Together”) and putting aside class, regional, and social differences. This strategy was also applied across the British Empire. As the public wanted to be reassured of the nation’s capacity to produce armaments and their effective use, artistic compositions of industrial sites and workers produced a new iconography. Offices and factories were stages for a shifting social order, adjusted and attuned to wartime needs. Propaganda also stressed the new roles undertaken by women for the war effort—from performing menial tasks with the Auxiliary Territorial Service to complex work in armaments factories. Bearing in mind the un-met promises (the land “fit for heroes”) made during the First World War, British propaganda also emphasized the possibility of postwar change—which, in the end, paved the way for the Labour election victory in 1945. While each major belligerent demonstrated, in films and the other media, its own propaganda strategy for its own population, common traits did emerge. Propagandists, whether Allied or Axis, exhorted their citizens to produce more, to eat less, to conserve scarce resources, to keep their lips sealed—and, of course, to keep hating the enemy.

Foreword

xi

The Second World War witnessed a vast proliferation of media production, from state-sponsored posters, pamphlets, radio, and films (including newsreels) to commercial newspapers, comics, and military newspapers. The Soviet Union boasted no fewer than 757 military titles by 1945, and as for radio, the BBC increased its foreign-language services from 10 in 1939 to 45 by 1943. The US government inaugurated the multilingual Voice of America network in 1942, for external broadcasting, while at home the amount of radio airtime devoted to news rose from 5 percent to 20 percent—with 9 out of 10 Americans listening up to four hours of radio daily. In Britain, despite increases in seat prices, the appeal of the cinema meant that average weekly attendance rose from an estimated 19 million in 1939 to over 30 million in 1945, and gross office receipts nearly trebled in that time. Toward the end of the war, the Nazi government was also trialling television for a limited German audience.7 All the participants in the Second World War used every means of communication to disseminate propaganda on a scale that dwarfed that of other conflicts, and in all phases of the war official propaganda and the commercial media played key roles. This was a struggle between mass societies, and in many respects a war of political ideologies, in which propaganda was a significant weapon in the arsenal of “total war.”

Notes 1 P. M. Taylor, Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda from the Ancient World to the Present Day (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), p. 210. 2 Cited by Sir John Reith in his memoir, Into the Wind (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1949). 3 Quoted in P. Lashmar and J. Oliver, Britain’s Secret Propaganda War (Stroud: Sutton, 1998), p. 19. 4 N. Pronay, “The News and the Media,” in Propaganda, Politics and Film, 1918–45, eds. N. Pronay and D. W. Spring (London: Macmillan, 1982), p. 174. 5 For a more detailed discussion of the relationship between propaganda and censorship in Britain during the Second World War, see, D. Welch, Persuading the People. British Propaganda in World War II (London: British Library, 2016). 6 A. Briggs, The War of Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970). 7 See D. Welch, Propaganda: Power and Persuasion (British Library and Chicago University Press, 2013), p. 20.

Abbreviations ABCA

Army Bureau of Current Affairs (UK)

AEC

Army Education Corps (UK)

AFHQ

Allied Force Headquarters

AIR

All India Radio

ATS

Auxiliary Territorial Service (UK)

BBC

British Broadcasting Corporation

BIS

British Information Services (based in New York)

BLI

British Library of Information (based in New York)

FO

Foreign Office (of the British Government)

GoS

General Overseas Service (of the BBC)

GoI

Government of India

HIR

Home Intelligence Report (issued by the MoI)

INC

Indian National Congress

IO

India Office

MO

Mass Observation (UK)

MoI

Ministry of Information (UK)

MP

Member of the Lower House (the Commons) of the British Parliament.

NAACP

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (USA)

NCCL

National Council for Civil Liberties (UK)

NS

National Savings (UK)

NSC

National Savings Committee (UK)

OWI

Office of War Information (USA)

PWE

Political Warfare Executive (UK)

RAF

Royal Air Force (UK)

SHAEF

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force

SOE

Special Operations Executive (UK)

WSS

Wartime Social Surveys (issued by the MoI)

Introduction Simon Eliot and Marc Wiggam

This book had its origin in a conference run by the “Communication History of the Ministry of Information 1939–46” research project. The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and was undertaken by the Institute of English Studies in the School of Advanced Study, University of London. From the conference emerged a group of authors whose common interest—in information and its communication from the Allied side to the public during the Second World War—ensured that the chapters written would relate closely to each other and help illuminate shared themes. Following the arrangement of chapters in this book, our introduction starts with the MoI in the UK, and then widens to look at range of countries to which the Allies communicated using a variety of means. The Second World War was a conflict fought with information as well as with physical weapons. On the Allied side there was secret military information ciphered and de-ciphered; there were orders conveyed in apparently innocent messages broadcast by the BBC to resistance movements in occupied Europe; and there was information—presented, modified, or withheld—to the public abroad, to the populations of occupied and enemy countries and, most of all, to the people on the home front. In a total war in which, at certain times, UK civilians were almost as vulnerable as those on active service, confidence in their cause was a key to ultimate victory. As Henry Irving reminds us, in the UK a ministry of information was being planned years before the outbreak of war and came into fully fledged existence within days of war being declared. One of its principal aims was to sustain the morale of the British people. For both those fighting abroad and those enduring at home, high morale was essential to the successful prosecution of the War. “Morale” as a term was defined in various ways, and frequently used loosely. For the MoI, information was a critical part of a web of factors that contributed to public morale, broadly defined as: people as a whole believing that the war had to be fought, that it was worth fighting, that those in power were doing all they could to prosecute the war, and that the war would be won. These feelings

2

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

were reinforced if the government did not exhort, did not patronize, and treated people as adults who could be trusted with as much of the truth as could be revealed without risking military security. How then was the ministry to convey information to the public in ways that would maintain morale? As David Welch makes clear, this was a purely technical problem for the authoritarian governments of the Axis powers, where propaganda’s relationship with the truth could be as flexible and as limited as necessary, everything being subsumed to the job of morale boosting. The main Allied nations (excluding Russia) were more or less open, democratic societies; societies whose populations believed that they were fighting for freedom of expression, truth-telling, the rule of law, and accountable government. Allied governments could not be seen to be suppressing the truth, lying to their peoples, or consciously misleading them. If they used such tactics, then the very things that they were fighting for would be destroyed. In other words, if “propaganda” in any form were to be used, it would have to be of a very different sort to that employed by Goebbels. Yet in any war there is the need to keep useful information from the enemy. Having the responsibility, among many other things, for censoring newspapers, the MoI established the principle that only militarily sensitive information should be withheld. Any other news, and all opinion, was not to be censored. The problem was that, for a significant part of the war, the MoI was often dependent on the Foreign Office and the armed services for much of its information, and on many occasions these authorities were inclined to think that most news needed filtering or, at best, delaying—particularly if it were of setbacks or defeats. Irving’s discussion of the handling of Rudolf Hess’s arrival in Britain illustrates the MoI’s problems. Even when reliable information became available, the ministry was conscious that it had a responsibility to provide a context for it, and that context might well affect the way in which it was received. The “framing” of information was difficult to avoid and, in any case, might help to sustain morale. As Welch points out, the MoI was at the center of a sophisticated system of pre-censorship based mostly on self-censorship, which was finally justified by the need to win the war. The balance between what the public could and could not know in an open society was, and continues to be, a difficult and dynamic one. This balance was even trickier given that the UK had to work closely with allies and potentially friendly countries whose values were not necessarily the same. Sometimes the whole truth, or even just an embarrassing part of it, could damage relationships on which a particular battlefront might depend. In war political expediency, which required higher levels of censorship, might be justified in that it saved lives, or brought the end of the war closer. Free expression might be what the

Introduction

3

Allies were fighting for but, on occasions, it might not necessarily be the best way to fight. War acted as a catalyst which speeded up and intensified the eternal struggle between security and freedom, safety and truth. The MoI was a rather odd sort of government organization. It had its ration of career civil servants, but a goodly proportion of its staff was recruited from other sources. Knowing that—if it couldn’t convey its messages to the public speedily, snappily, and effectively—it would be worse than useless, the ministry recruited writers, publishers, journalists, and those in advertising. Although most of its senior civil servants would have been educated in late Victorian or Edwardian times, the ministry’s outputs quickly acquired a very modern and popular look. This was essential as, even in wartime, in open societies there was rarely such a thing as a captive audience. The MoI and other information agencies soon learned that they were not in a pulpit preaching to the faithful, but at a market stall competing for attention from a public who might not buy, who could always just move on or, worse still, ignore you. For this reason, it drew heavily on the developments in advertising techniques that had occurred during the interwar years, and on photojournalism as it had emerged in the 1930s through such magazines as Picture Post. The ministry used lots of cartoons, comic strips, striking and sometimes shocking photographs, Isotype images (that were able to convey lots of quantitative information in easily understood graphic form), colored postcards—even tie pins, and lapel badges. Nevertheless, competition for attention remained severe: the MoI’s films had to compete with glossy feature films and cartoon shorts; its newspaper advertisements with commercial ads; its books with cheap paperbacks; its meetings with dances. Given this, the MoI and others had to use those who had proven ability in this area, such as copywriters and graphic artists. These people thought not in terms of a single medium used to communicate to a specific section of society, but in terms of a campaign using many means of communication to reach as wide a range of people as possible. One in which a newspaper advertisement might be reinforced by a poster; or, if a leaflet failed to impress, a short film would capture attention. This was a process of mobilizing commercial and popular culture to offer many routes by which information, carefully adjusted to each route, would together communicate to as large a part of society as possible. The salvage campaign described by Irving is a striking example of this approach. However sophisticated its use of the many media available to it, the MoI was aware that sending information out—in whatever form—was only part of its role. It had to know about the ways in which its messages were received by the public. Of course, there was the press, and writers of editorials were not

4

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

slow to react, often critically, to the ministry’s efforts. There were also MPs, who frequently regarded themselves as the best conduit for public opinion. But the MoI needed to go wider and get deeper than the traditional ways of discovering public opinion would allow. To this end it used Mass Observation and, later, its own Home Intelligence division to compile, at first daily, and then weekly, reports on public opinion and the state of morale in the twelve regions into which the MoI divided the UK. These reports were essentially qualitative, but they were soon complemented by a series of quantitative “Wartime Social Surveys.” The information gained from these sources meant that the MoI had almost immediate feedback on its campaigns, and a week-by-week sense of the level of public morale, and what was likely to influence that level. In time, many of the MoI’s campaigns were designed in the light of earlier assessments of public opinion or were adjusted once feedback on the new campaign was available. The Home Intelligence Reports (HIRs) and the Wartime Social Surveys provided the MoI with its nervous system, which allowed it to respond quickly to failures in its approach, or changes in the public mood. Using these methods, what quickly became apparent was that though morale fluctuated with events during the war, it was generally good, though tempered by a strain of cynicism that ran through British society. From the very beginning of the war the public had shown a preference for the unvarnished truth, and the MoI tried to satisfy this as much as it could. As the war news became somewhat better after the first two desperate years, the ministry’s output was shaped more and more by a desire to inform as promptly and fully as possible, and to educate and explain. Certainly, by late 1942, the mood had changed sufficiently for several of the MoI’s morale-boosting campaigns to be encouraging the British public to think of how postwar Britain might be different from, and better than, prewar times. There were public meetings, publications, and exhibitions on such topics as employment, education, health and social security, new towns, and new architecture. The MoI would have failed if it had not got through by one means or another to a large majority of the population, and for this it also needed to be sensitive to the verbal and graphic languages in everyday use. It had to speak these languages and, like any competent translator, had to be aware of idioms and tone. But not just in relation to the home audience. The MoI was communicating to many peoples in many parts of the world and using many different languages to do so. In each language, competency was not enough; an understanding of colloquialisms, idioms, and tone was vital. In quite a few cases this involved not only subtle and supple translation, but transculturation where the UK’s implicit

Introduction

5

cultural values had to be converted or modified into those understood in the society to which the message was being communicated. The challenges faced by MoI in the UK during the war were echoed and amplified by various other Allied information organizations operating in, or directed at, other nations in Europe and beyond. The chapters in this book explore these recurrent themes in a variety of contexts. The problems caused by what one might call the need for “formal” and explicit censorship are explored in the chapters by Richard Fine and James Wald. Fine identifies one of the fundamental principles underlying both the MoI and the American Office of War Information (OWI) as, in Archibald MacLeish’s phrase, the “strategy of truth.” Noble as that principle was, there were many occasions on which the pressing necessity to keeps allies and neutrals sweet compromised or even reversed that ideal. During the North African campaign the competing political groups claiming to represent the French interest, and the murky and unpleasant politics of French North Africa, forced the Allies into a sequence of awkward and embarrassing compromises with those, frequently from Vichy France, who seemed most likely to ensure that the French forces in Algiers would not continue to resist the Allies. Acceptance of the Vichyite Admiral Darlan was a very high price to pay, for he was universally disliked in both the United States and the United Kingdom. His regime confirmed this, for it continued to persecute the very people who has assisted the Allies, and to promote Nazi-influenced policies. Despite all this, General Eisenhower imposed strict censorship controls over journalists in the region and, even when Darlan was assassinated, delayed news of it. The frustrations of the journalists mounted, the number of censored reports and broadcasts increased. This multiplication of pressures created a growingly complex situation in which there were increasing opportunities for human or structural errors to arise. And so they did, with the failure of a censor to filter one of Ernie Pyle’s reports. By January 1943, reports of the censorship regime, and Eisenhower’s attempts to appease the French authorities in Algiers, were appearing in the American and British press. This impacted on public opinion and on Congress, and forced Eisenhower to change policy—and the regime in Algiers. In an open society, and certainly in an alliance of open societies, censorship usually applies to specific instances and particular situations, and usually is only effective if all parties involved believe it to be temporarily justified and, for that reason, exercise universal self-censorship. If not, containment will sooner or later fail, if only because the complexity of communication systems, enriched by human error, will cause leaks, and leaks will grow to floods. Poor Eisenhower,

6

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

caught yet again by the need to placate (for strategic political reasons) a farfrom-democratic ally, attempted to stop the news of Germany’s surrender until the Russians could arrange a surrender-signing ceremony of their own. But a broadcast from a radio station at Flensburg, and a report submitted to Le Figaro, let the cat out of the bag. One frustrated Associated Press journalist, Edward Kennedy, reasonably concluded that as the war in Europe was over press restrictions, justified by the need for wartime security, no longer applied. He found an unsecured telephone line to London and let the news out. Eisenhower contemplated court-martialing Kennedy, while many of his colleagues resented him for his scoop. Though he had his defenders, Kennedy’s later career never recovered. Not all journalists who risk much are made heroes. Censorship as a way of protecting sensitive alliances also features in James Wald’s account of anti-Semitism in the ranks of the Polish forces based in the UK. After two groups of Polish Jews had requested transfer to the British Army to escape anti-Semitism—a request that was quietly granted to avoid the matter becoming public—the third group to make the same request was treated differently by the Polish authorities in Britain. They were accused of desertion and sentenced to terms in prison in April 1944. Tom Driberg MP raised the matter in the Commons, and the newspapers picked it up. Unused to the power of the press and Parliament, the Polish authorities nevertheless hastily pardoned the soldiers. The British authorities were worried that these events would undermine relations with a long-term ally and encourage further desertions, a pattern that might spread to other Allied armies. For this reason, quiet action away from the glare of publicity was preferred. But the very effective publicity campaign mounted by Driberg and the National Council for Civil Liberties made this impossible. The Board of Deputies of British Jews tended to favor, as did the Polish and British governments, a quiet, behind-the-scenes approach. This was because many members of British Jewry feared making a special case for Jews lest this was seen as a claim to preferential treatment at a time when it was vital for them not to be differentiated from the rest of the British population. This form of restrained self-censorship became impossible once the public campaign had been launched. The collapse of formal censorship can flush out cases of related selfcensorship, for good or ill. As with the examples in Fine’s chapter, censorship in open societies was at best a crude and localized tactic; acceptable and necessary when it was incontrovertibly vital to winning the war. However, once matters that might embarrass an ally—but were as much moral as military—had leaked out, fighting a rearguard action was hopeless.

Introduction

7

As we have seen, censorship comes in many varieties. Before and beyond attempts at formal censorship there are a range of informal ones, many based on self-censorship or institutional bias, either conscious or unconscious. This is evident in the Fine and Wald chapters, but is also vividly present in the chapters by Clark, Seul, and Oliver. Joseph Clark’s chapter makes it clear that in some ways African Americans had a similar problem to British Jews who wanted not to be singled out, but to be viewed as just another part of the war effort. African American soldiers’ contribution to the American war effort was obvious to those at the front, but not to the public at home who saw newsreels filtered through what we might now call “institutional racism.” As black soldiers were fighting against oppression abroad and at home, it was argued that victory abroad might bring victory against racism at home. However, this “Double Victory” campaign could not hope to work if newsreels, intentionally or otherwise, censored attempts to represent the full contribution of African American soldiers. In the United States, as in the United Kingdom, anything that tended to divide society was regarded as bad for morale and thus a threat to the effective prosecution of the war. From 1942 onwards, much effort was put in by governments to ensure that both the US forces quartered in Britain preparatory to D-Day, and the UK civilian population, respected their differences but also fully understood the common cause which bound them. Information that explained and educated, rather than exhorted, became the most frequent tactic for the information services of both nations. Hence the importance of US War Department’s film The Negro Soldier (January 1944). However, a film’s impact depended, as the MoI knew all too well, not only on its production, but also on its subsequent distribution. In this case, even though it was neither a short film nor a feature length one, The Negro Soldier had an impressive distribution pattern. Apart from being shown as part of all soldiers’ “standard orientation program,” it was distributed widely to the civilian population both commercially and noncommercially. This was not the fate of Carleton Moss’s second film, Teamwork, which was not ready for distribution until December 1945, months after VJ day and at a time when the need for sustaining public morale was long since over. With this gone, the requirement to present a united front had become much less pressing, and this allowed the traditional informal censorship, which ensured the underrepresentation of Black Americans, to reestablish itself speedily. As Stephanie Seul explains in her chapter, the BBC German Service had a much closer relationship with the government than other parts of the corporation though, for reasons concerned with protecting the BBC’s reputation for independence, it did not wish this to be known. One of the service’s aims was

8

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

to undermine the morale of the German public and thus, it was hoped, increase domestic opposition to the Nazi regime. Celebrating the moral superiority of the Allies was regarded as one way of achieving this, so one might have imagined that news of the Nazi’s policy of exterminating the Jewish population of Europe would have been a recurrent theme in its broadcasts. Yet it was not so. The Foreign Office suspected that a significant portion of the German public might be anti-Semitic, so revelations of the Nazi persecution of the Jews would tend to have an opposite effect to that intended. Seul identifies several factors which encouraged the BBC German Service to underplay German persecution of the Jews, including the desire not to make them a special case, something that echoes the fears of the Board of Deputies of British Jews in Wald’s chapter. However, by the end of 1942, things were changing. The Allies were beginning to make progress, and could afford to go on the attack, and not just in military terms. Morale at home was less of a worry, and more information about the scope of the Holocaust was available, so the BBC German Service could be more consistent and thorough in its presentation of the facts. However, although more information was broadcast, the timing and the quantity of that information was invariably determined by the ubiquitous strategic principle that the war needed to be won as quickly as possible. Of course, once the war had been won, moral and social priorities might change, as witness the subject of Clark’s chapter. Control of information, of which censorship was the most obvious example, was rarely just a matter on suppressing certain sorts of information or delaying news long enough for its impact to be reduced. Quite often it was a process of ordering information, creating a priority list in which the subjects to which you wanted to draw attention are presented first and occupy most space. Alternatively, and even more powerfully, it involved the process of framing mentioned above in which a subject is presented in a certain light, and at a particular angle, and given borders so that the thoughts and questions provoked in those who receive it are more likely to be positive and constructive. Such framing is evident in some of the programming of the BBC German Service discussed by Emily Oliver. Framing information for German public was aimed at distracting the audience, or leading it to question the actions and values of its leaders. Distraction or, at least, shifting the emphasis was essential when dealing with one of the many paradoxes of war. For instance, the German Service consistently expressed concern for ordinary German people (as opposed to the Nazis, as it was important to drive a wedge between the two), while at the same time reporting the carpet-bombing of major German cities. This was to be squared by selection and framing. First, the BBC German Service spent a lot of broadcast time conveying factual information

Introduction

9

about targets, quantity of bombs dropped, and the size of the Allies’ aircraft production. As with the MoI in the UK, factual information gave recipients the feeling that they were being trusted with the truth. Secondly, the bombing raids were explained as being targeted on military and industrial sites, which made them sound precise, almost surgical. What was beyond the frame was the fact that industrial targets were almost invariably surrounded by dense housing in which the workers employed by those industries lived. As the MoI had found in campaigns such as “Careless Talk Costs Lives,” humor was often a more gentle and humane way of conveying serious information. The Frau Wernicke, Kurt und Willi, and The Letters of Corporal Hirnschal series of comedy features on the BBC German Service avoided explicitly pushing the Allied view of things. Using irony, the sketches revealed much through the tensions within the naïve but decent leading characters as they tried to match Nazi propaganda with the reality of their current situation. There was, as Oliver points out, an additional long-term irony in the informational policy which distinguished the ordinary German people from their government: it allowed the immediate postwar rationalization of many that they had been misled and tricked by the Nazis. In the same way as mines and barbed wire, informational weapons could remain long after the war had ended—and could create their own problems. Making the Allied case as effectively as possible was critical to the success of their informational war. However, this was not simply a matter of presenting a case. As Oliver makes clear, translating into formally correct German was not enough: the message still might sound stilted, or it might be too remote in tone. Such communication organizations as the MoI, OWI, and the BBC had also to think very carefully about how their messages would be received in cultures very different from their own. This was obviously critical when making the British case to politicians and public of the two Iberian nations, the cultures of which were strongly Roman Catholic. As Christopher Bannister makes clear, Spain—with its government sympathetic to the Axis powers and its very tight censorship—was a particular problem. To ensure Spain’s continuing neutrality, and to encourage a more sympathetic view, the Allies’ case had to be presented in the form of “Britain fighting for Christendom against the pagan threat of the Nazis.” This was very difficult in the early years of the war, and particularly so after the Soviet Union— Bolshevism being viewed as the principal enemy by most Catholics—joined the Allies. However, as the tide turned in 1942–3, and with more information about the activities of the Nazis in other Catholic countries such as Poland becoming

10

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

available, the Allies could be presented convincingly as defending Christendom in general. As a Protestant country Britain might be regarded with suspicion, but the MoI went out of its way to show that British Catholics were as fully engaged in the war effort as any other sector of the community. As the war swung even further toward the Allies, the frame could be expanded to accommodate other arguments, such as the successes of the bombing campaign against Germany. Even more significant, the possible impact of the Beveridge Plan post war, and developments in medicine (such as penicillin) were used to suggest a very Christian battle in Britain against disease and social injustice. As an information strategy, framing a case could be used to communicate not merely to an enemy population or to a neutral state; it could also be employed in the attempt to explain Britain to its closest ally, the United States. Alice Byrne’s chapter describes the various problems that the New York-based British Library of Information (BLI)1 had in conveying information about Britain and the British in an immediately accessible form to a culture that was very used to lively popular journalism. The earlier issues of Britain To-day and Bulletins from Britain attracted criticism for being “dreary” and “wordy.” Many of their articles suffered from that relentlessly up-beat tone which was symptomatic of propaganda. This was similar to the tone that had so alienated UK audiences in 1939. Clearly changes were needed if readers were to be engaged rather than to feel that they were being harangued. Various efforts were made to alter the approach of Britain To-day, and in 1942 it was turned from a free publication into an apparently commercial one with a cover price attached. Free publications were often regarded with suspicion as being likely to be government-sponsored propaganda; paying for a publication tended to change the readers’ attitude to it and make it less likely to be thoughtlessly thrown away—as the MoI recognized as, for instance, all its ‘Official War Books’ were sold, not given away. That this move did not succeed was down partly to conflicts affecting distribution but, one suspects, mostly due to the fact that the tone and presentation of Britain To-day still did not engage the reader. Much more successful was Bulletins from Britain’s replacement, simply titled Britain. In tone, content, and layout, this was much closer to the popular magazines of the late 1930s with articles (often based on personal experiences of the war) leavened by jokes, cartoons, quizzes, and photographs. One can find close parallels in MoI’s later publications for the UK audience where the successes of popular journalism represented by Picture Post were replicated wholesale. Finding the right cultural language was critical to each and every market: misunderstand your audience, and you risked more than your market, you risked alienating a potential ally.

Introduction

11

Audiences that needed persuading were not exclusively addressed by print or broadcasting. As Stefanie Wichhart makes clear, certain regions required very different handling. It was considered that Arabic-speaking countries, with their distinguished tradition of oral culture, were sometimes best approached through means of personal speech: of face-to-face discussion; and of whispering campaigns, which might involve the transmission of rumors favorable to the British cause. The travel writer, Freya Stark, was critical to the success of this initiative. Her view was that such campaigns were not efforts at “propaganda” but “persuasion.” They would “rally to our side not the interested but the disinterested feelings of our districts” and would encourage people’s desire “to give rather than to receive.”2 This resulted in the Ikhwan al-Huriyya, or Brotherhood of Freedom initiative, which was launched in Egypt in September 1940, and subsequently in Iraq. The Brotherhood was a network of cells each consisting of between five and twenty people, each devoted to promoting “freedom” and “democracy” by coming together to discuss such matters, guided by a weekly bulletin issued by British officials. As with the BBC German Service, these bulletins were carefully translated linguistically and culturally to ensure that things were not lost or miscarried in translation. The results of these cell meetings might then be fed back up the line to the officials for monitoring.3 Given this, and the intention to use whispering campaigns and rumor, it is perhaps not surprising that by February 1941 the work saw the involvement of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The combination of direct information from known sources and its communication through whispering campaigns inevitably meant that Brotherhood was regarded as an amalgam of “white” and “black” propaganda. This was less true of the Akhawat (sisterhood) that was established in Palestine and which was modelled on the Women’s Institutes in Britain—a very strange but apparently successful cross-cultural translation. As in the Iberian Peninsula, after 1942 the nature of these initiatives had to change as the balance of the war shifted in the Allies’ favor. Once the immediate threat had receded, the old suspicions of British motives might arise again. The Brotherhood therefore needed re-purposing as an open movement to educate the Arab world in ways of democracy so that it was prepared for a very different postwar world. That these efforts finally proved unsuccessful—and that the work of the MoI and others in the region was often used after the war as evidence for Britain’s unwarranted meddling in Arab affairs—is some evidence for the complexities of handling and conveying information in a rapidly changing and uncertain world. Complexity of a different sort is evident in Chandrika Kaul’s discussion of the BBC’s role in broadcasting to the Indian subcontinent during the war.

12

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Even in the UK the BBC had a hard task defending its editorial independence against pressures from many quarters. On one side there were those, some in the cabinet, who hoped or expected that it would behave as though it were a state broadcasting agency under the direction of the government. Early on, it looked as though the BBC might be subject to control by the MoI. This latter prospect was firmly rejected by the Corporation, and the ministry had to accept that, though it might propose, the BBC would dispose. Battles were not always won; as we have seen, the BBC German Service was under the firm control of the Foreign Office. On the Indian subcontinent the BBC had to cope with pressures from the India Office (IO), demands from the Congress Party, and from the Muslim League, to name but a few. The frame in which information could be presented was thus partly defined by external forces. It also had to contend with a variety of technical problems, in particular the jamming of its signal (something that the BBC German Service also had to cope with), and the limited distribution of radio sets. However, as Kaul points out, many single sets were listened to by large numbers, much as a Dickens novel would have been heard by many more than those who read it. The subcontinent’s cultures were many, and the languages in which they were expressed were multitudinous, so a strategy based on a single process of translation and acculturation could not work. By 1943, half of the BBC’s broadcasts to India were in Indian languages; by 1944 it was transmitting programs in Bengali, Punjabi, Hindustani, English, Tamil, Malayalam, and Gujarati. Handling pressures from frequently vociferous special interests was no less complicated and demanding. The IO had claims to be heard, and frequently issued guidance. There is no doubt that the BBC had often to act on the IO’s guidance but, one suspects, a combination of sturdy Reithian principles, the determination and persistence of many of its talented staff (including George Orwell), and the sheer size and complexity of its output gave the BBC, on most occasions and at critical times, enough room to get sufficient reliable information out to justify Kaul’s celebration of its achievements. As Irving points out, certain ministries and agencies, such as National Savings Committee (NSC) and the Ministry of Food, rarely worked through the MoI and pursued their own ways of informing the public. Nevertheless, both worked mostly through large-scale campaigns, a vivid example of which is discussed in Victoria Carolan’s chapter on the NSC. The NSC was hierarchically organized and divided England (Scotland had its own committee) into regions. Each region had its own commissioner; below each commissioner were the savings groups which were themselves divided to look after different social

Introduction

13

units: workplaces, streets and villages, schools, and social organizations. Not only was this branching network an effective way of getting information down to the smallest community but, like a neural network, it could also be used to transmit information back right up to the national organization. Unlike the MoI, there was an impressive but slightly disturbing efficiency revealed in the NSC’s campaigns, which were tightly organized centrally, but given a regional twist in order to encourage local rivalries. To maximize public attention, the NSC’s campaigns had a very strong visual and material presence, particularly in their launch events in London: a full-scale mock-up of part of warship, and a real Lancaster bomber featured at different times in front of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. To engage and involve the public, the performative element, such as pageants and parades, was maximized. However, its campaigns also used print media extensively with press advertisements, leaflets, huge posters, and a magazine which featured color pages and was packed with photographs. It had a regular slot on BBC radio, and produced about forty films to project its message. These efforts were not spread uniformly, something that might tend to dull interest, but were focused by particular “saving weeks.” These national campaigns were also reproduced at various smaller scales: in NSC’s individual regions, right down to small towns that were encouraged to compete against each other to see who could raise the largest savings sum. These local competitions could become intense, and few were spared. Children and schools seem to have been a particular target. Children’s desire to contribute and compete could be used to put pressure on parents. As Carolan makes clear, these campaigns were remarkably successful, raising significant sums for the war effort, and reducing disposable incomes that might otherwise have helped fuel inflation. However, viewed from another perspective, the impossible-to-avoid huge posters, the encouragement of fierce competition to establish who was the more virtuous, and the use of children to put pressure on their parents—might well have suggested to people like George Orwell a rather darker vision. Stephen Thompson describes a somewhat less intense, and more general, informational campaign directed at the armed forces of the UK, the aim of which was to educate the conscripted citizen-army in what the country was fighting for. This was run by the newly created Army Bureau of Current Affairs (ABCA) under the direction of W. E. Williams who was experienced in adult education and had, significantly, been editorial adviser to Allen Lane and Penguin Books. ABCA published in alternate weeks two briefing “bulletins,” Current Affairs and War which covered, respectively, broad topics in current affairs and “a miscellany of military information.” This had a parallel in the large range of “Speakers’ Notes”

14

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

produced by the MoI to brief its hundreds of volunteer speakers who addressed the thousands of public meetings held each year in the UK during the war. Both the MoI and the ABCA expected their packaged information to provoke questions and discussion. However, dense prose presented by what might be a less-than-enthusiastic junior officer was not the obvious way of stimulating interest, and soon the ABCA followed the MoI down the track of introducing more visual material via an “information room.” In this a range of more engaging matter could be displayed such as maps, magazines, pictures, charts, and news cuttings—along with bus/railway timetables and cinema showing times as a form of “loss leader.” “Wall newspapers,” maps and posters were added to what became a multimedia educational campaign. This was then amplified by attempts to engage the men and their officers directly by setting up brains trusts, mock trials, and local parliaments. Even an ABCA “play unit” was established, which performed thought-provoking, and sometimes just provoking, plays to the conscripts. The ABCA, with its perceived left-leaning sympathies, certainly provoked Conservative politicians, Churchill among them, and at least a couple of attempts were made to close it down. In that way it resembled the MoI and the BBC, both of which were subject to recurrent political pressure and criticism. All three had occasionally to duck and dive, but fortunately had more tolerant supporters in the cabinet and elsewhere, and continued to survive and flourish. The success of the ABCA and its educational campaign was mixed, as the feedback suggested. However, it did get at least some of its message through to a significant proportion of UK-based forces and, as Thompson suggests, that was to have an effect on those who carried those ideas into the postwar world. As the ABCA had discovered, communicating a message to an audience is one thing, the nature of that audience’s reception of it is another, and the acceptance or rejection of the message is a third. Almost all the chapters in this book deal with communicators who were implicitly or explicitly aware of this. Any act of censorship, or of propaganda, or of “framing” a truth, is undertaken with a set of assumptions, or perhaps no more than a hope, of how it might be received. Communicators propose, but receivers dispose. However, unlike the communications themselves, audience reception or resistance frequently left little evidence in the historical record. An exception to this rule can be found in the MoI’s “HIRs” mentioned above. The HIRs revealed that the receivers of MoI communications were far from passive. The very negative reactions of the public, discussed by Henry Irving, to one of the MoI’s earliest poster campaigns makes this clear. The public resented

Introduction

15

the tone, which was patronizing, and the suggestion that they needed to be told what they were fighting for. Getting the tone wrong was one of the quickest ways of ensuring that your message was not only rejected but also resented; not the best way of maintaining morale. The HIRs also made it clear that people were suspicious when they felt that they were not being told the truth by a government that claimed it was fighting, among other things, for freedom and truth. This suspicion was particularly acute during the Battle of Britain: Our air losses are constantly compared with those of Germany and since German communiques are widely heard or read in this country, people are at a loss to understand the reasons for our disproportionate losses. Without interpretation and explanation vague suspicions grow. The recent publication of the . . . comparative table of air losses brought many comments illustrating this: “I thought the losses were about 5 to 1, not 2 to 1,” “It’s not as favourable as I thought,” “I wish I felt sure that we always told the truth.”4

Reader resistance was evident elsewhere. During the Blitz there was a particular public sensitivity to the way in which some newspapers reported the aftermath of air raids. In the days immediately following the second major attack on Coventry on April 10, 1941, newspaper reports—clearly designed to raise morale—which stated that the city was carrying on as before infuriated many citizens who regarded such headlines as likely to provoke further air raids.5 As the reference to German communiques above suggests, alternatives views were always available in some form or another. Voices of opposition from such sources as communists were frequently heard, particularly in the early years. In December 1940, it was reported that the communist Daily Worker “is the only newspaper on sale in many public shelters. As a result, it is bought by many who might prefer other papers.”6 Later, readers in the streets would have been confronted by communistinspired posters demanding the immediate launch of a second front.7 Nor were communist opinions the only ones that challenged the official line: Anti-vivisection posters: There is a “plague” of these posters at Oxford and Reading, attacking diphtheria immunization. They are thought to be “deliberately misleading,” by quoting a statement by the Minister of Health out of its context.8

Emerging from its first awkward year, the MoI was able to acknowledge that people’s skepticism could best be allayed by detailed, even technical, descriptions of the conflict: Every day provides us with some further evidence of people’s doubts about news: formulae repeatedly come in for criticism; any explanation which throws light

16

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War on the background situation is welcomed. Technical descriptions, i.e. those which give the reader or listener some sense of control over the situation, are well liked and eye-witness accounts, whose authenticity can be guaranteed, are approved.9

The MoI took this feedback seriously. The early hectoring and lecturing styles gave way to something more informal and informative, which gave many the feeling that they were being trusted with more of the truth. As the tide turned in the Allies’ favor, and as victory began to look much nearer, another factor governing morale rose in importance. Many needed to believe that governments were committed to making the postwar world better and more just. In Britain, governors and the governed alike remembered the unfulfilled promises of a “land fit for heroes” made after the First World War and both, it was assumed, were determined that this time promises made would be promises kept. In 1942 the Beveridge Report on a possible social security system for the UK inspired wide interest and—although Churchill was suspicious and thus the MoI had to trim its sails—the demand for public meetings on the subject was high. From 1943, the MoI ran exhibitions on subjects such as postwar planning, new schools, and new towns. The 1944 Butler Education Act further fanned the flames of expectation. Offering hopes of a brave new world—and yet containing those hopes by managing expectations— was a necessary but paradoxical job that many Allied information agencies had to undertake. Some hopes barely outlasted the war, as Joseph Clark’s chapter makes clear. The fate of Carlton Moss’s second film, Teamwork, was as dismal as the dashed hopes of many African American soldiers on their demobilization. Raised hopes in a better future was in this case little more than a fiction sustained only for as long as it took to win the war. The later activities of the organizations set up in Arabic-speaking countries described in Wichhart’s chapter, ones designed to encourage the habits of liberal democracy to be practiced in a postwar world, provide another example in which the future could offer leverage to the present. However, whatever the noble aims of Freya Stark and her successors, the sense in which populations might be manipulated rather than educated by her system, and the traditional and sometimes justified suspicions of British motives, led to the speedy collapse of these attempts once peace had been restored. In Kaul’s chapter, given the amount of unrest and political activity in prewar years, the postwar future of the Indian subcontinent was inevitably a significant subject in BBC’s broadcasts, and this included the official project of postwar constitutional devolution for India, encapsulated in the Cripps Offer of 1942.

Introduction

17

Radio discussions, featuring Indian nationalists among others, ensured that listeners in the subcontinent were alert to promises for the future. Anticipating a better future—though it took the most detailed and specific forms for the home market—was a tactic that was also used by the MoI in its campaigns directed at allied, friendly, and neutral countries. Though, no doubt, promoted for admirable reasons, these campaigns could also have the effect of morally and intellectually mortgaging the postwar future in order to gain immediate benefits for the war effort. Certainly campaigns in, among other places, the Middle East and in South America stressed that Britain, unlike the Nazi Germany, was committed to encouraging self-determination in each country and region. This was a tricky position for an old imperial nation to take up, but it was clearly necessary. In India, as in other countries in the empire, it was commitment that—given Britain’s changed position in the postwar world in the later 1940s—would prove morally and politically inescapable, however uncertain the consequences. There is still much to be discovered about the effects various Allied wartime information systems had on postwar culture. The MoI, though abolished in 1946, had several long-term impacts on the postwar world. As Irving points out, the MoI’s popular visual style expressed in its typography and graphic design lived on in the design work that defined the Festival of Britain in 1951 and echoed again in popular culture after the rediscovery in 2000 of copies of the unused but powerful “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster. Even more significant was the demonstration of the importance to a democratic government of effective ways of surveying public opinion and mapping social trends, which was illustrated compellingly by the MoI’s Wartime Social Surveys. Finally, the ministry’s ability to convey information and explain its significance through all the channels available to it had a considerable impact on the cultures of communication in Britain and beyond in the years after 1945. This book, and the broad sweep of approaches to wartime information its chapters reveal, is a reminder of how central information was to the war effort within the democracies. The control of information and propaganda is often associated with the totalitarian states, where the free flow of information and opinion could only serve to undermine the strong state. Democracy, as the antithesis to totalitarian government, was instead felt to be strengthened by the free exchange of ideas and information. But as these chapters demonstrate, the reality was more complex. Even in peacetime, the demands of commercial and other interests affected how information in democratic societies was framed, managed, and distributed. As the following chapters show, the demands

18

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

of wartime amplified this. They ask us to evaluate the idea of the free exchange of information—a central ideal of the democracies—within the context of the war. This context requires us to view communication to the public not as a simple matter of national programs but as an activity that was frequently and necessarily transnational. Acts of censorship used to ensure that parts of the alliance were not put under too much pressure, as in the case of Darlan and Algiers, or Russia and the official announcement of the Allied victory, were transnational by their very nature. Establishing a convincing case for the Allies in Spain required the MoI to keep an eye on Portugal, explain the UK’s policy on Russia, refer to the sufferings of Poland and describe the committed patriotism of Roman Catholics in Britain. An effective campaign in the Middle East needed, not a national approach, but a broad cultural one in which all Arabic-speaking countries were involved. But transnationalism was evident in more than the splicing together of target markets or cultures. It also colored the techniques and technologies used. The international commercial culture—of advertising, popular journalism, comics, and cartoon films that had come to a lively maturity during the interwar period in North America, the UK, and many countries in Northern Europe—was harnessed by the Allies to deliver messages in a form that was both instantly attractive and reassuringly familiar to the countries at which they were aimed. But transnationalism also implies an awareness of differences as well as similarities. In the MoI, as in other Allied agencies, it was recognized that, in order to communicate effectively to other nations and groups, a message had to be not only translated but also transculturally edited. Only then would its tone and its values harmonize with the cultures of those receiving it. This study reveals how the Allies created new channels to promote state and Allied aims, and the restrictions imposed on information in defense of them. In doing so, the book makes clear that the relationship between information as a rational ideal, and information as a tool of power, was as uncertain then as it is now.

Notes 1 In May 1942, the BLI and the British Press Service were combined to produce the British Information Services (BIS). 2 See Stefanie Wichhart, “Selling Democracy during the Second British Occupation of Iraq, 1941–1945,” Journal of Contemporary History, 48:3 (2013), 518–20 3 This, without the secrecy, shares some characteristics with MoI’s domestic Local Information Committees, hundreds of which organized events and distributed

Introduction

4 5 6 7 8 9

propaganda material at a local level, and monitored local opinion for use in the Ministry’s Home Intelligence Reports. Daily Report on Morale, Saturday, August 10, 1940, No. 72. TNA, INF 1/292 Home Intelligence Weekly Reports (HIWR), No. 28 (April 9–6, 1941), p. 1. TNA, INF 1/292 HIWR, No. 11 (December 11–18, 1940), p. 3. TNA, INF 1/292 HIWR, No. 129 (March 25, 1943), p. 3. TNA, INF 1/292 HIWR, No. 130 (April 1, 1943), p. 10. Daily Report on Morale, Wednesday, August 14, 1940, No. 76.

19

20

1

The Ministry of Information on the British Home Front Henry Irving

In July 1945, Cyril Radcliffe (director general of the MoI) was asked by the historian W. K. Hancock to provide an overview of his time at the MoI. Hancock was the editor of the civil series of the official history of the Second World War, and hoped to gain an understanding of the ministry’s role in the conflict. Radcliffe’s conclusion was that the ministry is not there to take over activities or direct them: its job is to be sponsor, provider and supplementer for the free publicity activities of its country. . . . It has no wardenship over the “morale” of its fellow citizens: to claim it is to lose the power to obtain it. But it has sufficient privilege in being authorised to minister to the special hunger for knowledge that is evoked by war-time conditions and to demonstrate on behalf of the State the community of interest and sentiment that should unite governed and governors in time of crisis.1

Radcliffe, who was regarded by his contemporaries as one of the most powerful intellects of his generation, was uniquely well placed to express a view on this subject.2 He had been recruited by the British government in 1939 to produce a workable procedure for newspaper censorship and served under each of the ministry’s five wartime ministers.3 After he was appointed director general in December 1941, he was responsible for the ministry’s day-to-day management until the end of the Second World War. There was simply nobody as familiar with the MoI as he was. The MoI was central to the management of information in wartime Britain. Conceived as “the centre for the distribution of all information concerning the war,” it dealt daily with facts, opinions, appeals, observations, and commands. These were sifted, sorted, packaged, re-repackaged, and released to a variety of audiences. It controlled the flow of official news, commissioned thousands of

22

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

posters and newspaper advertisements, produced almost two thousand films and shorts, organized exhibitions that were attended by millions, organized public meetings, published illustrated books, and helped to influence the tone of wartime radio. The potential size of the ministry’s audience can be illustrated by a series of surveys undertaken by its Wartime Social Survey unit in 1943. They estimated that 77 percent of the public frequently read a morning newspaper, 79 percent had been to the cinema at some point in the year, and 56 percent had read one of the ministry’s official war books.4 The pressure group PEP (Political and Economic Planning), which reviewed the ministry’s activities in February 1945, was not being facetious when it posed the rhetorical question: “Can there be any person in wartime Britain who has not seen or heard one or other manifestation of the Government’s information services?”5 As David Welch suggests, the MoI was an experiment with government propaganda on an unprecedented scale.6 However, as Radcliffe and PEP realized, the experiment was frequently misunderstood. The ministry’s activities were subject to numerous changes of policy, its purpose was only defined retrospectively, and its powers were often overestimated. There was particular confusion early in the war, when the ministry sought to assert itself without gaining support from other parts of government. The resulting missteps have had a profound impact on the historiography of Britain’s wartime information policy. Indeed, while the scale of its activity has impressed, the MoI has earned a reputation for failure. This reputation owes much to Ian McLaine’s hugely influential study Ministry of Morale, which was the first detailed history to use official documents kept by the then Public Records Office. McLaine’s main argument was that the ministry began the war as an irritant and only improved when its attempts to influence opinion through exhortation were abandoned.7 There has recently been a renewed interest in this history. A new generation of scholars has sought to understand the influence of the MoI’s activities at home and overseas, influenced by debates in social, cultural, and media history.8 Other chapters in this book demonstrate that there is still scope for the reappraisal of the myriad ways that the ministry operated: from its work in neutral countries to its ambitious use of printed publicity. There remains, however, a degree of misunderstanding about the way that the MoI operated on the home front. This chapter will build upon McLaine’s argument that its domestic publicity only became effective when it abandoned exhortation, by demonstrating how Radcliffe’s vision of the ministry worked in practice. I will show that the ministry never had a monopoly on wartime information and suggest that its work needs to be viewed within an ecology of communication.9 I will also suggest that the

The Ministry of Information on the British Home Front

23

ministry’s relative success after 1941 formed a bridge between the prewar world of commercial advertising and a postwar acceptance of government public relations. To show how, it is necessary to begin by considering how and why the ministry came into being.

Prewar planning Secret preparations for the MoI had begun in 1935. Faced with the increasingly aggressive foreign policies of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, the British government had agreed that it was necessary to develop plans for an organization capable of managing information in time of war. This proposal rested on a series of assumptions about the type of conflict that was to be expected, of which the most important concerned the threat of aerial bombing. In the mid-1930s, it was widely held that developments in military aviation would revolutionize warfare. Military strategists were especially concerned that future wars would begin with the devastating bombardment of civilian targets. Accepting the idea that “the bomber will always get through,” their calculations of the impact of such an attack were worryingly high. With little alternative evidence, estimates based on First World War Zeppelin raids were revised upwards in response to Italian bombing in Abyssinia and German raids during the Spanish Civil War. By March 1939 it was anticipated that 3,500 tons of explosives would be dropped on the day that war was declared, with around 600,000 casualties expected during the first fortnight. In this nightmare scenario, it was thought that existing methods of communication would simply cease to function.10 This bleak prediction convinced the ministry’s planners that civilian reactions would determine the outcome of the war. While the concept of civilian morale was notoriously hard to define (it was “the woolliest and most muddled concept of the war” in Paul Addison’s words11), it was nevertheless thought that the First World War had been won because German civilians had been unwilling to continue a fight in which they had lost confidence. Extrapolating from this belief, the ministry’s planners identified high and steady morale as a requirement for victory in total war.12 This appeared to justify the importance of information. Indeed, it was widely believed that propaganda had played a significant part in the outcome of the First World War by undermining faith in German military advances during 1918. To be successful again, it would need to be combined with censorship to ensure that no information of military value was leaked to the enemy, and with domestic publicity to steady the home front.13

24

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Although the First World War was used to justify the power of information, the MoI’s planners maintained that a new approach was needed. Their argument was based on the multiplicity of different organizations that had been involved in matters of propaganda and censorship during the First World War. The longestserving had been the Official Press Bureau, which was responsible for censorship and the release of news from 1914. A Department for Enemy Propaganda (known as Crewe House) had been directed against the Central Powers (except for the Ottoman Empire, which was dealt with by the Foreign Office). Until late 1916 the issue of material at home and in Allied territories was undertaken at arm’s length, under the supervision of the National War Aims Committee. This loose arrangement was ended with the establishment of an official Department of Information, which was transformed into a ministry under Lord Beaverbrook in 1918. With the benefit of hindsight, the ministry’s planners concluded that this piecemeal approach had resulted in frustration and delay. They agreed that “we should not merely start off in the case of a future conflict where we ended the last.” Their solution was a single, unified MoI.14

Unresolved questions The vast majority of problems identified by McLaine can be traced back to the framework imposed on the MoI’s planners in 1935. Their proposal that a single body should manage all government information was unprecedented; most existing activity took place at a departmental level and calls to centralize government publicity were rejected outright in 1938 and 1939.15 Although it was generally accepted that there would need to be some change in wartime, the experience of the First World War still led to (somewhat exaggerated) fears about a unified MoI engaged in old-fashioned propaganda at home and overseas. This helps to explain why influential critics, like the Chamberlain’s chief adviser Horace Wilson, conspired to keep the ministry a secret lest it upset international relations that were already fragile. Their actions led to an ambiguous compromise whereby the ministry would be established in two stages: its planners were told to focus on news and censorship, leaving matters of publicity to existing departments. This two-stage plan left important matters unresolved, while the requirement for secrecy made it more difficult to establish the ministry’s position within the existing ecology of communication. It was for these reasons that it entered the war seemingly unprepared for the tasks for which it had been designed.16

The Ministry of Information on the British Home Front

25

The circumstances surrounding the declaration of war on September 3, 1939, caused further problems. While Nazi forces swept through Poland and the war at sea began in earnest, the British home front was relatively undisturbed. Not only did the devastating aerial bombardment fail to materialize but a strict interpretation of censorship by the three service departments also conspired to give the impression of inaction. At its most extreme, this resulted in the confiscation of newspapers carrying a story about the British Expeditionary Force that had been issued by the MoI.17 It was against this background that the ministry launched its infamous “red poster” campaign. This comprised 1.2 million posters bearing the slogans “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory” and “Freedom is in Peril; Defend It with all Your Might.” A further 2.45 million posters bearing the slogan “Keep Calm and Carry On” were printed but not issued.18 The campaign had been designed to prove the ministry’s capability, but merely provided the press with a useful outlet for its grievances. The Daily Express, for instance, poured scorn on the ministry for misreading the public’s mood in a stringent attack that claimed: “The people are ready enough to defend freedom. Their spirits don’t need to be raised.”19 A Mass Observation survey commissioned by the MoI suggested that this criticism was not unfounded. It recorded a wide-range of (often contradictory) opinions but concluded that more people were “consciously and coherently against the posters than [were] consciously and coherently for them.” It suggested that this was due to the abstract nature of the appeals and the unconscious distinction drawn between “You” and “Us.” “The more closely the posters were observed,” it said, “the more disapproval was registered.”20 Ironically, the ministry’s planners had realized that the campaign risked disapproval but had been steadfastly determined to say something at the beginning of the war.21 The failure of the red posters stripped the veneer from the prewar belief that propaganda would be effective. This ultimately helped to encourage the move away from vague appeals. In the short term, however, it reopened debates about the ministry’s purpose. A wide-ranging review of the ministry’s activities at the end of September went as far as to suggest a return to the fragmentation of 1918, with the ministry briefly losing responsibility for censorship to a rekindled War Press Bureau and for enemy publicity to the Foreign Office. This began a two-year cycle of dismantling and rebuilding as the government sought to resolve questions that had been ducked since 1935.22

26

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

“Go to it”? The acceleration of the war effort in May 1940 complicated this process. Churchill’s appointment as prime minister led to sweeping changes across government, including at the MoI, where Duff Cooper became the third minister in nine months. Cooper—a close Churchill ally—was determined to enhance the ministry’s position in government. As the situation in Western Europe became increasingly grave, he made a series of broadcasts that exemplified his approach to the ministry’s operation on the home front. He promised to provide as much news as possible, argued that willpower was more important than military might, warned against the spread of rumor, and called for everyone to play their part to secure ultimate victory. On May 28, 1940, two days into the evacuation from Dunkirk, Cooper spoke in the House of Commons. He said: Our business is to see that public opinion is well-instructed, well-informed, and harnessed to the duty that civilisation demands on it. We feel we are one of the service ministries today. . . . Our people can be buoyed up . . . only by the knowledge that we are all serving in a great cause.23

While these words were indicative of a new dynamism, they betrayed a continued belief that the British people needed to be convinced to join the war effort. This, in turn, led to profound uncertainty when the ministry’s efforts to shape the public mood were found to be unsuccessful. Matters of propaganda and censorship had assumed greater significance as the military threat to Britain increased. The fledgling Home Intelligence division, for instance, hastily began to monitor the public mood after the Nazi blitzkrieg on France. Its first report noted that “the great majority welcome action, [but] at the same time there is fear and worry.”24 Similar apprehensions were shared by the ministry’s own staff. Harold Nicolson (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Information, 1940–41) was so concerned about the prospect of invasion that he made practical arrangements to commit suicide if captured by German forces.25 It is a testament to the sense of panic felt at the time that he made these arrangements while sitting on the “Home Morale Emergency Committee” responsible for working out how the threat should be communicated to the public.26 The committee identified the need for a coherent strategy to counter fear, confusion, suspicion, social division, and defeatism. Its main conclusion was that each citizen should be made to feel that they had a definite function in the war effort. This was in line with the findings of Home Intelligence, which had already recorded support for Cooper’s more active approach. The British

The Ministry of Information on the British Home Front

27

people appeared to want guidance and instruction, rather than exhortation and reassurance.27 The implementation of these recommendations proved, however, to be more difficult in practice. Consider the example of a set of instructions detailing action to be taken in the event of an invasion, which exposed huge differences in opinion between those who hoped to rouse the nation by encouraging civilian resistance and others who wanted merely to ensure that potential battlefields were kept clear for troops. The final text—If the Invader Comes—bore all the hallmarks of compromise and was admitted to be liable to misunderstanding.28 Other ideas fared little better. Less than a month after If the Invader Comes was released, Winston Churchill called for urgent action to discourage the spread of rumor. The ministry responded to his request by adapting a campaign initially designed to foster anger at Germany. The initiative, which encouraged people to join a silent column against subversive rumor mongers, was roundly criticized for adopting a divisive tone that appeared to be at odds with accepted notions of Britishness.29 The campaign was canceled after just twelve days. Given what the Home Morale Emergency Committee had said about guidance and instructions, it is ironic that the best received publicity issued as a result of their report was an exhortative poster bearing the words “Go to it.”30 As the military threat facing Britain increased, so did questions about censorship, responsibility for which had been returned to the ministry in April 1940. Most with an interest in public opinion judged that more rather than less news should be released. However, after complaints about a story that gave away the location of a secret reservoir, Cooper was asked by the War Cabinet to consider whether the rules needed to be tightened. He argued against any change that would force newspapers to submit every word for censorship but accepted that it was difficult to prosecute papers for flouting the existing rules.31 Cooper hoped that a legal change would assuage those who wanted more control, while allowing the speedy dissemination of information that was not of importance to national security. The only problem was that he failed to find a common ground between military authorities and newspaper proprietors. It was over a month before new proposals were ready for the War Cabinet—and the delay stoked fears among the press that the ministry wanted to limit the editorial freedom of newspapers.32 It was an accident of timing that this delay coincided with the launch of the silent column campaign. Nevertheless, the two issues transpired to create an image of the ministry that was totalitarian in nature. When the threat of invasion receded in late July 1940, the ministry found itself under attack once again, as

28

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

its activities became the focus of a wide-ranging debate over personal and press freedom. The situation reached fever pitch when a fairly innocuous story about the Wartime Social Survey was seized upon by newspapers as evidence of official meddling in the public’s affairs.33 A week-long campaign against the survey— which was caricatured as “Cooper’s Snoopers”—saw the ministry accused of acting like the Gestapo. Such was the ferocity of the attack that Cooper was forced to defend his ministry’s actions during a full-scale debate in the House of Commons.34 While his critics argued that they were opposed to the manipulation of public opinion, Home Intelligence maintained that the debacle rarely featured in everyday conversation. The hostility was more likely caused by a fear that the ministry had trespassed on the interpretative roles traditionally played by the Parliament and the press.35 While the ministry weathered this storm, its staff remained mindful of its weaknesses. Harold Nicolson spoke for many when he feared that the ministry’s work would “be diminished by this constant sniping from the rear.” He insisted that it had unfairly borne the brunt of criticism for the government’s panicked response to invasion, but recognized that “a Ministry of this character cannot really be conducted efficiently if the majority of the press are out to sabotage it.”36 From August 1940 on, there was a determined attempt to change this climate by adopting a more collaborative approach to the home front. The new approach was championed by the ministry’s Planning Committee, which recommended that exhortative appeals should be abandoned in favor of information and explanation. It was ruled that “the word ‘morale’ must not be used again [and] people must on no account be told to be brave.” One of the first results of the new policy was a change in wording to the posters that followed “Go to it.” The committee’s minutes show that “it was decided to redesign the poster, laying emphasis on ‘Thanks to you’ rather than ‘Keep at It.’”37

Efficiency over power Much has been made of the transformation that took place in the MoI over the following two years. This is usually attributed to the replacement of Cooper with Brendan Bracken, who is said finally to have stopped lecturing the British public after numerous false starts. However, to be properly understood, the change needs to be understood in relation to a furious row that followed Rudolf Hess’s arrival in Britain. The bizarre flight of Hitler’s deputy from Nazi Germany in May 1941 should have provided a valuable propaganda victory for the ministry.

The Ministry of Information on the British Home Front

29

Yet Cooper was not immediately informed of his arrival, and the ministry was subsequently barred from issuing a press release on the subject.38 The incident painfully exposed grievances concerning the decentralized system of publicity and the service ministries’ right to veto censorship decisions. Cooper argued that the fragmentation of responsibility had been disastrous and demanded complete control over government information policy. He believed that “the moment . . . [has] come when we must finally decide whether this Ministry is allowed to function as it should or cease to exist.”39 Cooper’s protest convinced Churchill to commission two reports on the ministry’s future from Sir John Anderson (the Lord President of the Council) and his trusted adviser, Lord Beaverbrook. These were brought before the War Cabinet in advance of a parliamentary debate on the scope and purpose of British propaganda. The MoI’s case was supported by Beaverbrook but was rejected by Anderson who believed that greater coordination could be effected without substantially altering departmental relationships. Much to Beaverbrook’s chagrin, the War Cabinet sided with the latter view.40 It was agreed that the ministry should be regarded primarily as a coordinating body. Other departments would be allowed to maintain their own press and publicity functions, while the service ministries would continue to have a veto over censorship decisions. The main changes were that the ministry would appoint new officials to liaise with the services and would be given oversight of publicity that affected more than one government department or represented the policy of the government as a whole. When Anderson explained these changes to Parliament, the virtually unanimous response of MPs was that they represented no change at all.41 Reeling from the failure of his ultimatum, Cooper asked Churchill to be relieved of his responsibilities and left the ministry “with a sigh of relief ” in late July.42 While the War Cabinet’s decision represented a victory for the status quo, the simple act of codifying existing practice was to prove hugely important. The new framework stated that the MoI’s domestic roles were to publicise and interpret Government policy in relation to the war, to help to sustain public morale and to stimulate the war effort, and to maintain a steady flow of facts and opinions calculated to further the policy of the Government in the prosecution of the war.43

Bracken accepted this framework and did not seek to overturn the limits of his appointment. He instead concentrated his efforts on sharpening the ministry’s operations. This was particularly obvious in the case of press censorship, where Bracken used the War Cabinet’s ruling to face down calls for tighter control. He

30

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

instead encouraged the ministry to foster a far closer relationship with the press over matters of news and censorship. The thaw in relations allowed the ministry to handle large quantities of information with increasing confidence. In the final quarter of 1942, for example, when most newspapers were focused on the British campaign in North Africa, approximately 5.5 million words of news were passed through censorship. Eighteen months later, at the time of the D-Day landings, almost a million words were passed through the same system in a single week.44 The MoI had been denied the degree of control envisaged before 1939, but it had gained a practical expertise that was missing at the start of the war. Radcliffe described what happened after 1941 as a triumph of efficiency over power. Indeed, while the War Cabinet had made the ministry responsible for coordinating individual activities in relation to government publicity as a whole, he argued that this should not be confused with the techniques that might be adopted under a totalitarian system.45 His argument recognized that the ministry did not—indeed, could not—hold a monopoly over public opinion. It must be stressed that Britain in the Second World War was still a relatively open society. Official messages were reported in a free press, censorship was self-enforced and focused on matters of security, government publicity competed for space with commercial advertising, the BBC maintained its autonomous status, and almost all wartime activity depended upon a degree of voluntary participation. In addition, the NSC and the Ministry of Food both refused to adopt the new rules, carrying out the vast majority of their wartime publicity independently. It was the ministry’s task to navigate this complex ecology of communication and marshal public opinion toward the subjects that it identified as most important. In the field of government publicity, Bracken went as far as to claim that it was his job to limit the appeals made by government to ensure that “the public is not confused by too much exhortation.”46 It is easiest to demonstrate this process with an example.

The Campaigns Division Domestic publicity campaigns involved the organized use of newspaper advertisements, leaflets, posters, radio broadcasts, films, and exhibitions directed toward a particular objective. As well as being one of the most visible parts of its work, such campaigns illustrate the ministry’s place within the broader landscape of wartime communication as the vast majority of campaigns emanated from outside Senate House. When a Whitehall department wanted

The Ministry of Information on the British Home Front

31

to launch a campaign after 1941, it would approach the ministry’s specialist Campaigns Division. The division was responsible for considering whether the proposal was likely to be successful and, if so, what the most appropriate forms of publicity would be, and their possible impact on other campaigns. Acting in the manner of a commercial advertising agency, it conducted market research, commissioned artwork, and placed the finished products using commercial channels. From May 1942 onwards, the Campaigns Division was also the ministry’s main point of contact with the BBC. One of the first campaigns carried out under the new dispensation concerned wartime recycling. The recycling—or “salvage”—of materials for the production of armaments was a common feature of life on the home front. Since 1940 the MoI had helped to publicize the activity, with varying degrees of success.47 In February 1942, the Campaigns Division was asked by the Ministry of Supply to prepare a new campaign focused on materials that had been made scarce by the war in the Far East. The Campaigns Division judged that this could be made a success and drew up detailed proposals for a £20,000 extension to existing salvage publicity. Its plans included a range of interlinked activities. The campaign would be led by feature articles and include some national newspaper advertising but would mostly take place at a local level. Posters would be distributed via local authorities, advertisements would be placed in local newspapers, notices would be affixed to milk floats, and exhibitions and nontheatrical film screenings would be used to illustrate how waste material could contribute to the war effort. A specially convened committee ensured that this activity would be coordinated with existing appeals for scrap metal made by the Ministry of Works and the publicity work of the Waste Paper Recovery Association.48 It was recognized from the outset that the success of this campaign would be determined by public opinion. The Campaigns Division accordingly instructed Home Intelligence to investigate attitudes toward earlier campaigns on the same subject. In March 1942, its Wartime Social Survey unit undertook a quantitative survey of 3,078 households and a series of supplementary interviews with local authority officials, refuse collectors, and representatives from voluntary groups. The findings suggested a complex interdependence between appeals for participation and the success of arrangements for collection.49 This led the Campaigns Division to seek additional assurances from the Ministry of Supply and encouraged it to rethink the campaign as an authoritative statement that would erase the memory of earlier difficulties.50 The Wartime Social Survey was used again at the end of the campaign to assess its success. In August 1942, a special report on the recycling of rubber goods estimated that the percentage

32

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

of people recycling them had risen from 11 percent to 26 percent during the course of the campaign (although it noted there were still some complaints about collection arrangements).51 The salvage campaign was just one of eighteen large campaigns undertaken during 1942, a year in which the Campaigns Division spent £1 million on domestic publicity. This expansion of activity coincided with an increasing professionalization of the ministry’s work. Its approach had previously been based on a belief that experts should be “on tap but never on top” (a stance that led one high-profile former advertising executive to resign in May 1940 because he was convinced “the wrong attitude has been taken toward the expert from the beginning”).52 The extent to which this was overturned can be seen in the expansion of market research undertaken by Home Intelligence and the Wartime Social Survey after 1941. Their work contributed to a comparatively sophisticated understanding of the public’s interaction with official messages. Whereas the ministry’s prewar planners had worked on the assumption that propaganda could change behavior, it was found that personal experience had a far greater influence than even the most successful publicity. Moreover, while surveys found that over 70 percent of the public were able to recite specific government instructions unprompted, they also suggested that most reacted to a barrage of instructions by ignoring all but the most important.53 More than the role of any one person, it was findings like these that encouraged the tonal shift identified by McLaine. The more the ministry’s limitations were accepted, the more effective its publicity became.

Legacies When this is viewed from a broader perspective, it becomes clear that the framework adopted in 1941 formed a bridge between prewar advertising practice and the postwar development of government public relations. In 1943, in parallel with broader reconstruction planning, the wartime government started to consider the shape of the postwar state. The first part of this process was overseen by a small committee of civil servants, chaired by Alan Barlow (the second-most senior official at the Treasury). In early 1944 his committee invited Radcliffe to give evidence on behalf of the MoI. The ministry’s future had already raised questions within the department. Bracken regarded it as a wartime expedient and thought that there was no place for its activities in times of peace. Radcliffe was less convinced. He understood that the war had

The Ministry of Information on the British Home Front

33

changed the relationship between state and society and foresaw that many of the ministry’s activities would need to be continued as “no Government after the war will either be able or expected to abandon the use of publicity in its approach to its own citizens.” This being so, he argued that a body like the ministry would be needed to ensure that government publicity was coordinated and kept within reasonable spending limits.54 These arguments would feature heavily in Barlow’s review. His committee accepted that the MoI would not be retained but warned against its hasty dismantling and suggested that some other central machinery would be needed to coordinate departmental publicity. Barlow’s final report did not hide its colors. He praised the MoI for its efficiency—noting that it had “built up an organisation, and developed a technique, which are impressive in the extreme”—and suggested that any future machinery should be closely modelled on its work on the home front. In summer 1944, these recommendations were accepted by the Machinery of Government subcommittee of the War Cabinet and were passed to Churchill.55 Although little else was done during the war, the proposals were taken up by the Attlee government and underpinned the Central Office of Information established in April 1946. Its purpose was to inform the public of government policy by providing a range of technical services to government departments (including advertising, exhibition design, film production, and market research). It was, said Attlee, “essential to good administration under a democratic system that the public should be adequately informed.”56 It is a moot point whether this would have been possible without the MoI. As studies by Mariel Grant, Anthony Scott, and Brendan Maartens have shown, a particular form of government public relations had emerged during the interwar period and virtually every Whitehall department had some form of publicity machinery by 1939.57 But the Second World War had a significant impact in three areas. First, thanks in part to the MoI, official publicity had substantially increased in scope. Secondly, the framework agreed by the War Cabinet in 1941 had established a precedent for the greater coordination of departmental activities in the field. Thirdly, thanks to the wider social and political changes brought by the war, it was accepted that such activities could not simply disappear. To return to the PEP report cited at the beginning of this chapter, it seemed “pedantic, and indeed in practice unworkable, to accord to government [a] larger sphere of action and to deny it the corresponding right to make its purposes and methods effectively known.”58 The lingering influence of the ministry can also be detected in the language adopted by the Attlee government. In November 1946, for

34

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

instance, the Treasury formally minuted that the term “Information services” was to be the favored sobriquet for government publicity work.59 The legacy of the MoI was felt in more practical ways, too. Despite the furor around “snooping” in 1940, its Wartime Social Survey unit was retained after the war and became the primary provider of social and market research for the government. In 1951, it was described by the sociologist and pollster Mark Abrams as “an integral part of governmental administrative and social planning.”60 The ministry’s publicity techniques were also adapted for the peace. This can be seen very clearly in the case of the 1951 Festival of Britain. As Harriet Aitkinson has shown, its visual identity was in keeping with techniques developed by the ministry and included work by a number of its former staff. The festival emblem was designed by Abram Games, who had designed posters for the Dig for Victory campaign; the Royal Festival Hall was the work of Peter Moro, who had designed an ambitious exhibition on the British Army in 1943; while the exhibition designers Milner Gray, Misha Black, and F. H. K. Henrion had all honed their craft in the ministry. It is not unreasonable to suggest that the ministry’s wartime activities helped to shape the graphic style of mid-twentiethcentury Britain.61 More recently, reproductions and digital adaptations of wartime publicity have shaped the cultural memory of the Second World War for a new generation. It is a testament to the complexity of this process that the most famous of these messages—“Keep Calm and Carry On”—was not released whereas others have been all but forgotten. What is certain is that the ministry’s legacy has lived on.62

Conclusion This chapter has provided a broad overview of the way that the MoI operated on the home front. Accepting that the ministry became more effective after 1941, it has been suggested that there were two main reasons for this trend. The first was a new framework, which—despite being representative of the ministry’s weakness—provided a clarity of purpose that had been missing at the outset of the war. The second was an acceptance of its limits. This led to a far more successful approach to government publicity and would have the most significant influence in the long term. It was Cyril Radcliffe’s intimate knowledge of these processes that resulted in him being asked by Hancock to provide an account in lieu of an official volume in the civil series. While the ministry’s absence from this series has been interpreted by some historians as evidence of its failings

The Ministry of Information on the British Home Front

35

or a general distaste for propaganda, I would like to conclude this chapter by suggesting an alternative reading. Indeed, the archival record shows that the ministry was twice instructed to retain material for an official history. The first instruction, in 1939, appears to have been lost; the second, in 1942, was rejected because the ministry was too busy with its day-to-day job of coordinating official information to devote time to this activity.63 Instead of a deliberate act to disguise its work, it seems reasonable to suggest that the fate of these two instructions proves just how far the ministry advanced during the Second World War.

Notes 1 Kew, The National Archives (TNA), CAB 102/373, Radcliffe, “Information and Publicity,” undated (July 1945), p. 96. 2 “Radcliffe, Cyril John, Viscount Radcliffe (1899–1977),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved January 4, 2018, from http:​//www​.oxfo​rddnb​.com/​ view/​10.10​93/od​nb/97​80192​68312​0.001​.0001​/odnb​-9780​19268​3120-​e-315​76. 3 Lord (Hugh) Macmillan, September 1939–January 1940; Sir John Reith, January– May 1940; Alfred Duff Cooper, May 1940–July 1941; Brendan Bracken, July 1941– May 1945; and Geoffrey Lloyd, May–July 1945. 4 TNA, RG 23/42, Wartime Social Survey, “Ministry of Information Publications,” June–July 1943, p. 3; RG 23/43, Wartime Social Survey, “Newspaper Readership,” June–July 1943, p. 1; and RG 23/44, Wartime Social Survey, “The Cinema Audience,” June–July 1943, p. 1. 5 “Government Information Services,” Planning: A Broadsheet Issued by PEP, 230, February 2, 1945, p. 1. 6 David Welch, Persuading the People: British Propaganda in World War II (London: British Library, 2016), p. 8. 7 Ian McLaine, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II (London: Allen and Unwin), pp. 10–11. 8 For examples, James Chapman, The British at War: Cinema, State and Propaganda, 1939–45 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998); Jo Fox, “Careless Talk: Tensions within British Domestic Propaganda during the Second World War,” Journal of British Studies, 51:4 (2012), 936–66; Valerie Holman, “Carefully Concealed Connections: The Ministry of Information and British Publishing, 1939–1946,” Book History, 8 (2005), 197–226; and Sian Nicholas, The Echo of War: Home Front Propaganda and the Wartime BBC, 1939–1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996). 9 Simon Eliot, “Recasting Book History,” The Book Collector, Summer 2017, pp. 362–75. 10 Richard Titmuss, History of the Second World War: Problems of Social Policy (London: HMSO, 1950), pp. 3–11.

36

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

11 Paul Addison, The Road to 1945 (London: Cape, 1975), p. 121. 12 Robert Mackay, The Test of War: Inside Britain 1939–45 (London: UCL Press, 1999), p. 138 and Malcolm Smith, Britain and 1940: History, Myth and Popular Memory (Abingdon: Routledge, 2000), pp. 10–11. 13 Sidney Rogerson, Propaganda in the Next War (London: Liddell Hart, 1938), p. 5 and Hans Speier, “Morale and Propaganda,” in War in Our Time, eds. E. Kahler and H. Speier (New York: Norton, 1939), pp. 299–326. 14 TNA, CAB 16/127, Robertson, “Creation of a Ministry of Information,” September 12, 1935, p. 5. 15 Simon Eliot et al., A Communication History of the Ministry of Information, forthcoming. 16 Michael Stenton, “British Propaganda and Raison d’Etat 1935–40,” European Studies Review, 10:1 (1983), 47–74 and Philip M. Taylor, “If War Should Come: Preparing the Fifth Arm for Total War 1935–39,” Journal of Contemporary History, 16:1 (1983), 27–51. 17 McLaine, Ministry of Morale, pp. 34–38. 18 TNA, INF 1/226, Printing Orders, August 31, 1939. 19 Daily Express, “Waste and Paste,” October 5, 1939, p. 6. 20 TNA, INF /261, Crossman, “Memorandum on the Report of Mass Observation upon the Red Posters,” undated (c. October 26, 1939). 21 TNA, T 162/858/1/B, Rowe-Dutton to Barlow, July 13, 1939 and INF 1/226, Waterfield to Macadam, July 17, 1939. 22 Eliot et al., A Communication History of the Ministry of Information. 23 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th Ser., Vol. 361, May 28, 1940, c. 455. 24 TNA, HO 199/439, Adams, “Summary of Report,” May 11, 1940. 25 Harold Nicolson Diaries, ed. Nigel Nicolson (London: Collins, 1967), HN to VSW, May 26, 1940, p. 90. 26 TNA, INF 1/533, Cowan to Davidson, May 18, 1940 and INF 1/848, Policy Committee Minutes, May 22, 1940. 27 TNA, INF 1/254, Home Morale Emergency Committee, “Report to Policy Committee,” June 4, 1940. 28 TNA, CAB 123/65, “Invasion—Remaining Points for Ministerial Decision,” undated (c. June 11, 1940). 29 Fox, “Tensions within British Domestic Propaganda during the Second World War,” pp. 944–49. 30 Mass Observation Archive (MOA), File Report 306, “Testing the Slogan ‘Go To It!’,” July 17, 1940, p. 1. 31 TNA, CAB 67/6/45, Cooper, “Compulsory Censorship,” June 11, 1940. 32 Alfred Duff Cooper, Old Men Forget (London: Hart Davies, 1953), p. 286. See also The Times, “The Press in War-Time,” July 23, 1940, p. 5.

The Ministry of Information on the British Home Front

37

33 Daily Herald, “Ministry ‘Gossip Column’ is Holding an Inquisition on the Doorsteps,” July 25, 1940, p. 3. 34 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th Ser., Vol. 363, August 1, 1940, cc. 1513–56. 35 Paul Addison and Jeremy Crang (eds.), Listening to Britain: Home Intelligence Reports on Britain’s Finest Hour, May to September 1940 (London: Vintage, 2011), p. xv and Laura Beers, “Whose Opinion? Changing Attitudes Towards Opinion Polling in British Politics, 1937–1964,” Twentieth Century British History, 17:2 (2006), 177–205 (pp. 188–91). 36 Harold Nicolson Diaries, pp. 104–6. 37 TNA, INF 1/249, Planning Committee, August 26, 1940. 38 McLaine, Ministry of Morale, p. 220. 39 TNA, INF 1/857, Cooper to Hood, May 22, 1941. 40 TNA, CAB 65/18/43, Conclusions of the War Cabinet, June 30, 1941; CAB 66/17/20, Beaverbrook, “Information and Propaganda,” June 28, 1941; and CAB 66/17/22, Churchill, “Information and Propaganda,” July 2, 1941. 41 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th Ser., Vol. 372, July 3, 1941, cc. 1529–1624. 42 Cooper, Old Men Forget, p. 288. 43 TNA, CAB 66/17/22, Churchill, “Information and Propaganda,” July 2, 1941. 44 TNA, INF 1/75, “Statistical Data for Censorship Division, 1 Oct–31 Dec 1942” and INF 1/76, “Censorship Traffic, 6–12 Jun 1944.” 45 TNA, CAB 102/373, Radcliffe, “Information and Publicity,” pp. 94–95. 46 Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 6th Ser., Vol. 401, June 29, 1944, c. 822. 47 Henry Irving, “Paper Salvage in Britain during the Second World War,” Historical Research, 89:244 (2016), 373–93. 48 TNA, INF 1/341/3, Minutes of the Advisory Committee on the Appointment of Advertising Agents, March 12, 1941 and Cavendish, BBC Written Archives Centre (BBC WAC), Buxton, “Campaign Memorandum: Salvage Campaign,” March 26, 1942. 49 TNA, RG 23/9, Wartime Social Survey, “Salvage,” March 1942. 50 BBC WAC, R 34/711/1, Buxton and Room, “Campaign Preliminary Memorandum: General Salvage,” April 23, 1942. 51 TNA, INF 1/293, Home Intelligence, “Special Report No. 27: Salvage,” August 21, 1942. 52 TNA, INF 1/26, Rhodes, “Branch I Home Publicity,” December 3, 1939 and INF 1/33, Bevan to Lee, May 24, 1940. 53 TNA, RG 23/19, “Public Attitudes Towards Government Instructions,” May 1942, p. 5 and INF 1/293, Home Intelligence, “Housewives’ Attitudes towards Official Campaigns and Instructions,” May 14, 1943. 54 TNA, INF 1/941, Radcliffe to Bracken, November 1, 1943. 55 TNA, INF 1/941, Barlow, “The Ministry of Information,” March 28, 1944 and CAB 66/54/32, Barlow, “The Wartime Departments,” August 31, 1944.

38

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

56 Mariel Grant, “Towards a Central Office of Information: Continuity and Change in British Government Information Policy, 1939–51,” Journal of Contemporary History, 34:1 (1999), 49–67 (p. 60). 57 Mariel Grant, Propaganda and the Role of the State in Interwar Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994); Scott Anthony, Public Relations and the Making of Modern Britain: Stephen Tallents and the Birth of a Progressive Media Profession (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012); and Brendan Maartens, “From Propaganda to ‘Information’: Reforming Government Communication in Britain,” Contemporary British History, 30:4 (2016), 542–62. 58 “Government Information Services,” p. 2. 59 Maartens, “From Propaganda to ‘Information’,” p. 552. 60 Mark Abrams, Social Surveys and Social Action (London: Heinemann, 1951), pp. 98–99. 61 Harriet Aitkinson, The Festival of Britain: A Land and Its People ([London]: I.B. Tauris, 2012), pp. 36–43. 62 Mark Connelly, We Can Take It! Britain and the Memory of the Second World War (Harlow: Longman, 2004); Lucy Noakes and Juliette Pattinson (eds.), British Cultural Memory and the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2013); Bex Lewis, Keep Calm and Carry On: The Truth Behind the Poster (London: IWM, 2017). 63 TNA, CAB 103/240, Bridges to Radcliffe, June 4, 1945.

2

Lend to Defend: The National Savings Committee During the Second World War Victoria Carolan

In 1941 Mass Observation (MO) reported that the NSC had spent more money on its campaigns than almost all other government departments added together.1 It is estimated that at least a third of the nation belonged to National Savings (NS) groups.2 However NS has barely warranted a footnote in the voluminous writings on the Second World War British home front. There has been no systematic academic investigation of the National Savings Movement from its inception in 1916 until its demise in the 1970s.3 In comparison with MoI campaigns such as Dig for Victory or Make do and Mend, it is much less well remembered in popular culture, despite playing a part in the daily life of virtually every school, workplace, and parish in the country. There is much to suggest that the NS movement during the war was indeed all pervasive and was promoted to the public with the utmost vigor that at times bordered on coercion. The vigor with which NS was promoted is perhaps one of the reasons why it has been neglected in academic study. The sheer volume of material produced by the committee and its regional representatives—available in the National Archives and regional repositories—is daunting. It has meant that what has been written on the topic has mostly been short overviews in wider histories of the Second World War, or nonacademic articles from local historians and museums describing events in their own areas. This has sometimes obscured the wider picture of NS, making it appear as a series of local initiatives rather than a highly organized national campaign. This is not surprising as the one of the strategies of the committee was heavily to engage with local communities and to encourage competition between them. NS had a head start on most wartime propaganda campaigns as it was instigated in 1916 during the First World War with the purpose of raising money

40

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

specifically for arms. Unlike other initiatives it was not disbanded during the interwar period and continued to campaign, basing its publicity on housing, though with limited success.4 At the beginning of the Second World War the NSC again turned to raising money directly for arms and as a means of controlling inflation. NS already had experienced, key personnel in place as well as local representatives, and an economic infrastructure. It had a structure that covered the country and which was supported by three main committees: the NSC in London, a Regional Advisory Committee, and a Local Savings Committee—all of which had subcommittees. Scotland had its own Scottish NSC while England and Wales were divided into twelve regions, each with their own commissioner. At a lower level were the savings groups which were divided into four sections: workplaces, streets and villages, schools, and social organizations. A small number of savings groups had stayed together since the First World War, which meant that they also had the beginnings of a volunteer workforce. This proved useful for the MoI (which was never responsible for NS publicity5) as it used this network as one of the distribution routes for its posters.6 Given all this, NSC was able to hit the ground running with its own campaign. Within a week of the announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on November 21, 1939, that a War Savings Campaign was to start, the NSC had distributed ten million leaflets and over a million posters around the country.7 By 1941 the movement was able to call upon nearly half a million enrolled volunteers for the Warship Weeks.8 By June 1941 £834,100 had already been spent on press and poster advertising campaigns.9 This was indicative of NS spending throughout the war. The NSC published a monthly journal, War Savings, which was full of photographs and used color on most pages. In a time of print and paper shortages this was extravagant and the only concession made was that the journal format became smaller in 1941. In addition to this, a weekly bulletin was produced largely for its own regional and local representatives.

Themed weeks The NSC lobbied throughout the war in a similar way to all MoI campaigns using film, the BBC, the press, posters, leaflets, and periodicals. It produced approximately forty films, had a regular radio slot, and had its own press office on Fleet Street staffed by retired journalists.10 In addition to the ongoing savings groups, each year from 1940 to 1944 NSC held special weeks which were the cornerstones of its campaign: National Savings Week (1940), War Weapons

Lend to Defend

41

Weeks (1940 and 1941), Warship Weeks (1941–2), Wings for Victory (1943) and Salute the Soldier (1944). These weeks had great economic impact; for example, Warship Weeks in 1941 affected the ability of the banks to make loans. On October 23, 1941,11 The Times reported, that the banks were reluctant to make fresh loans on that morning due to Warship Week subscriptions affecting their balances. The situation eased later in the day and the newspaper speculated that officials had intervened to bolster the banks’ balances.12 On March 24, 1942, the Stock Exchange was reported to have had a slow start due to Warship Weeks and that £8,000,000 worth of contributions to Warship Weeks had been made through Stock Exchange channels. As these examples indicate, the figures involved were huge (small savings accounted for approximately four billion pounds over the war, around 40 percent overall)13 but also rather than bringing new money into savings accounts this suggests that people were simply transferring funds from one savings account to another. As one MO respondent said in reaction to War Weapons Week in High Wycombe: Herbert Morrison addressed the opening meetings. I should have thought he would have had something better to do: it all seems rather childish to me— though I’m probably wrong, such occasions stimulate community feeling. My niece (17) was feeling all patriotic because she had contributed to a raffle for a savings certificate! My view is that people can’t possibly save these vast sums in a week: they must have been hoarding money in spite of the Government pleas or else they merely transfer some investments: all that really matters is cutting down consumption and that shouldn’t be left to personal initiative when men’s lives are at stake.14

Another MO diarist responding to the £500,000 raised by Amersham’s War Weapons Week thought it would be better if savings were made compulsory on two counts: first that whatever was raised would never be sufficient and second the work involved in organizing the week was a waste.15 It was certainly not the most efficient way of gathering funds and it is important to note that the flaws in the collection of monies were recognized by the public at the time. They were not blinded by a NS program that could never raise enough to pay for the war but, nevertheless, they were still willing to take part. It is also not surprising that some should feel that the organization of the special weeks, which were large in scale and cost, was a misuse of precious resources. Each of the special-themed weeks were structured in a similar way. They were launched in London with pageantry on a grand scale, something akin to the Lord Mayor’s Show with the addition of spectacles such as a full-scale model of

42

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

part of a warship and rallies in Trafalgar Square.16 In addition to military displays there were floats and spectacles such as elephants borrowed from Bertram Mills’ Circus,17 while Wings for Victory Week saw the release of 1,300 pigeons in Trafalgar Square (corresponding to the number of savings committees); each carried a message for those committees.18 These were reported in detail on the newsreels that were shown throughout the country. A similar form of pageantry, though on a smaller scale, was repeated in other towns and villages. The following description from a surveyor’s pupil in Trowbridge gives an example of the activities in regional week: The town is gaily adorned, flags across the main street and on the Town Hall on the face of which is fixed a huge “Lendometer” to record the totals as the week proceeds. At 11.45 military and naval guards arrived outside the Town Hall and at noon, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Chatfield arrived by car from London with Mr Gurniston our MP. Lord Chatfield inspected the troops. He gave a very good speech, a report of which was given in the 9pm news on the wireless and then went on to a neighbouring town.19

In addition there was a military parade and other events, including raffles, exhibitions, and children’s dancing. This pattern—especially the “Lendometer,” and a stage in front of the town hall or in the center of village set up for a march past in front of local dignitaries including a guest of honor—was repeated across the country. The surviving films of Weapons Weeks across Yorkshire are virtually indistinguishable other than by their physical environment.20 Many of the floats, bunting, and activities seen in the films have an amateur feel, in contrast to the London launches, and give an impression of local initiative, such as a village fete or a local carnival. They were however managed by the central NSC who produced detailed information and numerous leaflets on every aspect of the special weeks. Publicity materials were all designed in London. For local newspapers’ advertisements, different towns were allocated their own font and hundreds of designs were produced which were then customized.21 For War Weapons Week, port towns like Portsmouth were given predominately naval designs while other cities, such as Birmingham, predominately RAF designs which reflected their own aircraft-building industry.22 The NSC went beyond this by issuing very specific instructions to local committees as to when and where these advertisements should be placed. Only in exceptional cases could towns advertise in local papers other than their own.23 Individual towns were not allowed to produce their own publicity material for publication, although they were allowed to create their

Lend to Defend

43

own display materials. According to the NSC literature, the intrusive degree of organization was needed to control costs. Only cities and major towns with “high targets” were allowed to produce some of their own materials for publication.24 London’s target for Warship Week was 125 million pounds, sufficient at the time, it was enthusiastically claimed, to build a fleet superior to the whole German navy.25 The target was exceeded as was the case with virtually every area. As the NSC had a good idea, after the first special weeks, of how much each area was capable of raising, it may have chosen to keep targets low as a morale booster for areas which easily attained them. Todman attributes this to the fact that all money saved in an area during a weapons week was added to the total regardless of whether it was used for purchasing NS certificates, and that local banks contrived to buy their war bonds at the same time.26 Therefore, he argues, beating the target did not need a massive effort from individual savers. Nevertheless, participation in NS both in terms of savings groups and in special weeks by individuals was high. The number of savings groups grew rapidly over the first years of the war peaking at 270,450 in 1943.27 Their membership represented nearly a third of the population.28 This percentage would have been higher since it accounted only for those registered in savings groups. It did not include those who saved independently, made occasional contributions during the special weeks or families where only one belonged to a savings group but other members also contributed. In addition, MO reported that “public opinion is mostly exceptionally favourable to National Savings Committee propaganda. 7 out of 10 thought it good or very good, 2 out of ten uncertain, 1 in ten bad.”29 It should be noted that, despite most being in favor and many participating, in 1943, 31 percent of savings came from just 3 percent of families and this figure excludes large windfalls such as legacies or property sales.30 The NS scheme was accessible to all families as it was possible to buy 6d. savings stamps and collect them on a card until there were sufficient to exchange for a 5s. savings certificate. It was also easy to save: local savings groups made door-to-door collections, businesses took savings directly from wages with some companies even adding to the contribution made by the worker, and stamps were sold to children in schools. Money could be deposited in banks, building societies, and, during special weeks, in local shops. Other than for the lowest income families, which MO estimated to be approximately a seventh of the population, everyone could participate.31 Savings were effectively loans to the government that would give guaranteed interest on return. There were some outright donations rather than loans but, from the evidence of various sets of local accounts, it seems that these formed a tiny percentage of the whole.32

44

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

What is very clear is that the message about saving was getting through to the populace and had, according to a MO survey, “penetrated wide and deep. It has produced a general atmosphere in which it is the done thing to save.”33 At the same time, the survey suggested that there was a general lack of understanding about financing the war and that the savings campaign “obscured” people’s minds regarding other economic aspects of war, such as taxation.34 If this were true, it could only be a benefit to the government with income tax and purchase taxes ever increasing. Although publicity for NS was extensive there was very little focus on the explanation of wartime finances. Instead the propaganda, in line with MoI campaigns, appealed to a public sense of duty and promoted communal effort which would supposedly lead to victory. There was also a moral tone to the publicity with those who did not save branded as selfish and as prolonging the war. This tone can be observed in the film Save and Lend for Victory35 and in the campaign’s most famous character—the Squander Bug.36 It featured in many posters, and also became the first nonhuman model made for Madam Tussauds—he was displayed alongside the waxwork of Hitler.37 A MO report noted: “The most active and vigorous propaganda of this war has been put out by the National Savings Committee.”38 Certainly the NSC did not miss any opportunity to further its cause: even at Christmas it produced free seasonal cards with spaces for up to thirty savings stamps.39 NSC used endorsements by the senior military, politicians, and celebrities to promote its campaigns. War Savings regularly printed messages from Churchill, from Union leaders, the Admiralty, and reported on support from organizations such as the church. On film it used stars such as those of the popular radio show ITMA: in the film Victory Song Tommy Handley led a sing-along with the words of the song on the screen.40 NSC posters were judged in a Home Intelligence Report in 1942 as “the best advertisements issued by any government department.”41 The first posters it produced were generic designs with the slogan “Lend to Defend.”42 This was followed by posters that targeted specific audience groups such as families,43 women factory workers,44 firemen,45 the armed services,46 Trade Union Officers (with the aim of enticing them to encourage their members to join),47 and local savings groups.48 As Savings Certificates offered a return once war was over, there was always an eye to the future in the posters and this theme became more common toward the latter stages of the war. There were aspirational posters aimed at adults’ aspirations49 and children’s50 futures. They obviously played to people’s hopes but also upon their fears. Some had experienced Britain at the end of the First World War when the “land fit for heroes” did not materialize,

Lend to Defend

45

and the Depression caused mass unemployment. In an MO survey, after patriotism, having a nest egg to insure against a post-war slump was the most often cited reason for saving.51 It is even possible that this was the main reason since patriotism may have been the answer that people thought they should give.

Competition The NSC had encouraged the view that saving was a moral obligation: savings had become “the done thing” and the “right thing to do,” a view it carefully promoted by encouraging peer pressure to drive, and the competitive spirit to increase, the activities of its savers.52 Evidence from MO reports does suggest that considerable peer pressure was brought to bear. A woman from Blackheath wrote in her diary during Warship Week in Greenwich in 1942: Mrs P called and importuned me to give at least one certificate next week. We are really on the rocks almost overdrawn. I am annoyed to requested to do something & was a bit tart with her. I shall however beg borrow or steal 5/.53

Pride played a part in engagement. The encouragement of community group saving was very effective as it became everyone’s business: everyone would know who had contributed—and who had not. It was also hard to avoid as many encountered the groups in workplaces, on the street, in schools, and in social groups. The savings movement also targeted individuals: the Garstang and District Warship Executive Committee wrote to all Group Secretaries: “The committee would respectfully recommend that those who are not already members of a recognized Savings Groups should be personally canvassed and asked to play their part. Many men, women and children too, are only waiting for that personal touch.”54 The specific targeting of individuals is indicative of the pressure placed on communities. To encourage inter-parish rivalry, Rural Districts Savings Leagues were set up as a response to reported logistic difficulties (presumably in the collection of monies) in rural administration, and to increase savings.55 This put the various individual savings groups in direct competition with each other. An NSC leaflet entitled Development by Rivalry said: “The spirit of competition is strong, as the age old rivalries of the village green will testify. Rural District Savings Leagues harness this sporting spirit to the Savings Campaigns, and the resulting enthusiasm helps to sweep away all difficulties.”56

46

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

The competition engendered by the NSC was particularly apparent during the campaign weeks. After the initial National Savings Week drive in 1940, which lasted for one week nationwide, other special campaigns were spread across the country at different times in the year, so that not all towns and villages had their fundraising week at the same time. Logistically, this meant that resources, such traveling cinema vans and exhibitions, could be shared and reused. However, the problems caused by stretched resources were not entirely solved. The Garstang War Weapons Week organizers requested the use of a police exhibition of bombs and parachutes but it was not available for part of that week as it is was on display elsewhere in the county.57 Separate weeks for each location also meant that local rivalries could be exploited. This strategy appears to have been successful with individual communities eager to prove themselves against each other. Watford, for example, invited Luton to raise more than they had by sending a knight on horseback to Luton Town Hall to issue the challenge.58 A housewife commented in her diary, “Sheringham had a War Weapons Week last week and raised £60,000, Cromer the neighbouring town is having one this week but is aiming at £20,000 only. People in Sheringham wait with bated breath in case they should pass our total. There is great rivalry about everything between these two places.”59 The Mayor of Blackpool’s message to his townsfolk was “Blackpool is one of the last of the larger towns in Lancashire to hold a War Weapons Week and I ask you to lend to the full extent of your means, so that we do not lag behind our neighbours.”60 Both the local press and the national newspapers frequently printed lists of how much had been raised by each area, so it was obvious to all which areas had raised the most money. The competitive spirit was also encouraged in children who played a much larger role in NS than might have been expected. One mother commented, “My little boy would cry if he went to school without money for his stamp on a Monday morning.”61 In just six months in March 1941, school savings groups alone raised nearly four million pounds.62 It appears that NS was made central to schools’ war efforts: Mayall and Morrow note that in school histories and wartime accounts of schools, activities for NS were the most frequently mentioned—alongside gardening.63 Children were used at every level of the national savings campaign, both being encouraged to participate and as subjects in propaganda posters and photographs. The War Savings journal frequently printed articles aimed at the young, such as games and instructions for making models of ships, with the suggestion that a competition might be run in schools for the best warship model made as a result of the article.64 Poetry was also harnessed: the second

Lend to Defend

47

issue featured a poem, Albert’s Savings,65 written by Marriott Edgar. Edgar’s series of monologues featuring Albert (most famously Albert and the Lion) had been made popular by performer Stanley Holloway in the 1930s. The savings poem, while appealing to children, was a cleverly written cautionary tale for the adult. After his father does not allow him to spend his piggy-bank savings he convinces Albert of his duty to support NS. Albert duly goes to buy a certificate but does not have enough money, so he sells his mother’s stuffed birds and his father’s smoking companion to make up the difference. Of course, one of the reasons for involving children was to lure their parents into saving, and this motive was made explicit in a letter to savings group leaders from the Press and Publicity Committee about the competitions they proposed for Warship Weeks: “The Press and Publicity Committee hope these competitions will interest the children in our Warship Week effort and in War Savings generally, and that the interest will spread to the home and throughout the district . . . school-children are asked to make it known in and about their homes.”66 Children were an integral part of the special weeks, especially if they belonged to the Scouts or Guides who took part in the parades. In addition, there were numerous local newspaper reports of activities such as raffles and displays put on by children during the weeks as individuals, or as members of school groups, or other social clubs. The Preston Guardian reported that evacuees had collected 17s. 6d. by going door to door singing patriotic songs, a girl raised over £4 by raffling her doll, and another raised £8 by giving up her doll’s house.67 Some older children headed street groups throughout the war and Grantham savings committee reported having several boys on their rolls, including one who collected from 150 members per week.68 For Warship Week a national competition was organized for children to create posters. This was a major affair with an exhibition staged at the Royal Academy for a week in August 1942, which displayed over 1000 posters made by children from schools across the country. This was the first time that children’s artwork had been exhibited at the Royal Academy.69 Around 20,000 visitors attended; they were able to vote for their favorites and, from these, 400 posters were chosen to tour the United States, and a further 400 went to Canada. The NSC actively targeted every citizen in the country. The campaign had so many aspects both nationally and regionally that it was hard for anyone to avoid. It was tightly controlled from London and promoted vigorously at every opportunity through a network of volunteers. It is often difficult to assess the impact of campaigns but there is much evidence to suggest that the NSC was very successful indeed. First, the figures involved were high enough to affect the

48

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

national economy; secondly, the economic, social, and cultural impact of the initiatives was felt in every corner of the land.

Notes 1 Mass Observation Archives (MO), File Report 933 A Savings Survey, 1941. 2 K. G. Burton, A Penknife to a Mountain: The Early Years of the National Savings Committee (London: National Savings, 1999), p. 224. 3 There is no academic study of NS as a whole and major surveys of the Second World War home front devote little more than a page to the subject. Rosalind Watkiss Singleton’s “Doing Your Bit: Women and the National Savings Movement in the Second World War,” in The Home Front in Britain: Images, Myths and Forgotten Experiences since 1914, eds. Maggie Andrews and Janis Lomas (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 217–31, is the only academic article that has NS as a main focus. Burton’s A Penknife to a Mountain makes extensive use of National Archives material but is essentially a service history as he worked for the NSC and the Second World War is only covered in the postscript. The exception is the very good overview of NS in Daniel Todman’s Britain’s War: Into Battle, 1937–1941 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), but this only forms a couple of pages in the book. 4 Burton, A Penknife to a Mountain, p. 223. 5 Rebecca Lewis, The Planning, Design and Reception of British Home Front Propaganda Posters of the Second World War (Unpublished PhD thesis, University College Winchester, 2004). 6 TNA, INF1/299, MoI Poster Scheme. 7 War Savings, Vo1: February 1, 1940. 8 TNA, NSC 33/10, Warship Weeks Points for Speakers. 9 Charles Madge, Occasional Papers: War-Time Pattern of Saving and Spending (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943), p. 4. 10 Sheldon Garon, Beyond Our Means: Why America Spends While the World Saves (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), p. 199. 11 “Money Market: Loans Still Wanted,” The Times, October 23, 1941, p. 8, “Stock Market: British Funds Firmer,” The Times, March 24, 1942, p. 7. 12 “Money Market: Loans Still Wanted.” 13 Garon, Beyond Our Means, p. 196. 14 MO Diarist 5402 F Teacher London, entry for May 25, 1941. 15 MO Diarist 5191 June 10, 1941 M Manager of a Textile Mill Quorndon, Loughborough. 16 See British Pathé, London Warships Week (1942), British Pathé, Wings for Victory (1943), British Pathé, Piccadilly Circus—Parade Trafalgar Square (1943) for “Salute the Soldier” week.

Lend to Defend

49

17 Norman Longmate, How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life during the Second World War (London: Pimlico, 2002), p. 382. 18 British Pathé, Wings for Victory Week (1943); also Longmate, How We Lived Then, p. 382, but number of pigeons is misquoted. 19 M-O Diarist 5118 1941/2. 20 Yorkshire Film Archives: Film 5307 Wings for Victory Week Beverly (1943), Film 339 Wings for Victory (1943), Film 3268 Ilkley Wings for Victory, Film 2297 Wings for Victory (1943), Film 5302 Warship Week Beverley (1942), Film 3690 Keep the Flag Flying Keighley Warship Week (1942), Film 550 Bridlington Warships Week (1940), Film 67 Settle Warships Week, Film 551 Civil Defence (1941), Film 2293 War Weapons Week (1941), Film 2292 Ecclesfield War Weapons Week (1940), Film 3323 Ilkley War Weapons Week (1941), Film 5298 Salute the Soldier Week Beverley (1944), Film 2085 The Hainsworth Collection (1940–43), Film 2293 War Weapons Week (1941), Film 2292 Ecclesfield War Weapons Week (1940), Film 2294 Grenoside March Past (1941), Film 2298 War Weapons Week/ King and Queen Visit Sheffield, Film 4111 Doncaster War Week (1941). 21 See TNA, NSC 33, National Savings Committee: Publicity Files and Scrapbooks, War Weapons Weeks Advertising 1940–41, Vol. 1 and Warship Weeks Advertising 1941–42. 22 Ibid. 23 TNA, NSC7/78, Special Campaigns, War Weapons Week Publicity Notes Set IV, February 22, 1941. 24 Ibid. 25 British Pathé, London Warship Week (1942). 26 Todman, Britain’s War, p. 604. 27 Burton, A Penknife to a Mountain, p. 224. 28 Ibid. 29 MO FR993 A Savings Survey, 1941. 30 Madge, War-Time Pattern of Saving and Spending, p. 51. 31 MO FR1053 A Savings Survey (Working Class), 1942. 32 For example: Lancashire Archives, Garstang Rural Council Wartime Records War Weapons Week 23/4E. Final returns. RDG 17/216, Kent Local Archives RD/Ea/F3/3 Salute the Soldier Week—Correspondence, Accounts. 33 MO FR993 A Savings Survey, 1941. 34 Ibid. 35 MoI film Save and Lend for Victory (1944). 36 There were at least seventeen different posters featuring the Squander Bug. For example, IWM PST15457 “Don’t take the Squander Bug when you go Shopping,” IWM PST3406 “Wanted for Sabotage.” 37 NSC, “With Hitler and His Gang in Madam Tussauds,” Weekly Campaign Circular No:125, February 1944.

50

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

38 MO FR993 A Savings Survey, 1941. 39 See IWM LBY K. 8139-2 Christmas gift card for National Savings stamps with the Allied flags on the front cover, Art.IWM PST 16433 Tell them to Make it a War Savings Christmas, Art.IWM PST 15610 Send Them to Your Friends for Christmas, Christmas Card’, War Savings Campaign Journal 2:8, October 1941. 40 IWM MGH2591 War Savings Trailers see Tommy Handley’s Victory Song and Poppy Poopah’s Pennies (NSC, 1943). 41 TNA, 1/292C, Home Intelligence Weekly Reports 113, November 24–December 1, 1942. 42 Art.IWM PST 10407 National Savings Poster No 170. 43 Art.IWM PST 8586 For the Future of Our Nation, Art.IWM PST 15568 We at Home Have a Battle to Win. 44 Art.IWM PST 15576 Lend to Defend the Right to be Free. 45 Art.IWM PST 15569 Firemen Save All You Can. 46 Art.IWM PST 16362 Save Some of Your Pay. 47 Art.IWM PST 15515 Trade Union Congress (1942), Art.IWM PST 15517 Our Trade Union Brothers (1943). 48 Art.IWM PST 15581 Form a Savings Group Now (1940), Art.IWM PST 15499 Join Your Street Group. 49 Art.IWM PST 8298 Dreams: War Savings will Bring them to Life, Art.IWM PST 21067 Worth Saving For (1945), Art.IWM PST 16411 War Savings Will Make Your Dreams Come True, Art.IWM PST 8299 They are Planning their Future. Are You? (1945), Art.IWM PST 16349 Their Future Worth Fighting For (1944). 50 Art.IWM PST 16387 Even a Mite Is a Great Help in War Savings. 51 MO FR993 A Savings Survey, 1941. 52 Ibid. 53 MO Diarist 5342-799-794 Housewife Blackheath, March 22, 1942. 54 Lancashire Archives RDG 17/205 General Appeals, Letter from George Fisher, Chairman to all Group Secretaries dated, February 12, 1942. 55 Lancashire Archives DDPK 33/40 Leaflet produced by NSC. 56 Ibid. 57 Lancashire Archives RDG 17/201 Letter from Lancashire Constabulary to Clerk to the Council, Garstang, April 10, 1941. 58 Longmate, How We Lived Then, p. 381. 59 MO Diarist 5301 Housewife, July 1941. 60 Lancashire Archives RDG 17/201 Message from Mayor, Blackpool War Weapons Week Programme, March 22–29, 1941. 61 MO FR933 A Savings Survey, 1941. 62 Berry Mayall and Virginia Morrow, You Can Help Your Country: English Children’s Work during the Second World War (London: Institute of Education, 2011), p. 135.

Lend to Defend 63 Ibid. 64 “Make a Model of It,” War Savings 2:1, January 1942. 65 Edgar Marriott, “Albert’s Savings,” War Savings, Campaign Journal of the National Savings Movement 1:2 (1940), 2. 66 Lancashire Archives RDG 17/201 Letter to Savings Groups from the Press and Publicity Committee, January 26, 1942. 67 “Garstang War Weapon Triumph,” Preston Guardian, May 24, 1941, p. 5. 68 “A Challenge to Schools,” War Savings: Campaign Journal of the National Savings Movement 2:6 (July 1941), p. 4. 69 H. C. Dent, Education in Transition (London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Trubner, 1944), p. 160.

51

52

3

A Citizen-soldier “Must Know What He Fights For and Love What He Knows”: The Work of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs between 1941 and 1945 Stephen R. Thompson

In June 1941 the ABCA began a program of education to enable the British soldier to understand why he was in the army and what he was fighting for. In its own words, the bureau aspired to produce a soldier who “ideally should match up to Cromwell’s famous definition of the citizen-soldier as one who ‘must know what he fights for and love what he knows.’”1 This concept appears to be atypical of conventional military education, so why was the bureau established? How did it deliver its program? What obstacles did it face, and how successful was it in spreading its message? In September 1939 all male British subjects between the ages of eighteen and forty-one became liable for call-up and, by June 1941, the British Army had nearly tripled in size to 2.2 million men. This huge influx of conscripted civilians created a citizen-army that needed molding into a disciplined and reliable fighting force. However, it soon became apparent that few of the conscripts had much relish for soldiering or fighting and few were motivated by a highly developed ideological commitment to the cause of eradicating Nazism. The great majority of soldiers regarded the war as an unpleasant but necessary job that had to be completed so that they could then return to their everyday civilian lives.2

In the months following the retreat from Dunkirk in May 1940, the army saw action only in the Western Desert where Dominion, Indian and colonial forces were in the majority. From around mid-1942 troops were sent to North Africa (and on to Sicily and Italy) and to India and Burma to face the Japanese, but most

54

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

soldiers saw no active service until D-Day in June 1944. In Britain more than 1.5 million men waited to defend the islands against an invasion that never came. These Home Forces settled into a mind-numbing routine of ceaseless, apparently pointless, training; and the troops became bored, apathetic, and indifferent to the course of the war. They were, to use their own phrase, “thoroughly browned off.”3 The army leadership, increasingly concerned about this rising discontent, turned to the Army Education Corps (AEC) to remedy the situation. The AEC began to arrange current affairs lectures and discussions using its own education officers together with civilian lecturers but, as attendance was strictly voluntary, these reached only about 20 percent of the army. A more radical approach was strongly promoted by the man responsible for army discipline and morale: the AdjutantGeneral, Sir Ronald Forbes Adam. Although he had followed a conventional career path in the prewar regular army, Adam possessed a deep understanding of the nature of the new wartime army, and supported the development of new and unorthodox approaches to army education. He approached W. E. Williams, the secretary of the British Institute for Adult Education and editorial adviser to Allen Lane and Penguin Books, for help. In response, Williams proposed a way of keeping every soldier informed on current affairs and the progress of the war. On June 17, 1941, his plan was approved and he became the director of the War Office branch tasked with organizing his scheme. Williams called his new outfit the “Army Bureau of Current Affairs,” a name designed, through pronunciation of its initials, ABCA, both to roll off the tongue and catch on easily.

Teaching the troops The ABCA method required every junior regimental officer to lead weekly discussions on current affairs with the men in his unit. Attendance was compulsory as discussions would be held during duty hours. ABCA was confident that the average officer, supported by what it called “a well-annotated brief,” was “likely to make a tolerable job of his exposition of Current Affairs, and in this novel duty, as in so many others in his daily life, he would also learn from the vicissitudes of experience.” ABCA provided a “well-annotated brief ” in the form of two sixteen-page bulletins: War and Current Affairs, published alternately, week by week, so that each appeared at fortnightly intervals. According to ABCA, with these two bulletins coming to him an officer will have two kinds of raw material from which he can prepare his talks to the men. In Current Affairs he will have an analysis of some broad topical

A Citizen-soldier “Must Know What He Fights For”

55

theme; in War he will have a miscellany of military information which he will transmit, with due discretion, to his men.4

The first issue of War (subtitled News-facts for Fighting Men) appeared on September 20, 1941. This first bulletin was typical of subsequent issues, carrying articles on the campaign in North Africa, a gunner’s experiences on the run in German-occupied France, and Red Army battles with German tanks. War was written by ex-journalist soldiers who consciously replicated the informal style of the popular press. Prominent among these was Captain Anthony Cotterell, formerly of the Daily Express, who had come to the notice of ABCA following publication of What! No Morning Tea?, his hugely successful memoir of life as a conscript soldier. Cotterell insisted that the bulletin be called War in order to provide its staff with the opportunity to answer the telephone with the words “This is War” in a variety of expressive ways.5 By the end of 1942, Cotterell had gained complete editorial control of the bulletin and was confidently investigating the most sensitive areas of army life. His article entitled “How Good is Army Food?” lauded the work of the recently established Army Catering Corps in improving the abysmal food served from army cookhouses, and assured his audience that German rations were now less palatable and had lower energy values than the British.6 War gradually acquired something of the nature of a small magazine and, by the D-Day, the issue had dropped any pretense of promoting discussion, advising officers that “these accounts of what happened [on June 6, 1944] are of interest if they are simply related to your men as straightforward narratives.”7 After June 1944, War staff writers were allowed to cover the campaign at firsthand and Cotterell produced vivid accounts for the bulletin as he followed the 8th Armoured Brigade across Normandy. In September 1944, he wrote his last piece before attaching himself to the first Airborne Division and parachuting into Arnhem where he disappeared without trace. War continued under the supervision of Major Ernest Watkins, producing its final issue on June 23, 1945. Current Affairs (A background bulletin) first appeared on September 27, 1941. Each issue focused on a single subject through an essay written by someone individually picked to cover that topic. Articles such as “Why We Are at War With Germany” by Harold Nicholson and “What Price Victory?” by W. E. Williams8 were aimed directly at troop motivation while other bulletins looked at Britain’s wartime allies and enemies, examined the economic and social issues raised by the war, or looked forward to postwar reconstruction. According to Major Guy Chapman, the officer in charge of Current Affairs, its content always came under official scrutiny and producing the bulletin “could be a maddening business, since the finally sub-edited text still had to be approved by every government

56

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

department remotely involved . . . and even when all of them had nodded . . . there was always some hare-brained politician . . . to put his finger into matters he ought not to be meddling with.”9 This scrutiny failed to prevent a major dispute developing in late 1942 when Williams published William Beveridge’s summary of his report on social services in Current Affairs 33 (December 19, 1942). Although Williams apparently assumed that Beveridge’s report represented future government policy there was, in fact, no political consensus over Beveridge’s plan and Williams was immediately ordered to withdraw the issue from circulation. Although its abrupt removal led to press criticism and a heated debate in Parliament, the bulletin was never reissued. ABCA was not alone in encountering problems in publicizing Beveridge’s proposals. The MoI’s Public Meetings Section received many requests from local organizations for speakers to talk about the report, but couldn’t respond comprehensively due to the government’s, or rather Churchill’s, opposition.10 Williams may have realized that his planned publication would be controversial. Current Affairs 32 announced that “No. 33 of Current Affairs will contain an article on the Mediterranean by Sir Charles Petrie.”11 Instead this issue, published only two weeks later, contained Beveridge’s summary and Petrie’s article appeared in Current Affairs 34. It is conceivable that Williams tried to circumvent the usual official inspection by concealing the true content of bulletin 33 until the last possible moment. Subsequent issues of Current Affairs strove to avoid controversy and when the bulletin dealt with social security again, it was quite different in tone and content. This time the summary of the Beveridge Report was written by Williams’s wife Gertrude (an economics lecturer at London University) and was accompanied by a lengthy account of the parliamentary debate on the report and the text of a radio address by the prime minister in which he cautioned as to the cost of overly ambitious social security schemes.12 Other later editions dealt with topics that appeared remote from the concerns of Britain at war such as Spain, Latin America, and Soviet Farming.13 In June 1945, Current Affairs expanded to fill the gap left by the demise of War. The main bulletin continued as an “A” series but War’s weekly slot was occupied by a new “B” series dealing with the “three R’s” of impending peace: release, resettlement, and reconstruction.14 On receiving their bulletins, officers had to prepare for their discussion sessions. The pamphlets deliberately contained far more material than an officer could use with the idea that he would select from them the points he felt he could best handle. ABCA declared that “the bad ABCA-leader is the one who takes his bulletin to the meeting. The good one is the one who predigests it,

A Citizen-soldier “Must Know What He Fights For”

57

and goes to the job with a half-sheet of jottings in his hand.”15 Officers probably found the freewheeling journalism of War accessible, informative, and relatively easy to use but the weightier articles in Current Affairs initially took little account of their intended users, making it difficult to pick out salient points for discussion. Additional support was provided in August 1942 when the first issue of The A.B.C.A. Handbook appeared. Subtitled “a manual designed for the guidance of all officers in the conduct of talks and discussions on current affairs,” the handbook set out the various ways of preparing for and running effective ABCA discussions, and provided lists of newspapers, periodicals, and books that officers could consult for further information on ABCA topics. Also during 1942, the AEC organized teams of education officers to give on-the-spot instruction in discussion technique to regimental officers. Early in 1943, a new school was set up at Coleg Harlech in North Wales to provide more intensive courses in ABCA methods. As the variety and scope of ABCA topics increased, it was recognized that it was unreasonable to expect men to take an informed part in debate when they knew little about many of the issues they would be called upon to consider.16 In response ABCA began to promote ways of “pictorializing” current affairs. It encouraged the establishment of an “Information Room” or “ABCA Room” at larger and well-located units with at least an “ABCA Alcove” or “ABCA Corner” in all units. The area was intended to serve as an information hub, containing timetables, maps, magazines, pictures, charts, news cuttings, and so on, all organized with a sense of color and display to give a dramatic impact. Men would be “lured in” to look up train times or check the local cinema program but would be tempted by “well-planned displays” to linger and make discoveries about world affairs. Central to any Information Room was the “Wall Newspaper” best displayed, according to ABCA, on a wood panel about 10 feet long by 4 feet high. As well as reinforcing the weekly ABCA session by summarizing the main points made in the most recent discussion, each newspaper sought contributions from soldiers on the interests and concerns of their unit. Although officers retained editorial control, they were urged to get as many men as possible to contribute, allow them to express their opinions freely, and resist the temptation to edit their articles out of all recognition. According to ABCA, if the whole unit viewed the wall newspaper as “their paper” then the editor would have “done a most useful piece of work in developing a first-class morale and fighting spirit.”17 Wall newspapers gradually appeared in many units of the British Army but not all were set up to support ABCA discussions. In William Shebbeare’s regiment (23rd Hussars, Royal Armoured Corps), its wall newspaper’s stated

58

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

aim was to help the regiment to get to know itself better, thereby fostering a spirit of comradeship and improving its fighting efficiency. The editorial staff aimed to produce a paper that entertained and amused and was neither resented by the senior officers nor regarded cynically by the men as a mouthpiece of authority. The paper contained regimental news and gossip, reports of sporting activities and achievements, character sketches of regimental personalities, articles on topics like aircraft recognition, as well as pictures and cartoons. Letters of complaint were discouraged as it was felt that publication would defeat the paper’s objective of helping to build a united regimental spirit. The paper came out every Saturday and was made up on a large board 3 feet broad and 2 feet high with eight columns divided by thin black tape into which the pictures and typed-up text were pasted. The paper was displayed in the open during the day, protected from the weather by a cowling, and removed indoors to the NAAFI (the regimental canteen) at night. This wall newspaper reached almost everyone, with troop-leaders reporting that most men in their troop read it regularly and only a small fringe paid no attention to it. Shebbeare acknowledged that the wall newspaper was something quite new to army life and estimated that well under half of all units in the army had one. However, in many regiments and companies wall newspapers had been an outstanding success, with officers and men determined to keep their papers going even under the difficult conditions of active service.18 Both War and Current Affairs included maps that officers were encouraged to use during discussion sessions but only by carrying “the shape they needed in their head and sketching it out boldly in front of their audience.” Few officers seemed confident to follow this advice, as on November 28, 1942, ABCA published its first poster-sized Map Review “designed to orientate the news to the map and to promote interest in current affairs by seeing as distinct from hearing.”19 ABCA’s observation was supported by several MoI HIRs which commented on readers’ positive response to the informative maps published in newspapers—perhaps the strong graphical element helped people easily digest the information presented. The upper half of Map Review consisted of a colored world map marked to call attention to outstanding events in the progress of the war, and in the lower half these events were briefly summarized and illustrated by appropriate photographs, sketch maps, and diagrams. The reverse side of each map displayed either a pictorial study of a single theme such as “The Infinite Variety of the U.S.S.R.” or simply a full-size map covering, for example, the “Tunisian Battlefield.”20 This reverse was not exhibited until receipt of the next fortnightly issue, thus providing an extended arrangement of two

A Citizen-soldier “Must Know What He Fights For”

59

posters to display in the Information Room. Alongside Map Review, ABCA introduced a series of posters under the heading “Your Britain—Fight For It Now.” The first four, drawn by Frank Newbould, depicted images of an idealized pastoral Britain, probably far removed from the country many soldiers knew. The next three, designed by Abram Games in a very different style, provided visions of a renewed urban Britain. Dealing with education, housing, and health, each poster provided a visual reinforcement to the themes of postwar reconstruction often discussed in Current Affairs and, from 1942 onwards, was a significant feature of some of the MoI’s campaigns (particularly through public meetings and exhibitions). Games’s poster, dealing with health, contrasted health provision in both a pre- and postwar Britain. It depicted a rickety child playing in a dank yard with “disease” and “neglect” scrawled graffiti-like on crumbling walls and death symbolized by a crooked gravestone in a corner. Superimposed on this image of squalor was the façade of a modern health center representing preventative care in the New Britain.21 Once the discussion sessions were established, ABCA began to look for opportunities to present current affairs in more varied and dramatic ways. Units were urged to form a “Brains Trust” team to help put over topics which might flag in discussion, set up a “Mock Trial” to provide an object lesson in the procedures of evidence and judgment, or hold a “Local Parliament” with some semblance of the ritual and procedure of parliamentary discussion.22 W. E. Williams was keen to go further and grasped his opportunity in late 1943 when he met Captain Michael MacOwan while visiting an ABCA training course. MacOwan had run the Westminster Theatre before the war and Williams persuaded him to form a small company (the ABCA Play Unit) to perform specially written short plays on current affairs. The dramatizing of current affairs might have resulted in worthy but tedious plays but, although it produced only six plays during its three-year life, the unit constantly broke new ground in subject matter and methods of stage presentation.

Theater of war The unit’s productions included What’s Wrong with the Germans?, an examination of life in the Nazi police state; The Japanese Way, a study of the indoctrination of a Japanese soldier; and Where Do We Go From Here?, which dealt with postwar reconstruction. The writing was usually done on a committee basis by MacOwan, Bridget Boland (a film writer serving in the ATS), Jack

60

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Lindsay (a poet and author in the Royal Signals), and Ted Willis (a civilian scriptwriter, later well known as the creator of the television series Dixon of Dock Green). The unit used nontheatrical locations, such as Nissen huts, gun sites, and factory canteens, which allowed it to create a more intimate connection with its audience. The techniques it employed owed less to the stage than to the cinema, with the use of short, pithy scenes, crosscutting between time and place, innovative lighting effects and speakers placed in the audience. Scenery was kept to a minimum so the audience was forced to use its imagination to fill in details of the setting.23 What’s Wrong With The Germans? demonstrated how these methods deliberately drew audiences into the action and provoked continuing debate on the issues presented. The play opened with an officer announcing that the performance had been canceled and in its place there would be a discussion of the German character. A “soldier” then stood up in the audience and spoke of the German family with whom he had been billeted after the First World War. This family appeared and the son, a Social Democrat, addressed the audience about his beliefs. His speech was interrupted by Nazi storm-troopers bursting in, seizing the speaker and beating him up. While that was happening the Nazi commandant entered from the back of the hall, climbed on to the stage and proceeded to deliver an inflammatory address finishing with shouts of “Sieg Heil!” The play, vividly showing what it was like to live in a police state, aroused strong emotions in its audiences. At one performance, a group of young soldiers screamed, yelled, and booed throughout and at the close attempted to rush the stage and assault the actor playing the Nazi officer.24 Attending an ABCA Play Unit production must have been extraordinary event for the audience. For many it was their first experience of live drama and even those accustomed to theater-going would have been bewildered by the absence of the traditional proscenium arch separating performers from spectators. ABCA plays were written to achieve audience participation and provoke thought and discussion. This purpose was summed up by Ted Willis talking about Where Do We Go From Here? It didn’t answer any questions, it just posed them. I think its greatest quality was the fact that it involved the soldiers and I know that when we moved on they went on discussing the play. Long after the show broke up you’d see groups of soldiers standing together, sitting together, discussing. And you can’t ask any more of theatre than that people should carry on discussing.25

However, despite the unit’s success in engaging its audiences, its message failed to reach most of the army. During the last six months of 1944 it gave just fifty-

A Citizen-soldier “Must Know What He Fights For”

61

eight performances to a total audience of around 20,000 people when around one million soldiers were still serving at home. The introduction of ABCA to troops in Britain rapidly led to its spread to other formations, services, and locations. The women of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) were included in current affairs training from 1941. ABCA made it clear that, because much auxiliary work seemed remote from the job of actually winning the war, it was important that the auxiliaries should be reminded of the issues at stake and be shown that their contribution was vital to the war effort.26 Officially the ABCA structure applied as much to the ATS as to the main army, but in practice the women were often refused permission to hold current affairs discussions during duty hours and most ATS sessions were delivered on a voluntary basis during evening leisure time. Initially it was reported that the women of the ATS “knew nothing, and cared less, for current affairs,” but by 1944, the standard of discussion among the auxiliaries had considerably improved and they were demanding a far wider range of subjects for their discussion sessions.27 ABCA bulletins were sent out each week to the Middle East where they were reset and reprinted on inferior paper under the imprint of the “Middle East branch of the Army Bureau of Current Affairs, G.H.Q., M.E.F.” Communication difficulties meant that bulletins did not always arrive when needed and on at least one occasion the branch had to reprint an article from an AEC pamphlet when the latest edition of Current Affairs failed to arrive.28 The bulletins were also reprinted in India with a special version of Current Affairs produced in English and Urdu explaining why the war was being fought in terms that were relevant to Indian troops.29 The Canadian forces stationed in the United Kingdom used ABCA techniques in their training and, early in 1942, this led to a successful request from the Canadian government to reissue the bulletins in Canada for use by the Canadian forces there.30 The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force (RAF) both adopted the current affairs training later than the army and with much greater caution. Navy and RAF units were “at war” more or less continuously and thus, due to operational constraints, the opportunity for current affairs discussion was far more limited. However, a voluntary scheme based on ABCA techniques was introduced into RAF home commands in 1942, and in November the Admiralty issued a new Fleet Order encouraging “informal talks” between officers and ratings on “national ideas and objectives” using ABCA bulletins. At this point 3,850 bulletins each week were being issued to the ships of the Royal Navy and 1,150 copies were going to RAF stations in Britain. The Navy never went beyond voluntary sessions but, late in 1943, the

62

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

RAF introduced a limited degree of compulsion to current affairs discussion and replaced War with its own current affairs bulletin, Target.31 Throughout the war ABCA faced resistance to its scheme, and opposition came from the highest level. Williams made no secret of his left-wing outlook, which prompted a number of Tory MPs, anxious that socialist propaganda might infiltrate the army, to approach Winston Churchill. The prime minister decided that ABCA would “only provide opportunity for the professional grouser and agitator with a glib tongue”32 and instructed the War Office to “wind up this business as quickly and decently as possible and set the persons concerned in it to useful work.”33 The War Office, believing that ABCA ought to be given a chance, quietly disregarded his order. Three years later Churchill was shown Abram Games’s poster depicting health provision in Britain. The prime minister described it as “a disgraceful libel on the conditions prevailing in Great Britain before the war,”34 and ordered an inquiry. The investigation cleared ABCA of any wrongdoing but Churchill could not resist a parting shot. “Every effort should be used to prevent extra time, money, and military personnel being absorbed in these activities. . . . Above all, no man fit to fight should be drawn into this organization, and the utmost vigilance must be used to correct the tendency of all such bodies to magnify themselves and their numbers.”35 However, nothing very much changed. For a second time ABCA emerged intact from an encounter with Britain’s decidedly unsympathetic leader. Initially many officers struggled with ABCA-style discussions, resenting them as yet another chore handed down the chain of command to the regimental dogsbodies. There were regular instances of officers who gave formal lectures, talked down to their men, led tedious and uninspiring sessions, or prioritized almost any other activity over ABCA.36 Gradually most officers adapted to the scheme, with many coming to believe that ABCA provided an opportunity for them to get to know their men better and a means for the soldiers to “let off steam.” However, the apathy and cynicism of the troops was often hard to break down. After participating in current affairs discussions, one recruit concluded that “getting the English worked up enough to defend democracy was an uphill task, as the average soldier appeared to have only three basic interests: football, beer and crumpet.”37 Conversely another soldier, Ray Sinclair, remembered that during ABCA sessions there was always lively discussion on the course of the war and how it was being fought, with a lot of questions raised on what type of country Britain would be when the war was over. These debates allowed his fellow soldiers to form opinions, political and otherwise, that would survive long after the war ended.38

A Citizen-soldier “Must Know What He Fights For”

63

Opposition and apathy meant ABCA got off to a slow start and, at the end of 1941, Williams reported that only about half of the units in Britain were putting the scheme into practice “to the best of their ability.”39 The following year saw an improvement, but current affairs provision remained patchy throughout the war and ABCA never achieved its ambition of reaching every citizen-soldier. Official figures showed a fairly positive overall picture in Britain. A survey conducted among 5,000 soldiers in transit camps and convalescent depots in late 1943 revealed that in 60 percent of all home units ABCA was being carried out with considerable success and adequately in another 10 percent. A coverage of 60–70 percent meant that over one million men and women were participating in current affairs discussions.40 However, there were persistent complaints that “training units and units whose men are widely scattered, or whose work is not of a strictly military nature are ignoring ABCA altogether or making only spasmodic attempts to use it when a particular topic interests them.”41 The regularity of ABCA sessions could also be easily disrupted by operational commitments, the cross-posting of personnel, and special duties. For obvious reasons, on active service abroad the number of current affairs discussions tended to fall dramatically. During the North African campaign only 30 percent of units managed to hold sessions regularly, with 45 percent doing so when they could.42 As Ray Sinclair observed, “Once we went on active service we never again had the ABCA lectures.”43 Despite this uneven record, one man had no doubts about ABCA’s ultimate value. In 1945 General Adam wrote that the bureau’s wartime initiative had succeeded in implanting in the British Army “the idea that officers and men can, and should, regularly spend some time together discussing on a common level problems not immediately connected with the tasks they have on hand.”44

Conclusion ABCA was an innovative plan to overcome low morale and lack of interest in the war in order to shape the citizen-army into a motivated and effective force. To reach every soldier its compulsory program of discussions on current affairs was delivered by junior officers supported by ABCA bulletins. These publications met with mixed success with the stimulating prose in War contrasting with the often uninspiring essays in Current Affairs. To improve the flow of information to the troops it became necessary to “pictorialize” and dramatize current affairs with wall newspapers, maps, posters, and plays. Having avoided suppression by

64

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Churchill on two occasions, ABCA faced further opposition from officers and apathy from the men. However, it ultimately gained credence with a majority of officers and men, and was reasonably successful in delivering its plan to a significant percentage of the army in Britain. At the very least ABCA provided the citizen-soldiers with a break from their daily routine of drudgery and drill. But for many it also provided a means to understand the progress of the war, to consider the shape of post-war Britain and, perhaps, to become a little more reconciled to their service in the British Army.

Notes 1 Current Affairs in the Army: The Outline of a New Plan (London: War Office, 1941), p. 1. 2 David French, Raising Churchill’s Army: The British Army and the War against Germany 1919–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 122. 3 S. P. Mackenzie, Politics and Military Morale: Current Affairs and Citizenship Education in the British Army 1914–1950 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 86. 4 Current Affairs in the Army, pp. 5–6. 5 Stephen Watts, Moonlight on a Lake in Bond Street (London: The Bodley Head, 1961), p. 108. 6 War, 34 (December 26, 1942), 1–8. 7 War, 74 (July 8, 1944), ii. 8 Current Affairs, 21 (July 4, 1942), “Hitler’s Own War”; 28 (October 10, 1942), “What Price Victory?” 9 Guy Chapman, A Kind of Survivor (London: Victor Gollancz, 1975), p. 191. 10 See, for instance, correspondence in TNA INF 1/294 after December 1942. 11 Current Affairs, 32 (December 5, 1942), ii. 12 Current Affairs, 45 (Double number, June 5, 1943), “Social Security.” 13 Current Affairs, 39 (March 13, 1943), “Spain”; 40 (March 27, 1943), “Latin America”; 57 (December 4, 1943), “Farming in Soviet Russia.” 14 War, 97 (June 23, 1945), ii. 15 Current Affairs, 17 (May 9, 1942), 1. 16 ABCA Middle East, Current Affairs, 75 (October 6, 1944), iii. 17 The A.B.C.A. Handbook: A Manual Designed for the Guidance of All Officers in the Conduct of Talks and Discussions on Current Affairs, new revised ed. (London: War Office, 1943), pp. 19–23. 18 Captain X [William G. C. Shebbeare], The Soldier Looks Ahead (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1944), pp. 23–27.

A Citizen-soldier “Must Know What He Fights For”

65

19 The A.B.C.A. Handbook, pp. 19–20. 20 ABCA Map Review, 2 (November 23 to December 6, 1942), reverse; 9 (March 1 to March 14, 1943), reverse. 21 IWM, Art.IWM PST 2911, Abram Games, “Your Britain—Fight For It Now (Health Centre).” 22 The A.B.C.A. Handbook, pp. 24–25. 23 Rebecca D’Monté, British Theatre and Performance 1900–1950 (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015), pp. 155–56. 24 Richard Fawkes, Fighting for a Laugh: Entertaining the British and American Armed Forces 1939–1946 (London: Macdonald and Jane’s, 1978), pp. 105–6. 25 Ibid., p. 110. 26 The A.B.C.A. Handbook, p. 7. 27 Major T. H. Hawkins and L. J. F. Brimble, Adult Education: The Record of the British Army (London: Macmillan, 1947), pp. 148, 152, 165–66. 28 ABCA Middle East, Current Affairs, 37 (May 14, 1943) “What is at Stake.” 29 Alan Jeffreys, Approach to Battle: Training the Indian Army during the Second World War (Solihull: Helion, 2017), p. 192. 30 Hawkins and Brimble, Adult Education, p. 164. 31 Mackenzie, Politics and Military Morale, pp. 226–28; Hawkins and Brimble, Adult Education, p. 164. 32 Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, 6 vols (London: Educational Book Company, 1954), III, p. 648. 33 Mackenzie, Politics and Military Morale, p. 100. 34 Churchill, The Second World War, IV, p. 736. 35 Ibid., V, p. 503. 36 War, 16 (April 18, 1942), iv. 37 French, Raising Churchill’s Army, p. 133. 38 Ray Sinclair, http:​//www​.bbc.​co.uk​/hist​ory/w​w2peo​plesw​ar/st​ories​/07/a​58883​07.sh​ tml (accessed February 15, 2017). 39 Mackenzie, Politics and Military Morale, p. 113. 40 Ibid., p. 184. 41 War, 22 (July 11, 1942), ii. 42 Mackenzie, Politics and Military Morale, p. 184. 43 Sinclair, http:​//www​.bbc.​co.uk​/hist​ory/w​w2peo​plesw​ar/st​ories​/07/a​58883​07.sh​tml 44 War, 97 (June 23, 1945), ii.

66

4

Britain To-day, Bulletins from Britain, and Britain: Some Semi-official British Periodicals in the United States During the Second World War Alice Byrne

By the end of the Second World War, British Information Services (BIS) employed over 300 people and possessed a well-oiled machinery for distributing news and background information about the United Kingdom across the United States.1 Based in New York, BIS had been formed in the spring of 1941 in order to coordinate British publicity in the United States under the authority of the British Embassy in Washington but employing staff from the MoI. BIS greatly expanded the British propaganda effort which had grown out of the modest prewar British Library of Information (BLI), controlled by the Foreign Office (FO). One of the channels for BIS’s information campaign was the magazine Britain produced in conjunction with the MoI based in London. Britain had originally appeared under the title Bulletins from Britain, but it had been renamed as part of a major revision in 1942. BIS was not, however, the only agency to produce a British propaganda magazine: the British Council, although not physically present in the United States, continued to circulate its magazine Britain To-day to a number of American readers.2 Indeed, the British propaganda effort in the United States was marked by inter-departmental, rivalry and conflicting views of what information should be given to the American public and through which channels. This parallel history was largely absent from the “official” history by John Wheeler-Bennett deposited in the National Archives, which tended to focus on the gradual construction of an effective propaganda organization. This chapter seeks to flesh out our understanding of how British information to the United States evolved during the war by focusing on the actual material

68

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

produced and, specifically, on two periodicals initially distributed by the BLI in New York: Britain To-day and Bulletins from Britain/Britain.

Competing periodicals? Britain To-day first appeared in March 1939 as a simple newsletter with no cover or illustrations. It declared its objective as follows: The purpose of Britain To-day is to bring the friends, and, for that matter, the critics of Great Britain into closer touch with current happenings in our country, by recording and commenting upon important features and developments in our national life, whether they be experiments in the reorganisation of industry, inquiries into social or economic problems, new methods of co-operation in the sphere of the central or local government or in the relations between Great Britain and the Dominions, new movements in art or literature, anything indeed which may be of interest to the citizens of other countries occupied with problems like our own.3

It sought, therefore, to paint an image of the UK with a broad brush, defining British culture in terms of the “life and thought” of the country and not merely in the restricted sense of the arts. However, since Britain To-day was conceived of as a response to German propagandists, concern with refuting anti-British propaganda led it to adopt a defensive tone.4 The outbreak of war gave Britain To-day a clearer purpose but also brought administrative uncertainty. It seemed at first that the British Council and its publications would be absorbed by the newly formed MoI. However, after having been transferred to the MoI at the start of the war, within a few months Britain To-day was moved back to the British Council, which was assigned the task of dealing with cultural and educational topics, leaving war “publicity” and political propaganda to the ministry.5 In practice, the line of demarcation between the two bodies was difficult to establish; despite this, or perhaps because of it, the council’s chairman, Lord Lloyd, was determined to prevent the then Minister of Information, Sir John Reith, from curtailing the actions of the council. Although the MoI had ceded control of Britain To-day to the British Council (operating under the aegis of the FO), Lloyd was conscious of the fact that “Britain To-day was in fact, though not in name, ‘Britain at War’ in that it attempted to paint a picture of the life of this country in war-time.” As such he feared that Reith would insist that Britain To-day be restricted entirely to cultural subjects,

Britain To-day, Bulletins from Britain, and Britain

69

thus limiting its appeal. Indeed, without articles of “topical war interest” the magazine risked becoming unsuitable for its task in the eyes of embassy officials who assured its distribution.6 While the MoI continued to press the council to relinquish its activities in the field of press and broadcasting, Britain To-day was specifically excluded from the negotiations.7 Subsequently, the MoI appeared content to leave the running of Britain To-day to the British Council, though it did make occasional suggestions of suitable topics.8 The German invasion of France and the Low Countries in spring 1940 brought an end to both the phoney war and the Chamberlain government. Churchill’s invitation to Lord Lloyd to join his new cabinet as Secretary of State for the Colonies strengthened the British Council’s position. At the same time, the editor of Britain To-day, Maurice Ashley, left to join the army and was replaced in June 1940 with the journalist and literary critic Rolfe Arnold ScottJames. Scott-James had previously edited the London Mercury which, like many cultural periodicals, had ceased publication shortly after the outbreak of war. Scott-James would play a major role in determining the voice of Britain To-day until it finally ceased publication in December 1954. The occupation of much of Europe by Germany led to a dramatic drop in circulation for Britain To-day which, however, was soon offset by its expansion in the United States. Americans had had their first taste of Britain To-day at the New York World Fair in 1939 and the magazine was subsequently distributed by the BLI in the same city. As the war intensified, so did British attempts to win over American public opinion, while ostensibly adhering to the official policy of “no propaganda” in the United States. Although active American support had become more vital than ever, this need was matched by a rise in American fears of being manipulated by foreign propaganda.9 Hence the FO and MoI’s extreme caution when addressing US public opinion. Various methods were employed, including encouraging British writers to undertake lecture tours in the United States, tailoring BBC programs to US tastes, and increasing the production of British books and articles published in the United States.10 Official involvement in such projects was kept to a minimum so that writers could plausibly claim to be simply meeting American demands for their written and spoken material. In the summer of the 1940, as Britain began to experience its first air raids, British propagandists expanded their efforts to direct factual information to the United States which would elicit both sympathy and respect for the British war effort. A more direct approach was adopted, notably with the launch of the BBC’s North American Service in July 1940.11 The launch of Bulletins from Britain in August 1940 similarly sought to open a new channel for information of a more

70

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

official nature. This newsletter carried short texts on the British war effort, taken from the cables and mail sent to British officials in the United States. It was distributed from the BLI and was, as Wheeler-Bennett later recalled, intended to “convey factual information to an unselected mailing list.”12 Shortly after the launch of Bulletins from Britain, the BLI also increased its monthly order of Britain To-day to 8,000 issues which it distributed across the United States. Britain To-day also compiled its own list of a further 6,000 addresses of individuals and institutions to which it sent the magazine. Such was the success of Britain To-day that by the end of the year the United States was its biggest market with a circulation of 22,000, a figure which the director of the BLI expected to rise.13 Both publications were distributed free of charge, bearing the stamp of the BLI. Although the official origin of Bulletins from Britain was made explicit, Britain To-day only carried the address of the BLI with no mention of the British Council. Given the success of Britain To-day and the BLI’s involvement in increasing its circulation, it may be wondered why Bulletins from Britain was deemed necessary. By 1940, Britain To-day had developed into a more sophisticated fortnightly production, with a cover by Paul Nash, sixteen pages of text, and eight pages of illustration. All the articles, except for the editorial, were signed, frequently by men and occasionally by women with established reputations, whether as journalists and critics (Dilys Powell, Ivor Brown), academics (Prof. Ernest Barker), writers (Laurence Binyon) or experts in other specialized fields (Sir William Bragg, Patrick Abercrombie). With an average of four articles, each four pages long, including the editorial, Britain To-day sought to cover a limited number of topics in some depth. Bulletins from Britain was an entirely different proposition. Published weekly, it consisted of only five pages: most of the texts were anonymous and were only a few paragraphs long; longer two-page articles occasionally carried a byline but none were by famous authors. In terms of content, almost half of Britain To-day was dedicated to cultural topics with the remainder split evenly between articles dealing with the war and the armed forces, and those dealing with the home front. Bulletins from Britain barely concerned itself at all with cultural matters and was focused purely on the war. However, like Britain To-day, it offered roughly equal space to the armed forces and the home front. To a large extent the two publications reflected the separation of political from cultural propaganda. In practice, though, there was much overlap. The earliest issues of Bulletins from Britain were dominated by the air war, covering such topics as the role of Empire and Polish pilots, the use of US aircraft, and German losses. This is hardly surprising given that its

Britain To-day, Bulletins from Britain, and Britain

71

launch came at the height of the Battle of Britain. Britain To-day also devoted its mid-September editorial to the subject of air raids, both against and by Britain. Its August editorials may also fairly be described as war propaganda dealing with the blockade of Germany, in particular the interests of the neutral nations, and British morale. The latter text ended with a declaration aimed at convincing sympathetic readers in neutral countries, predominantly the United States, of the importance of their support: The British people are sure of the rightness of their cause and fortified by it. Millions of people in the conquered countries are no less sure of it, and the power of public opinion among neutrals is a spiritual asset of incalculable worth. To the British people immense material force is not lacking. Animated by moral force it will be irresistible.14

Concerning the home front, Britain To-day tended to present somewhat technical explanations, detailing, for example, the organization of the Local Defence Volunteers or the treatment of civilian casualties from air raids; while Bulletins from Britain placed more emphasis on the theme of Britain “carrying on” despite the Blitz.15 All of these articles highlighted British unity and the emergence of a “new spirit.” Britain To-day’s cultural articles went further, for example by criticizing the class tradition of English education and anticipating how the breaking down of class divisions during the war would lead to the emergence of a “more unified, extended and deeper purpose in the whole education system” after the war. This article can be seen as a precursor of the material produced by both the MoI and the British Council from 1942 onwards which placed increasing emphasis on the postwar reform in the fields of welfare, housing, and education.16 Finally, both Britain To-day and Bulletins from Britain carried articles on wartime theater featuring the presence of American drama in Britain, thereby drawing attention to a shared Anglo-American culture.17 Despite the fact that Britain To-day had to address a wider international audience, it purveyed broadly the same messages as Bulletins from Britain, which were clearly tailored to counter US doubts about the UK’s ability to resist Nazi aggression and its suitability as a potential ally. More significant were the differences in form and style between the two publications, indicative of the readers each sought to address. Britain To-day had from the outset been aimed at “those who count” and, without being fully highbrow, tended to be more intellectual.18 As such it suited the purpose of the BLI, which had traditionally served the “academic and literary field.” However, this approach was criticized by more recently appointed propagandists who convinced Lord Lothian, the UK

72

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

ambassador to the United States, that the BLI was struggling to adapt to its new role as the nerve center of British propaganda in the United States. The launch of Bulletins from Britain, and the expansion of Britain To-day in the United States, coincided with a shift in British policy marked by the launch of a new British Press Service in the autumn of 1940. However, the library remained under the aegis of the FO and continued to facilitate the “supply of information to academic and cultural institutions and to the general public,” which included the distribution of these periodicals.19 Bulletins from Britain failed to impress FO officials back in London who, by 1941, were already discussing whether Angus Fletcher, the director of the BLI, should take steps to improve it. The problem was partly one of staff, since Fletcher was thought to lack “the right people to produce a readable publication of the kind required.”20 Britain To-day also came in for criticism, with the head of the FO’s North American Division concluding “it is common ground that the two publications now issued in the USA under HMG’s auspices are dreary in the extreme and do our cause little good.”21 Their doubts appeared to be confirmed by a memorandum produced by the press committee of the interventionist American Defense, Harvard Group, which criticized Britain To-day for being “wordy” (this was also a common criticism of many of the MoI’s earlier publications) and “filled with an all-out optimism.” The fundamental problem was that it was not written with an American reader in mind: “The editorials might be interesting to an Englishman or a colonial, but they have no interest for an American reader. If Britain To-day is specifically intended for the Empire and not for the United States, then a similar bulletin, tailored for American consumption, should be worked out.”22 The FO had already reached the same conclusion earlier in the year and had thrown its weight behind a proposal for a new magazine by a South African publisher serving in the Canada Corps, Norman Kark, who also had experience of the United States. Kark provided further evidence of the unsuitability of Bulletins from Britain and Britain To-day, claiming that members of the Canadian Corps with working experience of US newspapers to whom he had shown the publications agreed they could “serve no useful purpose.” Kark argued that American readers were “nauseated by the present uplift type of article” which should be replaced by more “indirect propaganda” based on “reader interest and entertainment value.” Kark’s projected magazine was to be designed for American readers and marketed as “a sincere effort to cement the friendship of the two English Speaking Nations.”23 An outline of the magazine comprised digests and reprinted articles as well as specially commissioned texts

Britain To-day, Bulletins from Britain, and Britain

73

and included cartoons, jokes, and sketches which all contributed to a livelier tone. Kark’s credentials were drawn from his experience publishing a magazine entitled Courier, described by the FO as being produced in a “bright” and “semiAmerican” style. Courier differed from Britain To-day and Bulletins from Britain in the emphasis it placed on high-quality photographs and illustrations and its inclusion of sections dedicated to humor, cinema, and fashion. This, combined with its lack of faith in the BLI’s ability to produce an appropriate magazine, led the FO to invite the MoI to consider scrapping the existing publications in favor of Kark’s new project provisionally entitled Britain Calling. The MoI did not show the same level of enthusiasm, fearing that the new publication would be too much like Courier, but promising to seek Kark’s advice if Britain To-day and Bulletins from Britain were to be amalgamated. There is no evidence that the MoI ever contacted Kark but his ideas would later resurface.

A new approach By the end of 1941, Britain To-day ’s circulation in the United States had reached 40,000. At the request of the BLI, it was decided that Britain To-day should be placed on sale. This offered a means not only to reduce costs but also to remove the taint of propaganda associated with free distribution. In January 1942 Britain To-day was launched at the price of 10 cents and with a new look intended to make the magazine more attractive. Henceforth, Britain To-day would be a 28-page monthly with more illustrations, extra articles, and book reviews. The editorial accompanying the first such issue suggested a shift away from a straightforward “projection of Britain” approach in favor of a more reciprocal exchange: Robert Louis Stevenson used to say that he liked to think of his books as circular letters written to his friends. That is how we like to think of Britain To-day. . . . Friendship implies intellectual intercourse. Each side wants to know what the other has to tell, and to give back his story in return.24

This was not, however, the kind of bright and breezy publication Britain To-day’s critics had had in mind, but aimed to resemble a worthy, upper middlebrow cultural review along the lines of the London Mercury, the defunct magazine formerly edited by Scott-James.25 Indeed the war news of the earlier format gave way to articles relating to social issues, education (the subject of a series

74

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

which ran throughout 1942), and reconstruction. Following the US entry into the war in December 1941, the conflict itself was henceforth described as a war for democracy, defined by Britain To-day as “not a national, but an international conception,” citing Abraham Lincoln to justify this claim.26 Increasing emphasis was placed on the international dimension of reconstruction and on the importance of “winning the peace.”27 Britain To-day’s attempts to develop its subscription base were disrupted by a major reorganization of British publicity in the United States which effectively placed responsibility in the hands of the MoI. In May 1942 the BLI was amalgamated with the British Press Service and its functions assumed by BIS, which took over the BLI’s mailing lists.28 It thus fell to BIS to send out the first promotion letters, which brought in about 3000 paying subscribers. However, when Scott-James asked BIS to carry on promotion of Britain To-day by sending free copies to suitable people, BIS agreed to do so but only on a limited scale due to lack of staff. The British Council suspected that the real reason for BIS’s lack of commitment to Britain To-day was because it preferred to invest its energy in its own publications. Given the unwillingness of BIS to promote Britain To-day, Scott-James received permission to engage a commercial firm to take charge of its distribution in the United States. An agreement was reached with the Toronto office of the publisher Dent’s, which had already taken over responsibility for the printing of the North American edition using molds sent from the UK. This did not however fully resolve the issue as BIS only sent Dent’s the list of paying subscribers but not of those who had failed to renew.29 Lack of access to the BIS’s mailing list proved a major obstacle to the development of sales in the United States. This was made particularly acute given the political sensitivity about the distribution of unsolicited material. Suggestions that complimentary copies of Britain To-day might be sent to American officials or that British Consuls might identify potential subscribers were discouraged by both the FO and BIS.30 The ambiguous status of Britain To-day complicated matters: BIS refused to share its mailing lists with a commercial house while drawing attention to the need to respect US regulation of foreign propaganda.31 Despite its attempt to re-market itself as a commercial periodical, the development of sales of Britain To-day remained constrained by the fact that ultimately it was a semi-official publication produced using public funds with the aim of influencing public opinion. Indeed, Dent’s was obliged to submit details of all its publications produced for foreign principals, including Britain To-day, under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (1938). These records

Britain To-day, Bulletins from Britain, and Britain

75

testify to the fact that Britain To-day failed to convert its circulation of free issues into a significant subscription base as documents filed for 1943 and 1944 give its average monthly circulation as only 2,200 (although this figure does not appear to include copies distributed by BIS).32 BIS finally agreed to re-circularize its entire mailing list to promote Britain To-day in the summer of 1944, but there is no evidence that this had a significant impact on sales.33 The MoI was not in fact certain that BIS possessed a separate mailing list for Britain To-day and it is possible that the same list was used to distribute Bulletins from Britain. If this was indeed the case, those readers of Britain To-day who had decided not to subscribe when the magazine ceased free distribution would have continued to receive Bulletins from Britain. This would offer a further explanation as to why BIS did not wish to share this mailing list with Dent’s. Moreover, as was noted by the British Council, at the same time that BIS was pleading lack of staff to justify its failure to promote Britain To-day, it was also planning to launch a new publication. BIS commissioned a poll of Bulletins from Britain’s readers by a commercial subsidiary of Gallup to determine what improvements needed to be made.34 As a result, Bulletins from Britain was scrapped and replaced with a new publication, entitled simply Britain. Launched in November 1942, Britain was modelled on the hugely successful Reader’s Digest.35 It carried condensed versions of previously published texts, poetry, and fiction, and transcripts of speeches as well as specially commissioned texts. It also included jokes, cartoons and quizzes, and overall bore a close resemblance to the sort of publication suggested by Normal Kark in 1941. Indeed, like the projected Britain Calling, it was specifically marketed as seeking to strengthen Anglo-American relations, with a subtitle announcing, “Toward a greater knowledge and better understanding of America’s allies, the people of Britain.” As the United States had moved from the status of neutral nation to ally, the need was less for war news than for cultural propaganda aimed at fostering mutual comprehension. This was also the consequence of a new propaganda policy agreed by the FO and the MoI, which anticipated the need for Anglo-American cooperation in the postwar world.36 Both Britain To-day and Britain were concerned with educating their readers about Britain. However, Britain targeted a different audience from Britain To-day and the selection of articles in the UK was entrusted to the popular middlebrow author Phyllis Bentley.37 John Wheeler-Bennett described it thus: ‘Britain’ was designed for popular consumption so that a non-specialised audience would have an opportunity to read stories about Britain which by their

76

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War emotional or dramatic appeal would imprint on their minds a picture of the British war effort.38

Like Britain To-day, Britain was put on sale for 10 cents but was far more successful, building up a list of 84,000 subscribers by the following year.39 This suggests that the new format adopted by Britain was generally more appealing to American readers than that of Britain To-day. Nevertheless, Britain also benefited from more effective promotion and distribution by BIS. Indeed, John Wheeler-Bennett would later claim that by 1943, BIS possessed “the only efficient machine in America for distributing information concerning Britain.”40 At sixty-eight pages, Britain was longer and more varied in its style and content than Britain To-day. The first number relied heavily on extracts from a book published by Harper entitled London Calling, edited by the novelist Storm Jameson.41 London Calling had itself been discreetly solicited by the MoI and was intended to foster Anglo-American friendship.42 Extracts included poems by John Masefield, Walter de la Mare, and Dorothy L. Sayers, a short story by Rose Macaulay, and reflections on the interwar period by Harold Butler, the head of BIS, who had also published in Britain To-day. The latter article, which anticipated the emergence of “a new kind of society” which would “safeguard rights” and “exact obligations” resembled those published by Britain To-day.43 Indeed, Britain To-day’s editorial of the same month, November 1942, struck a similar note to Butler arguing that the expansion of education was essential to equip every individual to “fulfil his duties as a public-spirited citizen.”44 Although Britain carried weighty and informative articles, the overall tone was leavened by the inclusion of humor and fiction. Moreover, semi-fictional accounts dramatized the experiences of those serving on Atlantic convoys, refurbishing ships, or in munitions factories. The content was much closer to what the Harvard Group had called for back in 1941. Britain To-day, however, continued to publish articles such as “Shopkeepers or Humanists” by Gilbert Murray, celebrating the “old aristocratic tradition” of humanism, which was exactly the type of rather smug article that the Harvard Group had criticized.45 The war remained the primary focus of Britain particularly through firsthand accounts, whether of a family returning to their blast-damaged house or that of a secret agent parachuted into France.46 Every issue contained an article written by a member of the armed forces while the accompanying photographs often included action shots of combat at sea or, later, soldiers liberating France. This continued until the final issue in April 1945. In the months following D-Day, Britain To-day, however, preferred to focus on questions such as the

Britain To-day, Bulletins from Britain, and Britain

77

humanitarian aid delivered in liberated Europe.47 In the final year of war, the magazine was particularly preoccupied with the postwar order and published a number of articles arguing for the need for international cooperation in order to ensure a lasting peace.48 To a certain extent, Britain To-day was already carving out a new post-conflict role for itself as an advocate of cultural internationalism. Magazines were considered an important vector for British propaganda in the United States, which is unsurprising given the dominance of this form of media in mid-twentieth-century America.49 Although British policy stipulated that British information in the United States had to be honest and factual, the different bodies involved in producing British magazines disagreed as to their form and content. In the early years of the war, when the United States was still neutral, Britain To-day and Bulletins from Britain both provided free news about the British war effort distributed through the BLI, with the former laying greater emphasis on cultural matters. However, both magazines were criticized for being ill-adapted to an American readership. The FO failed in its attempt to merge the publications into a new magazine targeting the American public and it was left to the British Council and the MoI to make their own changes. Britain To-day developed into a cultural periodical aimed at a small elite readership with a greater interest in promoting postwar reconstruction projects than in carrying news of the war. Britain, launched in November 1942, was modelled on popular mass-circulation American magazines and informed its readers about the British war effort through a combination of factual and fictionalized accounts. Britain was by far and away the most successful British propaganda magazine in terms of circulation, though it is unclear to what extent this was due to its innate virtues given the fact that it was the only such magazine to benefit from the effective organization of the BIS. Despite their differences, Britain To-day and Britain were both placed on sale in 1942 in an attempt to pass for commercial publications. Both magazines increasingly described themselves as seeking to inform their American readers about Britain in the interests of mutual comprehension. Although at the beginning of the war, the cultural propaganda produced by the British Council seemed destined to disappear, in reality the war created a need for this type of approach to convince potential allies that Britain was deserving of support. Once the United States had joined the war as the United Kingdom’s ally, the need for greater understanding only grew. It would therefore be inaccurate to distinguish the magazines along the lines of cultural propaganda (British Council) versus political propaganda (MoI) since both were concerned with presenting a positive image of British culture and way of life. However, Britain’s emphasis on the war,

78

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

meant that it was ultimately ill-suited to continue publication in the postwar period, unlike Britain To-day. Nevertheless, the reason Britain To-day outlived Britain was primarily an administrative one: while the MoI was converted into the Central Office of Information after the war, the British Council continued to function under its royal charter as a semi-independent organization and as such it was able to maintain its publications. Yet arguably Britain To-day, with its limited circulation and problems of distribution, as well as its rather 1930s feel, was badly placed to survive in the competitive world of American postwar magazines. It ceased publication in 1954 without ever reaching the circulation figures enjoyed by Britain.

Notes 1 FARA Report to Congress 1945–1949, https​://ww​w.far​a.gov​/repo​rts/A​rchiv​e/194​ 5-194​9_FAR​A.pdf​, p. 323 (accessed September 13, 2017). 2 For more on the British Council’s wartime role in the United States, see Alice Byrne, “The British Council and Cultural Propaganda in the United States, 1938–1945,” Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 11:3 (2013), 249–63, http:​//dx.​doi.o​rg10.​1080/​ 14794​012.2​013.8​14386​ 3 “Foreword,” Britain To-day 1, March 17, 1939, p. 1. 4 M. C. H. and R. H. J., “Britain To-day: A Council Periodical in War and Peace,” British Council Monthly Review, November 1947, p. 171, The National Archives (hereafter TNA), BW 119/2. 5 A. J. S. White, The British Council: The First Twenty-five Years, 1934–1959 (London: British Council, 1965), pp. 30–31. 6 Lord Lloyd, March 7, 1940, TNA, BW 82/7. 7 Frances Donaldson, The British Council: The First Fifty Years (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984), p. 72. 8 Anonymous document relating negotiations with the MoI, March 1940, TNA, BW 82/7. 9 For further details see Nicholas Cull, Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign against American “Neutrality” in World War II (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) and Susan A. Brewer, To Win the Peace: British Propaganda in the United States during World War II (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997). 10 Robert L. Calder, Beware the British Serpent: The Role of writers in British Propaganda in the United States 1939–1945 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004), pp. 151–53 and 207; Brewer, To Win the Peace, p. 49. 11 Calder, Beware the British Serpent, p. 207; Brewer, To Win the Peace, p. 49.

Britain To-day, Bulletins from Britain, and Britain

79

12 John Wheeler-Bennett, “History of British Information in the USA,” p. 63, TNA, F0 953/7. 13 British Council Quarterly Reports, TNA, BW 82/9. 14 Editorial, “The Will to Victory,” Britain To-day 33, August 1940, p. 3. 15 Colonel Lord Gorell, “Local Defence Volunteers,” Britain To-day 33, August 1940, G. B. Shirlaw, “Air Rad Precautions: The Treatment of Casualties,” Britain To-day 36, September 1940; “London Carrying on Between the Raids,” Bulletins from Britain 3, “British Courage” and “The Fortress of England,” Bulletins from Britain 4. 16 Kenneth Lindsay, “British Education—Past and Future,” Britain To-day 33, August 1940, pp. 4–7. 17 Ashely Dukes, “Repertory and Little Theatres in War-time,” Britain To-day 34, August 1940, pp. 9–12; “Shakespeare and Sheridan,” Bulletins from Britain 1, p. 4. 18 M. C. H. and R. H. J., “Britain To-day.” 19 Wheeler-Bennett, “History of British Information in the USA,” pp. 14–15, TNA, F0 953/7. 20 Minute by J. Balfour, May 27, 1941, TNA, FO 371/26185. 21 Minute by T. North Whitehead, May 27, 1941, TNA, FO 371/26185. 22 Memorandum by the press committee, American Defence, Harvard Group, October 30, 1941. This document was produced overnight at the demand of T. North Whitehead and the writers later expressed regret at what they had written. Nonetheless, North Whitehead considered the memorandum expressed a genuine and widespread feeling of irritation with England. T. North Whitehead, November 15, 1941, TNA, F0 371/26188. 23 Kark to Darvall, MoI, May 15, 1941, TNA, FO 371/26185. 24 Editorial, “A Circular Letter,” Britain To-day 69, January 1942, pp. 1–2. 25 According to J. M. Huculak, the London Mercury’s specificity was its ability to serve as a meeting place for the highbrow and middlebrow. J. Matthew Huculak, “The London Mercury (1919–1939) and Other Moderns,” in The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines: Vol. I, Britain and Ireland 1880–1955, eds. P. Brooker and A. Thacker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 257. 26 Editorial, “Everyman,” Britain To-day 70, February 1942, p. 2. 27 For example, Harold Butler, “British Reconstruction,” Britain To-day 71, March 1942; Editorial, “Collaboration,” Britain To-day 75, July 1942. 28 Wheeler-Bennett, “History of British Information in the USA,” pp. 50–55, TNA, FO 953/7. 29 Kennedy-Cooke, British Council to Gurney, FO, May 7, 1944, TNA, FO 370/890. 30 Darvall MoI to Gurney FO, June 21, 1944; Gurney to Kennedy-Cooke BC, July 6, 1944, TNA, FO 370/890. 31 Darvall MoI to Scott-James, May 15, 1944, TNA, FO 370/890. 32 FARA Report to Congress 1942–1944, https​://ww​w.far​a.gov​/repo​rts/A​rchiv​e/194​ 2-194​4_FAR​A.pdf​, pp. 312–13.

80

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

33 Exchange between MoI, BIS, and Scott-James, May–June 1944, TNA, FO 370/890. 34 Wheeler-Bennett, “History of British Information in the USA,” p. 63. TNA, FO 953/7. 35 Phyllis Bentley, “O Dreams, O Destinations” An Autobiography (London: Victor Gollancz, 1962), p. 231. 36 Brewer, To Win the Peace, pp. 88–91. 37 Ibid., pp. 69. 38 Wheeler-Bennett, “History of British Information in the USA,” p. 63. TNA, FO 953/7. 39 TNA, INF 1/102. 40 Wheeler-Bennett, “History of British Information in the USA,” p. 64. TNA, FO 953/7. 41 Britain 1, November 1942. 42 Calder, Beware the British Serpent, p. 158. 43 Harold Butler, “The Issue,” Britain 1, November 1942, p. 22. 44 Editorial, “Citizens in the Making,” Britain To-day 79, November 1942, p. 3. 45 Gilbert Murray, “Shopkeepers or Humanists,” Britain To-day 79, November 1942, p. 5. 46 Phyllis Lovell, “It’s Good to Come Home,” pp. 15–19 and anonymous, “I was a Secret Agent in France,” pp. 26–18, Britain V:6, April 1945. 47 For example, Denys Val Baker, “Post-war Relief,” Britain To-day 103, November 1944; Editorial, “The Renaissance of Europe,” Britain To-day 105, January 1945. 48 For example: A. L. Goodhart, “International Law and English Law,” Britain To-day 98, June 1944; Editorial, “At the Cross-Roads,” Britain To-day 99, July 1944; Editorial, “The Third Act,” Britain To-day 108, April 1945; Editorial, “Before War, and After,” Britain To-day 111, July 1945. 49 David E. Sumner qualified the twentieth century as “a magazine century and an American magazine century without a doubt.” The Magazine Century: American Magazines Since 1900 (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), p. 2.

5

Teamwork: Carlton Moss, US Propaganda Film, and the Fight for Black Visibility in the Second World War Joseph Clark

In January 1944, the black press in the United States was alight with criticism of the US OWI. Editorial writers accused the OWI and the Hollywood studio newsreels of collaborating to omit Signal Corps footage of black servicemen from the coverage of President Roosevelt’s visit to Europe. The furor erupted after what the press deemed to be superior scenes, including African American soldiers, appeared in the All-American Newsreel—a film series made for black audiences.1 Front-page stories in The Atlanta Daily World and New York Amsterdam News accused the government and Hollywood of a “blackout” and the editors of Crisis—the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—saw a deliberate “scheme” designed to obscure the contribution of African Americans to the war effort from white audiences.2 All this means that the movie going public, estimated at more than 75 million people weekly, sees no films of Negro soldiers, but does see many films of white soldiers. Inevitably white people get the impression Negroes are doing little if anything to win the victory. . . . This scheme to keep from white America the news that the minority is doing its part in the war is a dastardly trick, as mean as any perpetuated against the race.3

These protestations illustrate the stakes for African American soldiers during the Second World War. In 1944 the US military—like much of American society— was segregated. African American leaders hoped that black military service would help make the moral case for desegregation and civil rights when the war was over. To make this case, it was imperative that the sacrifices made by African

82

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Americans in the war effort be documented, recognized, and remembered by white America. Black visibility during the Second World War was seen as an essential part of the so-called Double V Campaign, which argued that victory over fascism in the war would help achieve victory over racism in the United States. The Pittsburgh Courier introduced the notion of a “Double Victory”—or “Double V” for short—in February 1942. Adapting the “V is for Victory” campaign slogan, the Courier suggested that African Americans should rally to support the war effort while pushing for civil rights on the home front, urging its readers to fight for democracy by waging, “a two-pronged attack against our enslavers at home and those abroad who will enslave us. WE HAVE A STAKE IN THIS FIGHT . . . WE ARE AMERICANS, TOO!”4 Key to the aims of the Double V Campaign was making visible to white America the wartime participation and sacrifices of African Americans. How could the war effort be used to push for civil rights gains, if African American sacrifices were being concealed from the American public? It was in the context of these debates over black visibility that the US government aimed to address questions of African American morale through its wartime motion pictures. Even before the outcry over the Roosevelt footage erupted in the black press, the US War Department had commissioned a film designed to boost black morale in the military. The Negro Soldier was released in January of 1944—just as the furor over the lack of black soldiers in the newsreels was peaking. Two years later, at the end of the war, the War Department released, Teamwork (1946). Both Teamwork and The Negro Soldier were produced for the Information and Education Branch of the War Department using Signal Corps footage supplemented by staged scenes shot in Hollywood. The principal creative link between the two films was African American writer and dramatist Carlton Moss. Moss worked with John Houseman and Orson Welles on the Federal Theater Project in Harlem before being recruited to work on the script for The Negro Soldier. Credited only as a “technical advisor” on Teamwork, Moss wrote and produced both films. Despite the links between the two films, The Negro Soldier is fairly well known today and well documented by US historians and film scholars—the film was entered into the National Film Registry in 2011— while Teamwork has been largely forgotten.5 Examining these two films and their shared concern for black visibility and collective memory in wartime, reveals the complicated ways in which African American military service was filmed and presented during and immediately after the Second World War. By looking at the themes of public memory and

Teamwork

83

recognition in The Negro Soldier and Teamwork, as well as by comparing their production, distribution, and reception, this chapter will show the ways in which the efforts to make visible the contributions of black soldiers during the Second World War initially succeeded despite a segregated military but were stymied once the war had ended and interests changed. While these War Department films were commissioned to bolster black morale and assuage criticism of segregation and lack of visibility for African American service members, Moss’s films went further. Using the visual power of film, Moss’s work aimed to write the contributions of African Americans into America’s military history and into the country’s future. As we shall see, by the war’s end Moss’s efforts to document and record African American military service represented an uncomfortable image for a government and country not prepared to end segregation and racial inequality. The film record alone would not be enough to secure Double Victory.

The Negro Soldier and African American Memory Produced for the War Department as part of Frank Capra’s Why We Fight series, The Negro Soldier was a landmark in government-sponsored motion pictures and a success with critics and audiences. It was the first effort by the War Department to address black morale and a rare opportunity for African American audiences to see themselves represented onscreen in a well-financed, Hollywood-style production. For the black press—tired of the derogatory and superficial representations of African Americans prevalent in Hollywood films at the time and dissatisfied with the low quality of so-called race movies produced with all-black casts—the film was a revelation. Even though it avoided discussion of segregation or racial tensions within the military, reviewers in the black press saw the film as “brave, powerful and hopeful.”6 Poet Langston Hughes went so far as to call the film, “the most remarkable Negro film ever flashed on an American screen.”7 More importantly, the film’s high quality and professionalism held out the possibility of it being shown to white audiences. Indeed, reviewer Ernest E. Johnson argued that “the picture will have been made in vain if it does not appear before white audiences.”8 For these reviewers, The Negro Soldier represented exactly the kind of visibility necessary to achieve the goals of the Double V Campaign. As film historians Thomas Cripps and David Culbert have detailed, the film was initially planned for use in the basic orientation of black troops, but quickly became “mandatory viewing for all troops at replacement centers in the United

84

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

States. Between February 1944 and August 1945 . . . almost every black [soldier] in the army and Air Corps saw the film [and] millions of white soldiers viewed it as part of the Information and Education Division’s standard orientation program.”9 In response to the positive reviews, as well as pressure from the NAACP and the black press, the film was also distributed commercially and for non-commercial civilian screenings in the United States. The film reportedly was shown in three hundred cinemas in New York alone, and was even requested by thousands of exhibitors in the South.10 The film’s unusual forty-minute runtime may have limited its commercial appeal, but it found considerable success with civilian audiences in nontheatrical venues, including “capacity audiences” at screenings at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in July of 1944.11 The film was seen by military personnel and civilians, black audiences and, crucially for the Double V Campaign, white ones too. Carlton Moss played a key role in creating the film and ensuring its favorable reception in the black community. After the initial draft was deemed overly dramatic, director Stuart Heisler insisted that Capra hire someone who “really knows the background of the Negro” to revise the film’s script and Moss was tasked with writing a new treatment.12 Framed around a sermon given in a black church and told through a series of flashbacks, Moss’s script detailed the contributions of African American soldiers to past war efforts before turning to the conditions and contributions of black soldiers in the Second World War. In addition to writing the film, Moss starred in it. Early attempts at casting the part of the preacher had proven difficult and Heisler insisted Moss take over the role. Moss understood that, for the African American community, the respect and recognition that could be achieved by a film like The Negro Soldier would in itself have a profound effect on black morale. Some critics—including the New York Times—criticized the film for “discreetly avoid[ing] the more realistic race problems” and “sugar coat[ing]” issues broader than African American participation in the war.13 Indeed, the War Department had played it safe, by refusing to include footage of black commanding officers and minimizing images of African Americans in combat roles in order to avoid provoking racist resentment among white audiences.14 Moreover, the film depicted a virtually all-black world while avoiding the topic of segregation in the military and beyond. Nevertheless, Moss understood that, despite its rather anodyne politics, the film could still contribute to the goals of the Double V Campaign. He told Time magazine, that he had “assured white friends who were discouraged by its mildness that the picture would mean more to Negroes than most white men could imagine.”15 In an interview with Phyllis Klotman, Moss discussed the film’s

Teamwork

85

aims to make visible both the reality of black participation in the current war and the role African Americans had played in America’s military past: What we determined ourselves was to record two things: the first was the fact that black citizens were participating in every branch of the service. No one had any record of that. The other thing which had immediate importance was to let the parents know something of what the routine was like and how it physically appeared. Then we said let’s handle this other stuff. Let’s say that not only have we been in this war, we’ve been in all wars.16

As this quote makes clear, Moss’s intention was not only to make a record of his present but also to invoke the memory of the past in the service of that present. In its invocation of black history, The Negro Soldier was more radical than it might have first appeared. While the film avoided the explicitly contentious political issues of the 1940s, Moss’s representation of black collective memory effectively rewrote a whitewashed version of American history to explicitly include African Americans. Early in the film, Moss—as the preacher—recalls black participation in America’s military past from the Revolutionary War onwards. Drawings, paintings, and monuments were used along with dramatic reenactments to give visual evidence of the African American presence in the fight for American Independence, the War of 1812, and the Spanish American War, while archival footage attested to African American contributions to the First World War. The Civil War was conspicuously absent from this history, eliding the difficult issues of slavery and the broken promises of emancipation. As Elizabeth Reich points out, this portion of the film uses “re-presentations of history and remembrance to forge a black cultural consciousness in the service of a broader US nationalism.”17 It also—I would argue—rewrites American history using black collective memory. It does so to inspire patriotism among its black audience, but also as a means of making visible this past to white audiences. In keeping with the goals of the Double V Campaign, the film implicitly links the black community’s history of military service to its demands for civil rights. Memory and remembrance play a key role in forging this link. The film culminates in footage of the Nazi destruction of a French monument built to honor African American soldiers who fought in the First World War. After showing the dedication plaque “to the negro troops who fought and died here,” the film cuts to German soldiers marching and then to the monument being blown apart by explosives. The preacher tells his congregation and the film audience, “Yes, the Nazis destroyed our monument in France, but our monuments at home stand and will always stand,” before listing prominent

86

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

African Americans in fields like science, education, and law. Crucially, in this sequence black collective memory itself is at stake in the fight against Nazism. The Nazis are figured as a threat to freedom and to America, as well as the very possibility of remembrance. By destroying the monument in France, the Nazi’s threaten to erase the collective memory that the film has worked hard to make visible. In so far as this visibility was seen as key to the achievement of civil rights in the future, African Americans had a duty to their race as well as their country to join the fight.

Teamwork: Imagining Double Victory No doubt the success of The Negro Soldier—just as African Americans were pressing their case for better onscreen representation—helped to convince the War Department to produce a sequel. Production began under the working title The Negro Soldier in the European Theater of Operations in the summer of 1944. Moss was sent to Europe in a delegation along with Brigadier General Benjamin Davis, the highest-ranking African American officer at the time, and Major Homer Roberts, a black officer from the War Department’s Bureau of Public Relations. While in Europe, Moss directed a Signal Corps crew, filming the actions of black units following the recent D-Day invasion. Although there were African American combat units (several of which feature briefly in the finished film), most black soldiers were employed by the quartermaster and engineering corps. Throughout the month of August, Moss and a small crew documented the African American contributions to building and maintaining the supply line for troops at the front. It was this footage that formed the basis of the film that eventually became Teamwork. Members of the black press recognized that Moss’s trip was an important part of the push for recognition. They hoped that even the footage that was not included in the completed film would create a valuable archive.18 In a story about Moss’s return from Europe, The Atlanta Daily World’s Harry McAlpin acknowledged that “whereas all the film [would] probably not appear in the finished product, there [would] be in existence a documentary record of the Negroes participation unequalled in history.”19 If the purpose of The Negro Soldier had been about making visible African American collective memory and recording the facts of African American service up until the Second World War, Teamwork aimed to ensure that black contributions in the Second World War would be remembered in the future.

Teamwork

87

Showing that black and white soldiers had contributed in equal measure to the Allied invasion of Europe was central to the film’s purpose. To make this point, Moss was committed to showing black troops performing the same tasks as white soldiers and showing them working together. A memo summarizing the nature of the footage shot by Moss and his team makes clear the commitment to equality of representation: Wherever possible, Negro and white troops have been shown doing the same sorts of jobs. This was done with a two-fold purpose. On the one hand we wished to avoid the accusation that we were giving Negroes entire credit for a supply job which was literally one of the miracles of modern warfare. On the other hand we wished to avoid the implication that Negroes alone were assigned to the fetching and hauling jobs. It seems to me important to keep these two problems in mind in cutting the film.20

As this quotation suggests, showing black and white soldiers engaged in similar work had a double benefit—it would prove African American participation in the war effort, while neither implicitly denigrating their work as servile nor giving undue credit to black soldiers for the supply mission in Europe. Although Moss’s team concentrated on the problems of supply and maintenance and the contributions black soldiers made to solving them, 2000 feet of good footage was made of one of four black artillery battalions. Although some of this footage was included in the film, throughout the production members of the team warned that these scenes should not be emphasized too much—at the risk of “giving a distorted disposition of Negro personnel as between supply and combat units.”21 These concerns were reiterated in a memo officially requesting the script for the film: There is no objection to the use of footage showing Negro troops in combat, if the film is available. However, this should not be done in such a way as to misrepresent the relative proportion of Negro troops who are serving in combat and those serving in supply. The proportion should be preserved accurately in the film presentation; otherwise, it is felt that the picture would be resented by Negros and Whites alike.22

The film needed to be careful not to incite any such resentment as it explicitly hoped to demonstrate the possibilities of interracial cooperation. Given the delicate balance that needed to be struck in representing African American war service, perhaps the most radical aspect of Teamwork was the fact that it was an integrated film. Unlike The Negro Soldier’s virtually all-black world,

88

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

it showed African American and white soldiers fighting and working together. After opening the film with a sinister scene of Nazi propagandists denigrating the United States and its “mongrel army,” the film turns to its egalitarian premise. Showing soldiers storming the beaches of Normandy, the film cuts to a series of shots of four individual soldiers—one of whom is black—landing on the shore, as the narrator intones, “Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile, rich man and poor man, black man and white. They all hit the same beach under the same enemy fire.” Later in the film, once the subject has turned to the supply mission, there are alternating shots of a white soldier lowering supplies from a ship and a black soldier receiving them on a smaller boat, while the film’s narration tells the audience that “this soldier did his job, and so did this one. They had a common goal and they delivered the goods.” In these scenes, as elsewhere in the film, however, the integrated army is achieved through the magic of editing. Nowhere in the film are black and white soldiers shown onscreen together. Indeed, despite presenting the idea of an integrated military, Teamwork completely elides the fact that the US armed forces remained fully segregated. The film documents the contributions of black soldiers alongside those of white Americans in order to show the possibility—not the fact—of integration. Unlike The Negro Soldier that had used the past sacrifices of African American soldiers to rally the black community to the current war effort, Teamwork documented their contributions to the Second World War in order to implicitly look forward toward an integrated future. A symbolic sequence in the film makes the moral argument for equality. Black and white soldiers are shown receiving plasma from army medics in the field as the narrator reminds the audience that “when they were hit they felt the same pain. The same kind of blood flowed from their wounds.” While couched in the symbolism of wartime sacrifice, this egalitarian message was a direct rebuke to racists in America who insisted on segregation based on racial essentialism. As such, the film spoke eloquently to the goals of the Double V Campaign.

Forgetting Teamwork: Double Victory Denied Perhaps because of the sensitivities around the film and its subject matter it took several months before a script of Teamwork was finally approved. Shooting of additional material began in the fall of 1945 and there were several rounds of edits before the final cut of the film was approved on December 26 of that year.23 The Information and Education Division requested distribution of 16 mm prints

Teamwork

89

to “all troops in overseas theaters of operation and in the Zone of the Interior [the contiguous 48 states].”24 It is unclear, however, how widely the film was distributed within the military or to what extent it was shown. Unlike The Negro Soldier, Teamwork was not part of a standard orientation program—and, with the war over, the army was demobilizing rather than taking on new recruits. The film was previewed for the press in March of 1946. W. I. Gibson, a columnist for The Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, called it a film “every American should see.” He praised the film’s argument against the Nazi notion of “‘divide and conquer’ as it applied to white and colored Americans,” and insisted that “such a film should be a must in certain benighted areas of the nation where echoes of this false doctrine may still be heard.”25 Despite this urgency, two months later Gibson lamented that the delay in releasing Teamwork until after the end of the war had reduced demand for films of its type. “‘Teamwork’ gathers dust and more dust. Now except for private showings, it is not likely to see the light of day.”26 Sadly, Gibson’s prediction proved to be true. Unlike The Negro Soldier, Teamwork did not find an audience in 1946, and has been largely forgotten since. By June of 1946 the film had been approved for civilian release and the War Department granted commercial film company Mayer-Burstyn permission to distribute the film theatrically.27 Mayer-Burstyn held a press screening in New York and promoted the film by arguing that it “should be shown in every community so that the American people will fully appreciate the role played by all minority groups in the winning of the war.”28 Despite these efforts, Joseph Burstyn wrote to Lt. Richard D. Palmrose of the War Department the following year expressing regret that the company had been unable to show any results at all with the film. “Every effort has been made on our part to secure some kind of distribution,” he wrote, “but always we met with resistance from exhibitors who would not play the subject even without a charge.”29 They literally could not give the film away. Given the film’s unusual runtime and its already dated subject matter, not to mention its argument in favor of racial integration, it is perhaps unsurprising that commercial exhibitors were reluctant to book Teamwork. As W. I. Gibson suggested in his column, the film stood a far greater chance of reaching audiences in other kinds venues. Indeed, the Allied Non-theatrical Film Association had expected the film and several others dealing with racial issues to be declared “surplus” and therefore available for noncommercial distribution to libraries, universities, and other such venues. When this did not happen, the organization launched an investigation.30 Some saw a conspiracy to suppress the film. The Cleveland Call and Post charged that several “racial goodwill films” including

90

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Teamwork had been “buried” by the government.31 A letter from Carlton Moss to the Chicago Defender suggested he felt the War Department could have done more to promote the film, “I wanted very much to help arrange the official previews for ‘Teamwork’ but it seems now that the War Department will not need my services to promote the film.”32 Whether or not it had done so deliberately, by releasing the film commercially with Burstyn-Mayer, the War Department ensured that nonprofit and other educational organizations—both within the African American community and beyond—had no access to the film. The war had ended and the military no longer had any pressing need to ensure black morale, so it is likely that Teamwork was given low priority, especially given the film’s controversial integration of white and black soldiers. As one African American reviewer noted, the film did not present “the customary blanket whitewash of America as a place where everything is honey and roses and no prejudices exist, but with a frank appraisal of [the] country’s limitations.”33 While Teamwork looked to document the African American war effort in the service of confronting these limitations and imagining an integrated future, the difficulties the film had in finding an audience suggest many white Americans were simply not ready for such a future. While the film’s optimistic view of an integrated military may have been too radical for white audiences and commercial distributors, for black audiences in 1946 and afterwards the film contained a bitter irony. As a wire story for the Associated Negro Press pointed out, the film showed “how Negroes helped win the war for a democracy that they knew did not exist.”34 By 1946 this reality would have been painfully apparent to returning servicemen and their families. Teamwork’s vision of an integrated future did not square with the segregation and discrimination black veterans experienced after the war. As historian Ira Katznelson has detailed, the benefits of the GI Bill—which provided veterans with a variety of assistance programs—were not shared equally with African Americans. While the government was helping millions of white veterans attend college, receive job training, start businesses, and purchase their first homes, most African Americans were unable to access these programs. Ironically, Teamwork culminated in a scene showing a Nazi propaganda leaflet suggesting that black soldiers should desert the military because they would face “lousy” prospects upon their return to the United States. In the film the black soldier crumples the leaflet up and joins his white compatriots in the battle, but by the summer of 1946, the message may have rung a little too true—with black veterans finding it difficult to share in America’s postwar boom. For many African American servicemen, the United States they returned to was the same lousy one they had

Teamwork

91

known before and it would be a decade before the ambitions of the Double V Campaign would even begin to be realized. For African Americans in the years immediately following the war, the visibility Carlton Moss had worked so hard to secure was a painful reminder of hopes dashed.

Notes 1 See Joseph Clark, “Double Vision: World War II, Racial Uplift, and the AllAmerican Newsreel’s Pedagogical Address,” in Useful Cinema, eds. Charles R. Acland and Haidee Wasson (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), pp. 263–88. 2 “Newsreels ‘Cut’ Negro Fighters,” New York Amsterdam News, January 8, 1944, A1; “Newsreels Blackout Race Troops,” Atlanta Daily World, January 9, 1944, 1. 3 “Omissions from Newsreels,” Crisis, February 1944, 39. 4 “The Courier’s Double ‘V’ for Double Victory Campaign Gets Country-Wide Support,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 14, 1942. See also Lawrence P. Scott and William M. Womack, Double V, the Civil Rights Struggle of Tuskegee Airmen (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998); Ronald Takaki, Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II (Boston: Back Bay, 2001). 5 Thomas Cripps and David Culbert, “The Negro Soldier (1944): Film Propaganda in Black and White,” American Quarterly, 31:5 (1979), 616–40, https://doi. org/10.2307/2712429; Larry Richards, African American Films Through 1959: A Comprehensive, Illustrated Filmography (London: McFarland, 2005); Thomas Doherty, Projections of War: Hollywood, American Culture, and World War II, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Thomas Cripps, Making Movies Black: The Hollywood Message Movie from World War II to the Civil Rights Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 6 “‘Negro Soldier,’ Signal Corps Film A Powerful Story of Our Part in War,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 1, 1944, p. 11, Proquest Historical Newspapers. 7 Langston Hughes, “Here’s a Film Everyone Should See, Writes Defender Columnist,” Chicago Defender, February 26, 1944, p. 8, Proquest Historical Newspapers. 8 Ernest E. Johnson, “‘Negro Soldier’ Draws High Praise; Whites Should See It, Asserts Critic,” Atlanta Daily World (Atlanta, March 1, 1944), p. 2, Proquest Historical Newspapers. 9 Cripps and Culbert, “The Negro Soldier (1944),” p. 630. 10 Peter Noble, The Negro in Films (London: Skelton Robinson, 1948), p. 108. 11 Cripps and Culbert, “The Negro Soldier (1944),” p. 635. 12 Quoted in Ibid., p. 623.

92

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

13 “4 THEATRES SHOW NEGRO WAR FILM: Documentary Picture Issued by War Department Opens in Broadway Houses,” New York Times (New York, April 22, 1944), p. 8; Johnson, “‘Negro Soldier’ Draws High Praise,” p. 2; “‘Negro Soldier,’ Signal Corps Film A Powerful Story of Our Part in War,” p. 4. 14 Cripps and Culbert, “The Negro Soldier (1944),” p. 629. 15 “The New Pictures,” Time, 43:13 (1944), 96. 16 Phyllis R. Klotman, “From the Director: A Letter Home,” Black Camera, 1:1 (1985), 2. 17 E. Reich, “A Broader Nationalism: Reconstructing Memory, National Narratives and Spectatorship in World War II Black Audience Propaganda,” Screen, 54:2 (2013), 174–93 (p. 178), https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjt001 18 “Chief Worry of Group Overseas Is Postwar Jobs,” Atlanta Daily World, October 18, 1944, pp. 1, 6 (p. 6), Proquest Historical Newspapers. 19 Harry McAlpin, “Moss Overseas For Troop Film Sequel,” Atlanta Daily World, July 28, 1944, p. 3, Proquest Historical Newspapers. 20 Charles Dollard, “Memo for Major Ralph Nelson,” January 16, 1945; Folder 11015-2; BOX 111 OF 14-16; Project Files of the Motion Picture Branch, 1944–1953; Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860–1985, Record Group 111; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. 21 Ibid. 22 Karl W. Marks, “Memo for the Chief Signal Officer,” January 24, 1945; Folder 11015-2; BOX 111 OF 14-16; Project Files of the Motion Picture Branch, 1944–1953; Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860–1985, Record Group 111; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. 23 Robert T. Stillman, “Production Conference Project 11015 ‘Negro Soldier in ETO,’” September 19, 1945; Folder 11015-1; BOX 111 OF 14-16; Project Files of the Motion Picture Branch, 1944–1953; Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860–1985, Record Group 111; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. 24 Douglas D. Behrend, “Memo to the Chief Signal Officer,” December 26, 1945; Folder 11015-2; BOX 111 OF 14-16; Project Files of the Motion Picture Branch, 1944–1953; Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860–1985, Record Group 111; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. 25 W. I. Gibson, “The Week: Army’s ‘Teamwork,’ YWCA Looks Ahead,” Baltimore Afro-American, March 9, 1946, pp. 1, 17 (p. 17), Proquest Historical Newspapers. 26 W. I. Gibson, “The Week: Hollywood Tale, Note on Prayer,” Baltimore AfroAmerican, May 4, 1946, pp. 1, 19 (p. 19), Proquest Historical Newspapers. 27 Arthur Mayer and Joseph Burstyn, Inc., “Letter to Lt. Colonel W.W. Lindsay,” June 12, 1946; Folder 11015-4; BOX 111 OF 14-16; Project Files of the Motion Picture Branch, 1944–1953; Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860–1985, Record

Teamwork Group 111; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. See also “Army’s ‘Teamwork’ On Screen,” New York Amsterdam News, June 1, 1946, p. 21 (p. 21), Proquest Historical Newspapers. 28 “Army Film on Negro for Release Soon,” Los Angeles Sentinel, June 6, 1946, p. 14 (p. 14), Proquest Historical Newspapers. 29 Joseph Burstyn, “Letter to Lt. Richard D. Palmrose,” October 15, 1947; Folder 11015-1; BOX 111 OF 14-16; Project Files of the Motion Picture Branch, 1944– 1953; Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860–1985, Record Group 111; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. 30 “Racial Goodwill Films ‘Buried’ by Armed Service,” Cleveland Call and Post, June 22, 1946, p. 3B, Proquest Historical Newspapers. 31 Ibid. 32 Carlton Moss, “Author Reveals Sequel to Film ‘The Negro Soldier,’” Chicago Defender, March 2, 1946, p. 14, Proquest Historical Newspapers. 33 “Signal Corps Film Depicts Teamwork of All US GI’s,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 30, 1946, p. 8, Proquest Historical Newspapers. 34 “Army Picture Coming Soon,” Philidelphia Tribune, June 8, 1946, p. 4, Proquest Historical Newspapers; “Army Film on Negro for Release Soon,” p. 14.

93

94

6

Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship in the Second World War Richard Fine

During the Second World War, the Western democracies believed they had a powerful weapon to wield in the battle against fascism—the truth. Both the American OWI and the British MoI would base their domestic propaganda efforts on what the OWI’s Archibald MacLeish championed as a “strategy of truth” aimed at deflecting the popular distaste in democracies for government-managed information.1 Even outward-facing propaganda would rely as much as possible on distributing fact rather than emulate Goebbels’s raging falsehoods. Bruce Lockhart, who masterfully headed up the Political Warfare Executive (PWE), insisted that British propaganda would only be effective if accurate. A reputation for truth and consistency, Lockhart believed, would pay off in the end with both domestic and international audiences, naturally skeptical about government-sourced war news.2 That other pillar of wartime information management—censorship—was grounded in a similar impulse. In establishing the Office of Censorship days after the attack at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt reassured the American press and public that censorship would extend only to matters of military security.3 In Britain, Defence Regulation No. 3 prohibited British subjects from “publishing information which might be useful to an enemy.” However, Admiral George Thomson, Britain’s chief censor through much of the war, insisted that the regulation only pertained to military matters, however broadly conceived.4 Both governments insisted that they would not impose what in the United States was called political and in Britain policy censorship.5 Only facts and never opinion would be subject to censorship. Political censorship came to reference not only such general opinion but also controls on reporting of the political situations of war zone countries as well as restrictions on news that might prove embarrassing to the governments prosecuting the war (and thus depress morale).

96

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

On several occasions General Dwight Eisenhower, first as the Allied commander in North Africa and then as the Supreme commander in northwestern Europe, reassured British and American correspondents that censorship would only concern military matters. As late as in March 1945, Eisenhower was instructing his chief censor that “censorship is intended to be applied only as demanded by the requirements of military security.”6 “Policy censorship,” Admiral Thomson firmly believed, “will always defeat its own object.”7 For the most part, the press corps covering the Allied armies in Europe accepted and abided by such censorship for military security. Correspondents from both countries occasionally objected to specific bans or complained about what they considered arbitrary or capricious rulings by censors. At times reporters also suspected that censorship for security was used as a pretext to hide military mistakes or incompetence, as when Allied short-of-target bombing killed hundreds of American troops in Normandy in August 1944. Still, correspondents largely accepted the necessity of censorship for security and followed military guidance regarding the same. Political censorship was another matter. Two episodes, one early in the war and the other as it ended, call into question Roosevelt’s and Eisenhower’s assurances. They bracket many other occasions during the war, as archives and memoirs suggest, when reporters clashed with Allied military authorities over the imposition of just such political censorship which was thought to be anathema in democratic societies, even in wartime. A government should not conceal or falsify information, nor stem the flow of actual news, to its people except for reasons of actual security. As such these episodes reveal the media and the military to be far more adversarial during the Second World War than most accounts would have it. Archives in fact are filled with evidence of battles small and large between correspondents and Allied military authorities, with the most momentous involving reporters accusing military leaders of illegitimate political censorship.8

North Africa The first episode occurred after the TORCH landings in November 1942 and involved the complex political situation in French North Africa. The Allies would be bedevilled by French politics throughout the war and never more so than during TORCH. French North Africa in particular presented treacherous geopolitical terrain in 1942. After France surrendered to Germany in 1940, the United States had maintained diplomatic relations with the surviving French

Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship

97

government headed by the elderly the First World War hero, Marshall HenriPhilippe Pétain. The United States kept open the embassy in Vichy even after Pearl Harbor, and even as many in the United States attacked the Roosevelt administration’s recognition of a French right-wing government accused of collaborating with the Nazis.9 Alert to the strategic importance of French North Africa for control of both the Atlantic sea lanes and the Mediterranean theater of operations, President Roosevelt had sent a career diplomat, Robert D. Murphy, to North Africa as his personal envoy in late 1940 to assess the prospects of swinging that region into the Allied orbit.10 Allied officials began planning in early 1942 to land military forces in French North Africa, hoping to preempt a similar move by the Axis. Murphy spent much of that year quietly enlisting the aid of French civilians, military officers, and local officials who were sympathetic to the Allied cause. When the TORCH landings occurred in Algeria and Morocco on the night of November 7–8, they were led by General Dwight Eisenhower but were nominally undertaken at the invitation of General Henri Giraud, whom the Allies hoped to install as the head of all French resistance forces. Murphy had secretly negotiated with Giraud for months after Roosevelt had identified him as the best “nonpolitical” leader for France and a potential counterweight to Charles de Gaulle, whom Roosevelt disliked and distrusted. Giraud was a professional soldier and a celebrated war hero who had twice escaped from German prisons. His own political views, though vague, were those of his class and profession—that is, reflexively conservative—but he professed little knowledge of or interest in civil affairs.11 After the landings fighting did occur sporadically until the French understood that the Allies had come in force and intended to stay.12 The Allies’ plan to install Giraud, though, quickly disintegrated. For one thing, to the exasperation of Eisenhower and his staff, Giraud, who had been secreted out of France to Gibraltar in preparation for the landings, had stubbornly insisted that he alone must command any and all Allied troops landing on French territory. Of more import and amid great confusion in the early days after the landings, Eisenhower’s deputy on the scene, General Mark Clark, had agreed to recognize a new government in French North Africa to be headed by Admiral Jean Darlan, commander of all French military forces and Pétain’s first political deputy. In the event, the exiled Giraud enjoyed virtually no support among the officer corps in Africa. Darlan, who did possess authority as head of the armed forces in the Vichy regime, just happened to be in Algiers at the very time of the landing.13 The Clark-Darlan agreement, disparaged thereafter by its critics as “the Darlan deal,” left in place virtually all of the authoritarian Vichy administration in Africa.14

98

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Eisenhower and Clark would argue to their graves that there had been no viable alternative to negotiating with Darlan once he surfaced in Algiers, convinced that he alone could prevent prolonged fighting with the French and best turn the French military to fighting the Germans rather than the Allies. Darlan’s appointment as head of government prompted protests in Britain and the United States. Darlan had been a foe of the British for decades, and a bitter one since Churchill had ordered the sinking of the French fleet at Mers-elKébir in July 1940. The admiral also seemed sympathetic to German aims if not all of its methods. Most commentary portrays Darlan as more a Machiavellian intriguer than a reactionary ideologue, but there is little doubt that he was firmly entrenched on the French right wing. Perhaps no figure in French politics (other than Darlan’s fierce rival, Pierre Laval) was more universally hated.15 Such was the political muddle confronting the Allies and the press corps covering the operation as they arrived in Africa. In the ensuing weeks, Darlan and that Vichyite administration continued to enforce anti-Jewish directives, persecute political enemies, obstruct Allied military plans, and indeed jail many of the résistants who had at great risk aided the Allied landings in Africa. During this time those in the small press corps accredited to Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ) who had reported from Paris before the war, who spoke French passably and who knew something of French politics, made the rounds in Algiers. They interviewed French officials, talked with local journalists, and simply frequented local cafés and restaurants. It did not take long to fathom the political unrest seething in Algiers, a situation markedly more disturbing than AFHQ’s official characterizations of Algerian public opinion. Wherever reporters went in Algeria they heard much the same story—the deep sense of betrayal felt by those who had aided the invasion forces then been jailed or otherwise persecuted by the Vichy authorities the Allies had left in power. The harshest of the Vichy laws remained on the books and vigorously enforced. Many despaired that one authoritarian regime had merely been replaced by another. As journalists got wind of these repressive actions and tried to file stories about them, Eisenhower abruptly banned any reporting on the political situation in North Africa. After the war, he grudgingly admitted that imposing political censorship in North Africa had been a mistake, but Eisenhower insisted his intentions had been good: to prevent the political situation there from degenerating and thereby tying up Allied troops.16 John MacVane, the NBC broadcaster on the scene, was among the first to try to report on what he had discovered in North Africa only to be stymied by censorship. On November 25, MacVane had declined an offer to do a

Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship

99

BBC broadcast on the political scene in Algiers, wiring his boss in London: “CONFIDENTIALLY PLEASE TELL BBC POLITICAL CENSORSHIP SO STRICT MOMENTARILY EYE FEEL UNABLE DO INTELLIGENT REPORT BROADCAST.”17 He later wrote that “during these first weeks I had made many attempts to tell how Darlan was strengthening his political role in North Africa. But inevitably I was defeated by the political censorship.”18 The New Yorker’s A. J. Liebling was similarly “shocked by the mess things were in” when he arrived in Algeria in late November. The fascist paramilitaries who had gone into hiding at the approach of the Americans had reappeared brazenly in cafés, Liebling discovered, “talking loudly about the day of revenge, not against the Germans, but us.” Well into December, the prefect of the department in Algiers had “carried out economic collaboration with the resident German and Italian commissions, enforcing the Nuremberg-patterned anti-Jewish laws and exalting the rest of the Vichy program.”19 Thousands of political prisoners remained in concentration camps across Algeria and Morocco. Yet Liebling was able to report none of this. Along with the other correspondents covering AFHQ, Liebling grew increasingly frustrated and restive. By December, relations between the press corps in Algiers and AFHQ had been strained to the point that one reporter, Lincoln Barnett of Life magazine, was formally investigated and threatened with court-martial for trying to bypass censorship. Although Eisenhower personally decided against a courtmartial, Barnett was summarily expelled from Africa.20 On Christmas Eve, Darlan was assassinated in Algiers by a young Frenchman for opaque political reasons. Uncertain of how Algerians would react to Darlan’s death, General Clark prevented journalists from reporting the news for the better part of the day. MacVane, for one, had assembled the basic details of the shooting by midafternoon. Even while in possession of one of the great scoops of the war to date, he had to spend his routine broadcast that night speaking lightly of “Christmas trees, toys, and parties for the troops,” according to a colleague.21 Thus the American and British publics learned of the assassination through Vichyitecontrolled Radio Maroc, which many news organizations followed closely in the absence of political news from their own correspondents.22 MacVane’s script for his broadcast the next day urged a public trial for Bonnier de la Chapelle, the Frenchman who had killed Darlan, but this line was spiked by the censors; when he and other reporters were told by French authorities that night that Chapelle would be executed by firing squad the next morning, MacVane felt that “every correspondent at that late night conference was shaken by the quick execution of Chapelle even though we did not know him, his

100

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

motives, or who was behind him. It went against our idea of impartial justice. The man was being railroaded.”23 The same day CBS commentator Cecil Brown in New York informed his listeners that “censorship at Algiers is very severe” and so he could offer his listeners little information about Darlan’s murder.24 Darlan’s death presented the Allies with the opportunity to install Giraud as head of government as had been their original plan. Giraud and his advisers then promptly arrested on trumped up charges more than a dozen Algerians, many of whom had aided the Allied landings. This proved too much for Liebling and the other reporters on the scene. Liebling estimated that there were about thirty correspondents in Algiers at the time and not one of them accepted the official French story—that the motive for the arrests had been to thwart a further assassination plot against Giraud and Robert Murphy, now serving as Eisenhower’s political adviser. This outcry, Liebling later wrote, “restored all the esteem I had had for newspapermen when I was twenty years old.”25 Reporters confronted Giraud himself at a press conference in late December. “He could not for the life of him, he said, see why there was so much fuss about a dozen civilians, who might or might not be guilty,” Liebling wrote. When Frank Kluckhohn of the New York Times gave Giraud a list of the reported prisoners and asked Giraud to verify it, Giraud dismissed the list as a fiction. Disbelieving and furious, Liebling joined others in filing stories about the conference but censors excised all references to the political prisoners. Murphy was so alarmed at this point by what he saw as a virtual rebellion on the part of the press that he invited them to his villa for New Year’s Eve and, in Liebling’s phrase, “tried to pour gin on the troubled waters.”26 In early January a censor’s gaffe allowed a column by Scripps-Howard’s Ernie Pyle finally to escape this political censorship. Pyle’s piece explicitly stated that censorship in North Africa was hampering accurate coverage. “Because the campaign at first was as much diplomatic as military, the powers that be didn’t permit our itchy typewriter fingers to delve into things international, which were ticklish enough without our comments,” he wrote in typical Pyle style, certain that “misconceptions at home must have grown out of some missing parts of the picture.” He continued: The biggest puzzle to us who were on the scene was our policy of dealing with Axis agents and sympathizers in North Africa. We took into custody only the most out-and-out Axis agents, such as the German Armistice Missions and a few others. That done, we turned authority of arrest back to the French. The procedure was that we investigated, and they arrested. As it turned out, we investigated, period.27

Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship

101

Pyle concluded simply: “Our policy is still appeasement.”28 Pyle’s dispatch was carried widely in the United States (and reported in Britain as well) and essentially blew the censorship lid off the story of continued political repression in North Africa. By the end of January and under pressure both from the media and from Congress, Eisenhower had lifted the embargo on political reporting. Soon stories of the situation in North Africa began to appear in any number of progressive newspapers and magazines; within a few weeks, a number of mainstream daily newspapers had editorialized on the subject, inveighing that such a policy of “appeasement” of the Vichy government in North Africa violated Allied war aims. Commentators on both sides of the Atlantic charged that the installation of Darlan had sent a chilling signal to those opposing the Nazis in continental Europe of what might happen after liberation. The Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, became so concerned with the havoc over the political situation in Algiers that he convened a group of influential newspaper editors for an off-the-record briefing in an attempt to defend Eisenhower and Murphy and turn editorial opinion more positive.29 By early spring 1943, many of the more reactionary of the Vichy civil authorities had finally been removed from office, and much of the most pernicious Vichyite legal framework had been dismantled. However, the entire Darlan episode left the press corps in Africa skeptical of official explanations and on alert for perceived political censorship. It also left officials at AFHQ embittered. For example, after Eisenhower brought his intelligence chief, Brigadier General Robert McClure, from London to impose some order on the chaotic public relations situation in Algiers, McClure within weeks was referring to reporters as “temperamental prima donnas.”30 For another, Robert Murphy, who had been the focus of much press criticism of American policy in French North Africa, sent Washington a four-page defense of his actions at the end of January. Political censorship had been both necessary and brief, Murphy asserted; moreover, he insisted that much of that criticism derived from a profound misunderstanding of the political situation itself.31 In this atmosphere of mutual suspicion, it would not be long, with the invasion of Italy, that charges of political censorship again arose.32

The German surrender story As the war was coming to an end in early May 1945, the second notable episode of political censorship occurred, involving as it did Germany’s surrender. Eisenhower’s ultimate command, the Supreme Headquarters Allied

102

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and the press corps covering it had never been at such loggerheads as they were after Associated Press journalist Edward Kennedy bypassed normal censorship channels to break the news of the German surrender a day before it was to be announced officially. Kennedy defended himself (and was defended by others) by insisting that news of the surrender was being withheld for political, not security, reasons. The trouble began on May 6, 1945, when a group of seventeen correspondents left Paris by plane for SHAEF’s forward headquarters at Reims in northern France. The group contained mostly representatives of the Allied news agencies and radio networks, including Kennedy, arguably the AP’s most experienced war correspondent and at the time its Paris bureau chief. While in the air, Brigadier General Frank Allen, the head of SHAEF’s Public Relations Division, informed the reporters that German negotiators were also en route and that a comprehensive surrender might be in the offing. Allen swore the reporters to secrecy until he released them from that pledge. For most of the day, the reporters waited for the negotiations to conclude. At the same time a group of enterprising reporters who had been excluded from the official press contingent got wind that something was up and made their way to Reims. There they camped outside of the schoolhouse serving as SHAEF Forward. In the early hours of May 7, Kennedy and the others in the press delegation witnessed the surrender of all German forces by General Alfred Jodl. The reporters were able to write accounts of what they had witnessed and have them censored on site, but at four o’clock in the morning they were told that the Allied political leadership had embargoed the story; they would be returning to Paris without actually filing. As it turned out, Stalin had prevailed upon Truman and Churchill to delay announcing the surrender until the Russians were certain that all hostilities had ended on their front and they had organized their own surrender ceremony in Berlin. What is more, word of the Reims surrender was not to be announced by SHAEF in either Reims or Paris, but rather simultaneously by political leaders in Washington, London, and Moscow.33 The reporters were flown back to Paris where they rejoined the rest of the press corps, including those who had travelled to Reims on their own but had been prohibited from witnessing the surrender signing. All there then learned that the surrender story would remain embargoed until further notice. Eventually General Allen told the reporters that it would not be released until 3:00 p.m. the next day, May 8. SHAEF then faced a virtual insurrection from an outraged press corps. Public Relations Officers confided to Kennedy and others that to avoid

Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship

103

last minute casualties, Eisenhower had wanted the surrender announced as soon as possible but that he had been overruled by Washington.34 During the early afternoon the ire of correspondents in Paris only mounted as they learned that the official French witness to the Reims signing had already submitted his firsthand account to the Parisian daily Le Figaro. Other reports soon filtered in that Allied troops in the field had been informed of the surrender. Wire bulletins from London indicated that Downing Street was being prepared for a surrender announcement by the prime minister.35 The final straw for Kennedy came when at 2:00 p.m. he learned that the radio station at Flensburg had carried a broadcast by the German foreign minister stating that the nation had surrendered unconditionally. Since Flensburg was in an area already controlled by the Allied 21st Army Group, Kennedy concluded correctly that this transmission had been sanctioned by SHAEF itself, even if SHAEF was to deny it for some time thereafter.36 Kennedy then declared to SHAEF officials that he considered that censorship restrictions no longer applied since the war in Europe had ended, citing Eisenhower’s assurance that the only grounds for censorship was military security. The Germans themselves knew that they had surrendered. The war was clearly over. Security could no longer be used as grounds for censoring in the news of the surrender. He also argued that in authorizing the Flensburg broadcast, SHAEF itself had released the story and that the “pledge of the plane” no longer applied. Kennedy told the chief censor that he would not abide what was clearly political censorship and that he intended to get his story out. Using an unsecured telephone line to London, one unknown to SHAEF authorities or other correspondents, Kennedy did just that. He was able to dictate the essentials of his story before the line was broken. Kennedy did not say that SHAEF had officially announced the surrender but only reported what he had personally witnessed in Reims. That said, he also did not communicate to the AP that he was bypassing normal channels or that the embargo still held. The AP placed Kennedy’s news of the German surrender on the wire as an exclusive under his byline. Celebrations broke out across the country. The AP trumpeted the scoop. It is difficult to judge who was more outraged by Kennedy’s action—military officials or his competitors in Paris. SHAEF officials promptly suspended Kennedy, ordering an immediate investigation into how and with whose help he had transmitted the story. In an unprecedented move, SHAEF also suspended all AP communications in Europe, a ban lifted six hours later after guidance from cooler heads in Washington.37 Kent Cooper, the AP’s general manager in New York, sent Eisenhower a choleric telegram protesting the AP’s suspension

104

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

and demanding access to Kennedy, whom SHAEF had banned from using both telephone and cable facilities.38 For their part, correspondents in Paris were so furious at the AP reporter that they wrote a group letter to Eisenhower accusing Kennedy of “the most deliberate, disgraceful and unethical double-cross in the history of journalism.”39 However, they soon redirected their fury toward SHAEF Public Relations when they met General Allen at noon on May 8. Allen announced that even though Kennedy’s scoop was nearly twenty-four hours old, the hold on the surrender story was still in place and that it could not be lifted until three o’clock that afternoon, if then. While the rest of the world celebrated, the Allied press corps in Paris seethed. Meanwhile, newspapers and radio stations throughout much of the world led with Kennedy’s story. As the AP continued to crow about the scoop, its embarrassed rivals pressed their staffs in Paris for details of the surrender. Several contacted Eisenhower directly and badgered him to expel Kennedy and sanction the AP.40 At the Hotel Scribe, SHAEF’s press center, the correspondents eventually tabled a motion of no confidence in SHAEF PRD for its mishandling of coverage of the surrender. Instead, they approved a motion demanding that the army suspend the AP for a full twenty-four hours after the German surrender was announced officially, in essence excluding it from further reporting on the story.41 This was a rare, perhaps unique, episode during the war when the press sought to muzzle itself, one indication of just how the episode disoriented the press corps in Paris. The initial editorial reaction in the United States supported Kennedy and expressed outrage both at the military’s withholding of the news of the surrender and at the suspension of the AP throughout Europe, thereby starving thousands of papers nationwide of news at just the moment when readers were craving it. Initial press coverage stateside of Kennedy’s scoop and suspension evidently gave leaders in Washington pause, for General Marshall wrote to Eisenhower personally to warn him that “the press here is almost unanimously taking the line that Kennedy only reported to the people of the United States what was true and what they had the right to know. In view of the attempt to martyrize him, you may wish to make a factual statement from SHAEF.”42 Eisenhower did so almost immediately, accusing Kennedy of a “self-admitted breach of a confidence” and declaring that Kennedy’s premature disclosure had jeopardized delicate negotiations with the Russians that in turn had placed American troops at risk.43 At the same time, officials in the War Department had lobbied Robert McLean, the publisher of the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin

Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship

105

and president of the AP’s board of directors, arguing that Kennedy had brazenly substituted his own judgment for that of Eisenhower and thereby threatened the safety of troops in the field. As a result, on May 10, McLean issued a statement disavowing Kennedy’s actions and apologizing on behalf of the agency.44 Eisenhower and McLean’s statements turned the tide for many editorial writers, especially McLean’s contention that Kennedy had violated a basic ethical principle of journalism in breaking a pledge to a source not to release a story until given permission to do so. The Washington Star spoke for many when it said that while it knew Kennedy to be a “hard-working, conscientious and honorable newspaperman,” his “error was in his failure to observe ‘obligations voluntarily assumed.’” In this, “he was wrong.”45 Both the press and the public debated the ethics and wisdom of Kennedy’s action in the weeks to come. Indeed, many journalists still do. Opinion was certainly divided at the time, but Kennedy had many champions. His defenders most frequently cited their opposition to such political censorship. As the Alabama Journal editorialized, “It was not as if some military situation was involved. The war was over.”46 The Miami News condemned the government’s holding the surrender story as “one of the most stupid and far reaching blunders of which our wartime censorship could conceivably be guilty.”47 Other editorial writers stressed the distinction between military and political censorship. “There was no war in Europe after the signatures were affixed to the surrender document,” the Syracuse Herald-Journal declared. “This was not news about war. It was news about peace.”48 The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette could not help but find that “it is absurd to pretend that military security was involved when all fighting stopped.” The determination to withhold the news all of the Allies were anxiously awaiting, the Post-Gazette could only conclude, “was taken on the premise that governments not only make the news, but own it.”49 The Portland (Me.) Press pointed to the radio broadcast from Flensburg as dispositive. As soon as the Germans put their signatures to the documents in Reims, the paper charged, the army’s position seemed to be that “the Germans, the vanquished, could know all about everything, but the British and Americans, the victors, were treated like children.”50 One particularly trenchant comment about Kennedy’s actions came from Ben McKelway, the editor of the Washington Star. McKelway had left Paris just forty-eight hours before the German surrender. A member of the AP Board of Directors, he was also aware of Kennedy’s stellar reputation within that organization and had been paying attention to the reporter’s work throughout the war. His conclusion was that “after the battle on other phases of political

106

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

censorship that he has been waging as an honest newspaperman, I suppose this last straw was a bit too much. Nobody yet has offered any defense for the absurd attempt by SHAEF to hold the lid down on the surrender.” He was convinced that “history may reveal the extent of a type of censorship that may prove to have been more injurious to our national interests than we know now.”51 Indeed, Kennedy had spent much of the previous decade fighting excessive censorship—most often political censorship—whenever and wherever he encountered it. He did so first in Spain while covering the Civil War there. He witnessed it again in Cairo where he found British censorship practices maddening while covering the war in the North African desert during 1940–1. While reporting later in Italy, Allied authorities often frustrated his efforts to cover the political situation there and in the Balkans.52 Within days of the offense, Eisenhower was persuaded that court-martialing Kennedy would only stir up more trouble and so instead revoked his credentials and sent him back to New York. After returning to New York Kennedy devoted the better part of a year trying to repair his reputation. The AP quietly but awkwardly let him go, refusing to comment on his situation.53 In 1946, he achieved a victory of sorts when Eisenhower’s chief of staff grudgingly acknowledged that the army had indeed sanctioned the German surrender broadcast from Flensberg. That summer Eisenhower restored Kennedy’s reporting privileges but did so without rescinding the original order disaccrediting him.54 Still, in 1946, Kennedy found himself without work, with his savings dwindling, and with his job prospects dim. One journalist claimed to a prospective employer that Kennedy was universally despised by reporters in Washington.55 Kennedy did have his supporters, though, including the publisher of the Santa Barbara News-Press who discounted such negative opinions and hired Kennedy as his managing editor in 1947. Two years later, Kennedy moved again, this time up the California coast to take over as associate editor and publisher of a similarly obscure paper, the Monterey Peninsula Herald, a position he held until his death in 1963.56 Although Kennedy never expressed regrets over his actions in May 1945 (at least in public), it is difficult to read his later years as anything but an enforced exile, especially since he had confided to Kent Cooper his desire to remain in Paris after the war as chief of the Paris bureau.57 Nearly fifty years after Kennedy’s death, the president of the AP formally apologized for its treatment of him in 1945, admitting that he believed that Kennedy had been right to defy authorities to get the story out.58 At roughly the same time, a group of journalists and academics began campaigning for the Pulitzer Prize Committee to honor him posthumously.59

Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship

107

Perhaps we can let A. J. Liebling have the last word on the Kennedy affair by connecting it to the events in North Africa three years earlier. In the days after the war in Europe had ended, Liebling alerted readers that correspondents [still] may send no news, even though it is verified and vital to American understanding of what is happening, unless it is “authorized” by some Army political advisor like Robert Murphy, who in 1942 gave a sample of his stuff by stopping all stories unfavorable to the State Department filed in North Africa. It also means the censors—or rather, in the last analysis, the censors’ Army superiors—will decide what is true and accurate or false and misleading.60

Conclusion In sum, the Kennedy controversy dredged up a war’s worth of resentment, conflicts that had simmered since North Africa but had been largely kept under wraps while the war was in progress. Real frictions existed between correspondents in the field and military authorities over the boundaries of permissible censorship, frictions that have largely been forgotten in popular (and indeed most academic) accounts of “The Good War.” Such friction was most keenly felt not in disagreements about what did or did not constitute a breach of military security, but rather over the issue of political censorship. Such censorship seemed to strike at the heart of the democratic values that the Allies were fighting to uphold. It also threatened to call into question the Allied commitment to those democratic values in the eyes of those in occupied Europe who were resisting fascism at great personal risk. Ironically, the roots of this friction over political censorship often lay in the need for Allied unity. Even as authorities denied the existence of formal political censorship, a loophole in the censorship regimes in both countries allowed for it. In Britain, for example, a decision by the government in March 1942, just months after the United States entered the war, modified Defence Regulation No. 3 to give press censors additional powers to ban any messages leaving the UK: “Any word or passage which was likely to create disharmony among the Allied Nations.”61 General Eisenhower, for another and for all his assurances that military security was the only justification for censorship, allowed one significant exception—nothing that might damage Allied unity would pass through AFHQ and later SHAEF censorship. As early as January 1943, Eisenhower’s aide Robert Murphy had assured no less than the Combined Chiefs of Staff that only two restrictions were placed on press dispatches from North Africa: those that

108

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

reported operational military information and those that suggested AngloAmerican disunity.62 In the run-up to the Normandy landings, Eisenhower himself made the same point in a meeting with American reporters: the only information he considered out of bounds was that involving military security or that was critical of an ally.63 Allied unity was the stated rationale for the ban on reporting about the political strife in French North Africa as well as the pretext for adhering to Russian desires in May 1945. Allied unity indeed became the pretext most often used to enforce political censorship when it occurred throughout the war, a feature of information policy that would bedevil media-military relations. While professing to censor only for military security, Allied authorities seemed blind to the way in which Allied morale and unity could be used as a pretext to suppress information either known to the enemy or of no value to it but still of some importance to Allied political calculations. In certain circumstances, then, the “strategy of truth” proved insufficient.

Notes 1 Allan M. Winkler, The Politics of Propaganda: The Office of War Information, 1942–45 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), pp. 12–13. 2 R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Comes the Reckoning (New York: Arno Press, 1972); see also Gordon Wright, The Ordeal of Total War 1939–1945 (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), p. 74. 3 Michael S. Sweeney, Secrets of Victory: The Office of Censorship and the American Press and Radio in World War II (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), pp. 31–36. 4 George P. Thomson, Blue Pencil Admiral: The Inside Story of Press Censorship (London: Samson Low and Marston, 1947), pp. 6, 33. 5 For the sake of convenience I will hereafter conflate these terms and refer to both as political censorship. 6 Quoted in Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), p. 771. 7 Thomson, Blue Pencil Admiral, p. 162. See also Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain—1939–1945 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1969), pp. 503–6. 8 For notable accounts of amicable media-military relations in the Second World War, see, among many others, Michael S. Sweeney, The Military and the Press: An Uneasy Truce (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2006); Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker from the

Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship

109

Crimea to Iraq, rev. ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), pp. 344–54; and Frederick Voss, Reporting the War: The Journalistic Coverage of World War II (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994). Even Steven Casey’s recent The War Beat, Europe (London: Oxford University Press, 2017) which better than previous texts highlights frictions between the media and the military, does not mention the political censorship in North Africa. 9 For more on this debate, see Julian G. Hurstfield, America and the French Nation, 1939–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986). 10 Roosevelt Directive to Murphy, September 22, 1942, Robert D. Murphy Papers, Box 154, Folder 7, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA. 11 There are a number of conflicting accounts about the negotiations with the French in the run-up to TORCH. See Robert D. Murphy, Diplomat among Warriors (Garden City: Doubleday, 1964); see also Kenneth Pendar, Adventure in Diplomacy: Our French Dilemma (New York: Dodd & Mead, 1945); Mark Clark, Calculated Risk (New York: Harper Brothers, 1950); Cordell Hull, The Memoirs of Cordell Hull (New York: Macmillan, 1948); and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (Garden City: Doubleday, 1948). See also Arthur Layton Funk, The Politics of TORCH: The Allied Landings and the Algiers Putsch, 1942 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1974). 12 For more on the military campaign in North Africa, see the official army history, George F. Howe, Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1957); also Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942–1943 (New York: Henry Holt, 2002). 13 There was considerable controversy at the time and much speculation later about whether (or not) Darlan knew of the Allied invasion in advance. Most historians conclude that he was in Algiers by chance, to visit his ailing son. 14 “Clark-Darlan Agreement,” RG 84 Records of the Foreign Service Posts of the Department of State, Entry 2010, Box 1, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD. (Henceforth NARA). 15 For assessments of Darlan, see Funk, The Politics of TORCH, pp. 22–23; Hurstfield, America and the French Nation, 1939–1945, pp. 162–63; William L. Langer, Our Vichy Gamble (Hamden: Archon Books, 1965), pp. 164–65; and for a French perspective, Albert Kammerer, De débarquement africain au meurtre de Darlan (Paris: Flammarion, 1949), pp. 542–55. 16 Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, pp. 139–40. 17 MacVane to Richardson, cable, November 25, 1942, John MacVane Papers, Box 1, Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, WI. 18 John MacVane, On the Air in World War II (New York: William Morrow, 1979), p. 133. 19 A. J. Liebling, The Road Back to Paris (Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1944), pp. 219, 215.

110

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

20 “Judge Advocate’s Report, Lincoln Barnett,” December 21, 1942, RG 331 Records of Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War II, AFHQ Microfilm, Box 115, Reel 71D, NARA. 21 Renée Gosset, Conspiracy in Algiers, 1942–1943, trans. Nancy Hecksher (New York: The Nation, 1945), p. 131. 22 Radio Maroc would bedevil the Allies for months to come. See Milton Eisenhower to Elmer Davis, cable, December 15, 1942, RG 165 War Department General and Special Staffs, Entry 499, Box 11, NARA. 23 MacVane, On the Air in World War II, 139. See also Edwin James, “Algiers Muffs Badly on Darlan Death,” New York Times, December 27, 1942. 24 Cecil Brown, Broadcast script, December 25, 1942, Cecil Brown Papers, Box 1, Folder 9, WHS, Madison, WI. 25 Liebling, Road Back to Paris, p. 231. 26 Ibid., pp. 233, 235. 27 Ernie Pyle, “Snakes in Our Midst,” in Ernie’s War, ed. David Nichols (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), pp. 64–65. 28 Ibid., 65. 29 Marshall, “Informal and Off the Records Statement to the American Society of Newspaper Editors,” January 23, 1943, RG165 War Department General and Special Staffs, Entry 13, Box 28, NARA. 30 McClure to Maj. Gen. Frederick Lawson, January 19, 1943, WO204/5426, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, England. 31 Murphy to Combined Chiefs of Staff and Hull, cable, January 24, 1943, RG218 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Entry 1, Box 9, NARA. 32 After the invasion of Sicily, the Allies began political negotiations with King Victor Emanuel and Marshall Pietro Badoglio, both of whom had acquiesced, at a minimum, to Mussolini’s rule. When reporters in the field got wind of this, which they believed was a repeat of the mistake made with Darlan, Allied officials again imposed political censorship. For more on this episode, see Murphy, Diplomat among Warriors, pp. 186–205. 33 Joint Chiefs of Staff to Eisenhower, cable, May 3, 1945, RG 331 Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, Entry 1, Box 3, NARA. 34 Thor Smith to Ernest Dupuy, letter, (April 1946), Thor Smith Papers, Box 3, Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS. 35 Edward Kennedy, “I’d Do It Again,” Atlantic Monthly, 182:2 (August 1948), 39. 36 Ibid. 37 “[Telephone] Conference between Col. Hill and Brigadier General Allen,” transcript, May 7, 1945. RG 165 War Department Special and General Staffs, Entry 499, Box 58, NARA. Several hours later Allen concluded that the news agency as an organization had not been involved in what he deemed a major breach of security. He thus lifted

Allied War Correspondents’ Resistance to Political Censorship

111

the suspension on all but three AP personnel—Kennedy, Gudebrod, and London bureau chief Robert Bunnelle, who had relayed the message to New York. 38 Cooper to Eisenhower, cable, May 7, 1945, Edward Kennedy Papers (Henceforth EKP), Box 2, Folder 18, Associated Press Corporate Archive. New York, New York (Henceforth APCA). 39 Drew Middleton, et al. to Eisenhower, May 8, 1945. RG 331 Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War II, Entry 85A, Box 44, NARA. 40 See Kingsbury Smith (INS European General Manager) to Eisenhower, May 9, 1945. RG 331 Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War II, Entry 6, Box 10, NARA. 41 “Complete Text of SHAEF Official Transcript of Meeting of Accredited Allied War Correspondents,” cable, May 8, 1945. EKP, Box 3, Folder 23, APCA. 42 Marshall to Eisenhower, cable, May 8, 1945, RG 165 Records of War Department General and Special Staffs, Entry 499, Box 58, NARA. 43 Eisenhower Statement, May 9, 1945, RG 331 Allied Operational and Occupation Headquarters, World War II, Entry 6, Box 10, NARA. 44 “President of AP Regrets Peace ‘Beat’,” New York Times, May 11, 1945. 45 “Expression of Regret,” Editorial, Washington Star, May 11, 1945. 46 “The Paris Censorship,” Alabama Journal, May 10, 1945, RG 216 Office of Censorship, Entry 1A Box 541, NARA. 47 “Editorial,” Miami News, May 9, 1945, EKP, Box 6, Folder 50, APCA. 48 AP wire story, May 10, 1945. EKP. Box 3, Folder 26, APCA. 49 “Bottling Up V-E Day News,” Editorial, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 10, 1945, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Scrapbooks, Box 12, Folder 18, APCA. 50 AP wire story, May 10, 1945. EKP. Box 3, Folder 26, APCA. 51 Ben McKelway to Kent Cooper, May 22, 1945, EKP, Box 1, Folder 11, APCA. 52 For more on Kennedy’s tangles with censors, see Richard Fine, “Edward Kennedy’s Long Road to Reims,” American Journalism, 33:3 (2016), 317–39. 53 Cooper to Harris, letter, July 26, 1946, AP Subject Files, Box 79, APCA. The rationale Cooper and McLean settled on for Kennedy’s dismissal centered on his not informing New York explicitly of the circumstances surrounding his scoop. 54 “AP Man Restored as Army Writer,” New York Times, July 22, 1946. 55 T. M. Storke to Cooper, (1946–47), EKP, Box 2, Folder 15, NARA. 56 Cochran, “Epilogue,” in Kennedy, Ed Kennedy’s War, pp. 192, 201. 57 Kennedy to Cooper, letter, August 30, 1944 EKP. Box 1, Folder 9, APCA. 58 “Ed Kennedy’s War,” AP Corporate Archives, 4:2 (July 2012), 2. 59 Manuel Roig-Franzia, “Pulitzer Wanted for Reporter Who Broke Story on Nazi Germany’s Surrender,” Washington Post, November 23, 2012. 60 A. J. Liebling, “The Wayward Press: the A.P. Surrenders,” New Yorker, May 19, 1945, p. 62.

112

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

61 Thomson, Blue Pencil Admiral, p. 155. 62 Murphy to Combined Chiefs of Staff, cable, January 23, 43, RG 165 War Department Special and General Staffs, Entry 499, Box 29, NARA. 63 Transcript of Eisenhower Press Conference, May 22, 1944, Thor Smith Papers, Box 6, Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KS.

7

“The Rot Must Be Stopped Even at the Cost of Some Public Discussion”: Anti-Semitism in the Polish Forces as a Crisis of Policy and Public Information1 James Wald

“A propaganda campaign has been raging against our Government and army. . . . Unfortunately, we have handled the matter clumsily and played into the hands of our enemies,” Polish ambassador Raczyński wrote in his London diary in April, 1944.2 It is a commonplace that heightened government concern with “information”—from promulgation for internal or external audiences to restriction through censorship—is a hallmark of “total war.”3 For the major combatants, the most important of such efforts, as the case of the British MoI demonstrates, was domestic: “To sustain civilian morale.”4 For the continental governments-in-exile, however, management of information was an even more challenging task: they had to communicate with the civilian populations from whom they were physically separated, while cultivating the support of the great powers on whom they were dependent. For these exile nations, information therefore could be as strategically important as military action, but the population of the host country was at once a foreign and a sort of secondary domestic audience, whose interests and values might be very different from their own. And at stake for the post-Versailles successor states of Central Europe—in contrast to the established polities of the West—was much more than the future system or composition of government: the state’s borders, even its existence. Three episodes involving information shaped the image of the exiled government of Poland, which had been invaded by both Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 only to find itself uneasily allied with the latter. In 1942, it was the first Allied power to publicize extensive evidence of the Holocaust, leading to a

114

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

United Nations vow of retribution.5 In 1943, its demand for an investigation into Nazi revelations of the Soviet massacre of Polish elites at Katyń precipitated a rupture with the Soviet Union, which later created a rival government-in-exile.6 The preceding two cases are well known, but Raczyński’s lament refers to a third, nowadays forgotten, one. In early 1944, faced with persistent anti-Semitism, nearly a third of the roughly 700 Jews in the Polish forces in the UK left their posts and demanded a transfer to British units. Two large groups silently succeeded, but the arrest and court-martial of a third, much smaller group caused a domestic uproar and an international crisis.7 Bernard Wasserstein characterizes acts of Jew-hatred among the Polish forces as “the most important manifestations of wartime anti-Semitism in Britain,” and David Engel observes that the incident generated more paper on the part of the Polish government than any other issue involving the Jews—quite something in the era of Auschwitz.8 This “paper”—like that generated in response by the British government—was intended to keep the incident from becoming public, and after it did, to limit the damage. In what follows, I examine the crisis through the lens of the dramatis personae, whose stances reflected not just different views on the issue but also fundamentally different attitudes toward information and public debate in wartime.

Anti-Semitism and the soldiers Complaints about endemic anti-Semitism in the Polish forces in the West surfaced even before the Battle of France, and aroused the concern of British Jewry and politicians. Even when British officialdom acknowledged the phenomenon (“anti-Semitism is fairly rife”), they were prone to dismiss cases as isolated or trivial (a captain’s speech calling for the “Slaughter” of the Jews was “messroom exuberance”)9 or, embracing the Polish stereotype of żydokomuna (Judeocommunism), explain it as justified resentment toward the Jews for alleged proSoviet attitudes.10 Less important than the reaction to any specific incident was the pattern established for the future: a tendency to privilege information from the Polish authorities—either as inherently more credible or as representing official policy, which trumped any empirical shortcomings. It thus established a very high bar of both proof and significance for reports coming from other quarters. Anti-Semitism in an Allied army was an embarrassment, but beyond the British remit.11 That would begin to change when the Polish forces reconstituted themselves on British soil under British command, as a result of which MP D. N. Pritt cautioned,

“The Rot Must Be Stopped Even at the Cost of Some Public Discussion”

115

“We are now wholly responsible.”12 Already in August 1940, Commander-inChief Władisław Sikorski had to issue an Order of the Day condemning antiSemitism.13 That such measures were necessary but not sufficient—“Gen. Sikorski has a hard row to hoe . . . but he is clearly doing his best,” a Foreign Office minute noted—became apparent when two issues foreshadowing later trouble came to the attention of press and Parliament in 1940–41.14 Revealing dynamics that would prevail later, a divided Polish government made fitful efforts to close or reform an unofficial anti-Semitic Polish weekly, Jestem Polakiem (“I am a Pole”), ultimately hoping the British would solve the problem for them. The latter, however, cited the lack of proper authority or legal grounds such as harming the war effort. As MoI’s then minister, Duff Cooper, explained with regret, “responsibility for the suppression of newspapers does not rest with the Ministry of Information,” a fact that suited the Foreign Office: it would “set the Poles a bad example, while they are supposed to be learning how democratic institutions should function.”15 The real problem was of course the popularity of the paper’s ideas among officers and ranks, a matter for which the Polish authorities presumably bore greater responsibility. MPs were disturbed at reports that the Poles were forcibly conscripting their citizens in Britain, among them Jews who reported encountering hostility and discrimination.16 That the final Allied Conscription Act allowed Polish nationals the choice of service in either their own or the British forces was thus of no consolation to many of the Jews already wearing the Polish uniform. Although the official stance of the Polish authorities was, as the British repeatedly affirmed, “beyond reproach,”17 it seemed to have little bearing on lived experience: hazing and harassment, discrimination in promotion and punishment, and lack of response to complaints. Worse still, soldiers publicly applauded news of the unfolding Holocaust without reprimand.18 The psychological tipping point came in mid-1943 with the recruitment of Polish nationals from among German POWs, whose anti-Semitic views had not changed with their uniforms.19 Accustomed to vague threats to kill them all after the war, Jewish soldiers now heard a more specific and ominous one: “The moment we get you there, on the second front, every Pole has two bullets—the first for a Jew and the second for a German.”20 A new Desk for Jewish Affairs under the Political Division of the Polish Ministry of National Defence tackled the problem of anti-Semitism.21 Working with the two Jewish members of the Polish National Council (Zionist Ignacy Schwarzbart and Bundist Emanuel Szerer), these officials also reached out to the official bodies of Polish and British Jewry, insisting, however, on discretion, for

116

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

the aim was both to improve conditions and to keep any damaging information from the public eye. Like the US military, which, as Chapter 5 explains, responded to charges of discrimination by trying to make more visible the role of black servicemen, the Polish authorities now sought to promote understanding of Jewish culture and contributions to the military, and created a special publication, Polish-Jewish Soldier, for the High Holidays.22 The strategic goal was ruthlessly pragmatic as well as principled: to stave off a rumored impending desertion. All these efforts were unavailing: too little, too late. The troops had all along been bringing their complaints to the Jewish members of the council and Polish and British Jewish organizations. In mid-January 1944, having lost patience with the eternal counsels of patience emanating from these quarters, sixty-eight soldiers left Scotland for London, reached out to sympathetic MPs, and threatened public protest if not allowed to join British forces. Assuring the British liaison there was no widespread anti-Semitism but desperately seeking to avoid a public relations disaster, Polish minister of Defence General Marian Kukiel quickly and quietly agreed to the transfer— and then set up a Commission of Inquiry into anti-Semitism.23 Unfortunately, the latter—not least because it was slanted and inadequate—worsened rather than improved conditions24 and a second group of 134 left in late February even before the report appeared. Anxious to limit the damage, Schwarzbart and two members of the Representation of Polish Jewry, in a plaintive letter marked “Not to be published,” acknowledged the “embitterment” of the defiant soldiers but condemned their action “as wrong and damaging” and begged them “to return at once to the ranks.”25 It was in vain. Having failed to prevent the desertions but unable to defend them, the Jewish members of the council had both proven themselves ineffectual as tools of the authorities and, in the words of the Foreign Office, “lost the confidence” of the soldiers.26 Once again, a transfer was arranged, but the British and Polish military now drew the line. The latter responded with two Orders of the Day in mid-March: one announcing that absence without leave would be treated as desertion in wartime—in the case of “conspiracy,” potentially carrying the death penalty—and another condemning both the desertions and anti-Semitism.27 Some thirty more soldiers nonetheless took the desperate step and assembled in London.28 The hammer came down, and in early April, independent left-leaning MP Tom Driberg, who had been working closely with the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) to aid the soldiers, raised the issue in the House of Commons.29 Public outrage peaked after a court-martial sentenced the soldiers to prison terms in mid-April. Press coverage was extensive, much editorial comment harsh.30 Trades unions added

“The Rot Must Be Stopped Even at the Cost of Some Public Discussion”

117

their voice, protesting with letters and telegrams.31 Less than a month later, the Polish president declared an amnesty.32

Poland The inadequacy of the Polish authorities’ response to anti-Semitism was not inevitable, but it was overdetermined by the confluence of general attitudes toward Jews and the decline in Poland’s diplomatic standing and military importance. The tendency of even those who were not anti-Semites to ascribe the complaints to the oversensitivity of a minority group led them to underestimate the scale of both the objective and the public relations problem just when Poland could least afford it.33 Accustomed to thinking of itself as “Britain’s first Ally,”34 and a major player rather than supporting actor, Poland had suffered a double humiliation: militarily, diminished by the entry of the Soviet Union and United States into the war in 1941; and politically, marginalized after the Katyń crisis and Tehran Conference in 1943, when the Soviets broke off relations and made territorial demands that Britain endorsed. “Our stock is declining on all sides,” Raczyński lamented.35 As David Engel observes, the Polish military had put itself in a box at the outset: needing to justify the transfer to the British without admitting there was a serious problem. Thus, the Commission of Inquiry, echoing assertions made even before a single “desertion” occurred, discerned only isolated anti-Semitism and attributed the soldiers’ complaints to “lack of emotional bonds with Poland,” poor military character, and a “malignant psychosis.” Traumatized by the fate of their people at home, it said, they imagined anti-Semitism everywhere, while agitators exploited this climate.36 Obviously, over two hundred individuals did not just spontaneously head for London to seek transfers, but neither was there some vast political conspiracy, as the Polish military and government alleged, on the part of either Soviet or Zionist forces. Rather, soldiers evidently began to compare their situation with one another by word of mouth in their units and at army-wide Jewish holiday gatherings; thus creating informal communication networks. The army’s official information policy—unable to suppress internal news of the transfers but unwilling publicly to explain or announce them— exacerbated the situation by leaving a vacuum to be filled by those networks and rumor. Jewish soldiers—and their British supporters—optimistically interpreted as a new policy what the army regarded as a unique exception—and the stage was set for collision and the second wave.37

118

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

When the affair went public after the third wave, the Polish authorities were set back on their heels. Their communication strategy, epitomized by a long press release issued in conjunction with the amnesty, was tone-deaf. Rather than even rhetorically acknowledging the problem, it dismissed it—“the allegations of antiSemitism . . . are grossly exaggerated . . . and most unfair to the Polish soldier”—and doubled down on the explanations from the earlier report and promised another Commission of Inquiry. Highlighting the absence of “physical ill-treatment,” the authorities were blind to the emotional and psychological harm caused by a hostile climate of discrimination. They gave new emphasis to the earlier charge that the “desertions” were “organized,” to exploit soldiers’ cowardice or desire for British citizenship. The “substantial evidence of conspiracy” implied the sinister hand of the Soviets, allegedly seeking to undermine the London government by tarnishing its reputation and sowing dissension in the Armoured Division.38 It was an understandable but baseless charge, as should have been absolutely clear in the case of the third group.39 (In point of fact, the Soviets promptly reported but made only limited propaganda use of the incident.40) The statement that “the debate in the House of Commons and the ensuing press campaign” would “cause real harm to the future of Polish-Jewish relations,” with the result that Poles at home might be less willing to save Jews from the Nazis, sounded like an implied threat. General Kukiel spoke of “a storm throughout the entire world against the Polish authorities and armed forces,” while Raczyński complained of a “witch-hunt.”41 The dynamics of the Jestem Polakiem affair resurfaced: the British considered this limited “desertion” (and the possibility of its spreading) a greater threat to the war effort than the persecution that was prompting it and causing actual harm to unit cohesion, while the Poles, unaccustomed to the free debate of English democracy, expected the host government to suppress hostile press coverage, a request that earned weary official responses and private mockery from the Foreign Office: I don’t know what we are expected to do about this entirely pointless protest. ? [sic] Reply reminding this Polish Ambassador that HMG do not control the British Press, a fact of which he must already be painfully aware.42

The Poles saw all too clearly that every dip in their reputation meant a potential dip in public support for their stance regarding the eastern border, but after the military rejected its own Foreign Ministry’s advice to compromise,43 they did not know what to do. The leftist Daily Herald summarized the official stance: “Poles: Jew Persecution was ‘Trivial.’”44 Driberg and his allies had set the terms of the debate, and a self-congratulatory, defensive nine-page document was no match

“The Rot Must Be Stopped Even at the Cost of Some Public Discussion”

119

for headlines such as “3,000 Ex-Hun Soldiers in Polish Ranks?” and “Jew-baiters once served with Rommel.”45 Feeling betrayed by the UK on the diplomatic front with the Soviets and under assault from every side in the public sphere over the deserters, the Poles were in no mood for what the ambassador sarcastically called “lessons in morality from our British friends.”46

The UK When, as winter turned to spring, the British Foreign Office and War Office concurred that “the rot must be stopped, even at the cost of some public discussion,” the reference was not to Polish anti-Semitism but to the Jewish desertions.47 Military necessity took precedence over abstract issues of morality. The British found themselves, awkwardly or inconsistently, following a two track-policy reflecting their commitment, on the one hand, to human rights and liberal values and on the other, to the war effort and power politics. Fortunately, the latter allowed them to urge the former on the Poles as a pragmatic measure. Reluctant to accept the second group, the army would have preferred Poland to arrest the men and have done with it, but “in view of possible political and parliamentary repercussions,” deferred to the Foreign Office (the reverse of the lines of influence on the Polish side), which considered it “of great importance that this dirty Polish linen should not be washed in public at the present.”48 The concerns were twofold—and strictly secret. First: as the invasion approached, “the War Office fear[ed] a landslide,” for “if it becomes generally known that desertion is an easy way to get out of fighting the rot will spread in all the Allied armies in England.”49 Second: the fear that damaging Poland’s public image would only widen the rift with its eastern neighbor whose troops now stood on its soil.50 In that sense, ironically, the Jewish “desertions” and Polish recalcitrance at Stalin’s territorial demands were equivalent obstacles to be dealt with in a spirit of coldly calculating pragmatism. Indeed, terms such as “publicity” and “public discussion” loom large in the deliberations regarding the incident in the British archives.51 There was no formal censorship, for once news of the affair broke, the press covered it extensively. Still, for the British as for the American authorities described in Chapter 6, the overriding priority of advancing the war effort included maintaining Allied unity, which in this case meant suppressing news of the “desertions” as long as possible.52 Once Britain and Poland decided to hold the line on transfers, the only choice for Whitehall was quietly to impress

120

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

upon its client the need to put its house in order regarding anti-Semitism—and then hope for the best.53

The activists Instead, their worst nightmare came to pass when Driberg raised the question in the House of Commons on April 5.54 That Driberg led the charge, supported by fellow leftwing MPs Strauss, Mack, Rathbone, Pritt, and Gallacher, was proof for the Poles that publicizing the issue was part of a communist disinformation campaign, intended to support the Soviets and weaken Poland.55 In point of fact, Driberg, in his successive attempts to help each group of soldiers, sought to resolve the matter behind the scenes—“prepared to co-operate in withholding publicity for the present,” the Foreign Office put it—explaining that his only goal was to secure the safety of the men, not to embarrass either government.56 In the parliamentary debates the chief opposing argument (blatant expressions of anti-Semitism aside) was the one of military readiness and the implication that the dissident soldiers were cowards or shirkers.57 In order to succeed, Driberg needed not just evidence and logic but also a rhetorical strategy. First, he stressed his credentials as a journalist in evaluating witness testimony to prove that the anti-Semitism was indeed pervasive, irremediable, and murderous. Secondly, he reinforced this by emphasizing (as he had all along, behind the scenes) that the accused were not cowards but “a tough highly-trained combatant type of soldier.” Therefore, thirdly, he made a point of refusing to use the term “deserters,” instead speaking of “refugees” from anti-Semitism or “Absentees for freedom” as in the title of a pamphlet he produced for the NCCL.58 The latter organization deserves a far larger place in the story than it has been accorded. Committed to fostering government openness and freedom of the press, the NCCL employed publicity as its chief weapon. It held commissions of inquiry and protest demonstrations, organized letter-writing campaigns to press and politicians, and came to constitute a highly effective lobby in Parliament.59 Among the chief concerns of the NCCL in this era was anti-Semitism, which it viewed as the product not just of ignorance, but also of deliberate fascist subversion. In 1943, the NCCL organized a national conference and campaign against anti-Semitism, arguing inter alia that the MoI should treat it as a danger to the war effort.60 The Polish soldiers were thus a perfect cause for the NCCL. It took action most prominently just after the amnesty, holding a London rally

“The Rot Must Be Stopped Even at the Cost of Some Public Discussion”

121

(closely monitored by the suspicious authorities) demanding: “End Racial Persecution on British Soil,” and “Transfer Polish Jews to the British Forces.” Featuring an array of speakers from the world of politics and journalism, it ended with Pritt’s exhortation that “British public opinion” had secured initial victory and now needed to complete the job.61 Nonetheless, the most important work of the NCCL arguably took place behind the scenes: it brought the actions of the soldiers to Driberg’s attention, collected their testimony, visited them in London, and kept him supplied with information on their status, from flight to freedom.62 He and the NCCL won because they persuaded a large swath of the press and public—if not Eden and the Foreign Office—that the real issue was not desertion but anti-Semitism.

The Jewish community Counterintuitive though it may seem, British Jewry were the reluctant—and very belated—followers rather than leaders in publicly advocating for the soldiers. Driberg recalled with astonishment that “we had pursued this matter in the House against the advice—the almost lachrymose pleading—of the official spokesmen.”63 In contrast to an earlier, complacent or heroic narrative, the recent historiography has taken a far more critical view of Anglo-Jewish identity and politics. One prominent interpretation posits a Faustian bargain or conflicted mindset: utter fealty to and faith in a liberal integrationist ideal and simultaneous paralyzing fear of anything that could jeopardize it by calling attention to the group as distinct from other Britons.64 The need to combat antiSemitism embodied the paradox. Indeed, the records of the Board of Deputies of British Jews—and its subsidiary Defence Committee and Trades Advisory Council—are replete with almost pathologically anxious responses to every trivial accusation of Jewish wartime wrongdoing, from economic impropriety to “ostentatious” wedding or bar mitzvah celebrations.65 That said, their concerns were not groundless, and their thinking and action more complex than perhaps meets the eye. In April 1945, George Orwell concluded that the war had increased rather than diminished British hostility to Jews.66 Even before the war began, the board commissioned an MO survey on anti-Semitism, though they eventually deemed the MoI a more effective partner.67 In 1942, the latter found anti-Semitism “latent . . . in most districts.”68 Chief among the charges was the notion that the Jews were not sharing the common burden of the war effort: living too well; profiting legally or

122

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

illegally from the conflict; shunning danger, civilian or military.69 The following year, as reports suggested a rise in anti-Semitism, the archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, felt compelled to speak out against such prejudices (to which even some philosemites were not immune).70 The board’s inveterate preference for acting behind the scenes was arguably not just the product of timidity but also of historically proven means of intervention by elites on behalf of the community.71 They viewed themselves as expert insiders and intercessors, maintaining contact not only with Brendan Bracken and the MoI but also with the Polish government, whose large Jewish population was most at risk. At first, their concern was the future of Jewry in the light of Polish statements that much of the large “surplus” Jewish population would have to be expelled after the war.72 As it became clear that few Jews might survive, the emphasis shifted to support and rescue. The case of the Polish-Jewish soldiers thus created a particularly vexing problem. On the one hand, the board could not allow anti-Semitism to go unchallenged, and the soldiers unaided. On the other, to be seen as endorsing desertion risked affirming all the negative stereotypes of Jews and inflaming the latent prejudice they sought so hard to quell. The delicate situation only reinforced the board’s belief in the correctness of its modus operandi. It had closely followed the issue since 1943, attempting, with the aid of the Polish government, to distinguish between legitimate and spurious grievances, and it was in contact with the “deserters” from the start. It provided them with both moral and material support while urging them to return to their units and simultaneously pressing the Polish authorities for explanations and action. As the crisis unfolded, the board, although maintaining its rejection of desertion, became more sympathetic to the idea of transfer.73 When the affair burst into the open, the board was finally forced to choose: Its engagement with the Polish leadership became more adversarial74 and for the first time it took a public stance. A resolution called upon the British government to effect a review of the sentences and transfer of the soldiers. President Selig Brodetsky said, given “the fundamental principle for which this war is being waged against the Nazis,” anti-Semitism could never be an “internal Polish question,” and the situation “needs a clear statement . . . to all who are interested in the future of civilization and Freedom.” The sentences “have caused us . . . the greatest disquiet,” for “the ordinary man will refuse to use the term ‘desertion’” and instead demand steps to ensure “that this kind of thing shall not happen in the future.”75 The board’s rhetorical strategy had carefully defined the issue as one of anti-Semitism and by and large succeeded. Although reports alleged

“The Rot Must Be Stopped Even at the Cost of Some Public Discussion”

123

“considerable anti-Semitism . . . in factories” (always the chief site of concern) in response to the affair, these were the exception to the rule, for the organized working class, to judge from protests sent to the British government, took the side of the soldiers.76

Denouement Although the amnesty by President Raczkiewicz should have been the end of the story, it was not. Ironically, by taking the awkward and contentious issue of “desertion” off the table, it put the real question of anti-Semitism front and center once again, thus prolonging rather than ending public debate. The soldiers underscored this by steadfastly rejecting the condition that they report back to their units, for amnesty was of no help if conditions that had led them to depart had not changed. The Polish leadership was stunned, for they had badly miscalculated. They viewed the problem legalistically and as a discrete case rather than manifestation of systemic problems: the deserters had knowingly broken military law, the government imposed extremely lenient sentences—and then magnanimously annulled them; problem solved. The public, by contrast, viewed the affair as a matter of justice, not law. Concerned that they might be regarded as shirkers yet determined not to give in, the soldiers wrote to Driberg, hoping that their case might be brought to an “open forum.” On D-Day, “very desperate having to sit here idle,” they reaffirmed their desire for combat assignments or any other hazardous service for the British.77 The invasion drove their story from the headlines as negotiations dragged on behind the scenes. A new and more serious Commission of Inquiry met and amassed a good deal of testimony. Finally, in the autumn, the British finessed the problem by (without publicity) assigning the men to difficult work in the civilian war industry.78 The Commission of Inquiry resumed its hearings early in 1945 but issued no final report: whether because the information was so damning or because more pressing military and diplomatic matters commanded the attention of the London Polish government.79 What had begun in secrecy ended in secrecy.

Conclusion All of the official or institutional actors would have preferred to handle the episode away from the glare of public scrutiny. Only the soldiers and their

124

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

advocates such as the NCCL and the MPs viewed publicity as a positive factor, whether out of preference or necessity. All parties eventually, nonetheless, concluded that the battle over the incident would have to be fought in the public sphere. The Foreign Office may have considered itself victorious for holding the line on transfers, but in the war of ideas and opinion, the soldiers won because their advocates were able to convince the broad public that the issue was one of morality rather than legality. The News Chronicle understood the case perfectly when it concluded, “Under the pressure of public opinion, these unhappy men were set free.”80 Still, there remain conflicting views of the decision to go public. David Engel concludes that the scandal moved the London Polish government to a belated effort to rescue the surviving Jews of Europe. That it began with lofty phrases yet produced nothing was ironically appropriate.81 More recently, Michael Fleming, while concurring that “Polish activities against anti-Semitism were stepped up,” argues, more provocatively than persuasively, that the excessive press coverage of this small affair harmed Polish-Jewish relations and marginalized the emerging news of the Holocaust in Hungary. Further, that the Polish-Jewish representatives understood the situation better than did the soldiers’ external advocates—and thus, presumably, the soldiers themselves.82 And what of the latter? Driberg had no doubts. Decades later, he said simply: “If I had listened to [the voices urging caution], those Jewish soldiers would still have been suffering bullying in Scotland or been killed by Polish bullets in Normandy.”83

Notes 1 This work grows out of a larger research project, intended to result in a book. I thank Simon Eliot, my long-time colleague in book history, for inspiring me to examine the topic from the angle of information. 2 Count Edward Raczyński, In Allied London (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962), p. 203. 3 Raymond Aron, The Century of Total War (Garden City: Doubleday, 1954), p. 52; Bernard Wasserstein, Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in Our Time (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 73–74, 339–44; Ian McLaine, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1979), p. 2. 4 McLaine, Ministry of Morale, pp. 1–11 (p. 1). 5 Bernard Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945 (London: Institute of Jewish Affairs; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 164–82; David Engel, In the

“The Rot Must Be Stopped Even at the Cost of Some Public Discussion”

125

Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1939–1942 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), pp. 198–202; Michael Fleming, Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), for example, pp. 104–20, 134–66. 6 Jan T. Gross provides a convenient overview in Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland after Auschwitz: An Essay in Historical Interpretation (New York: Random House, 2006), pp. 3–22. 7 Among the few substantive discussions are Wasserstein, Britain, pp. 120–30, and David Engel, Facing a Holocaust: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1943–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), pp. 108–37. 8 Wasserstein, Britain, p. 120; Engel, Holocaust, p. 111. 9 D. N. Pritt to R. A. Butler, April 2, 1940 and response by Roger Makins (Foreign Office) to Col. Gubbins (War Office), April 13, 1940, UK National Archives, Kew (NA), NA FO 371/24481 C5143/5143/55. On British Jewry, see Part VI, below. 10 NA FO 371/24481 C 6231/5143/55, April–May 1940. Joanna Beata Michlic, Poland’s Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to the Present (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), pp. 88–93. 11 Makins to Gubbins (see note 9). 12 Pritt to Butler, July 25, 1940, NA FO 371/24481 C 5143/5143/55. 13 Butler to MP C. J. Wedgwood, September 18, 1940, NA FO 371/24481 C 8923/5143/55. 14 Minute by Frank Roberts, September 24, 1940, NA FO 371/24481 C 101025/5143/5143/55. 15 Extracts from the “Dziennik Polski,” NA FO 371/26737 C 2050/815/5; Duff Cooper excerpt from Parliamentary record, C 3687/815/11, April 11, 1941; minute by Roberts, April 24, 1941, C 3960/815/55. 16 NA FO 371/26737, FO 371/24481/5143. Both complex affairs are well summarized by Wasserstein, Britain, pp. 122–26 and Engel, Shadow, pp. 71–77, 85. 17 For example, R. A. Butler to MP J. C. Wedgwood, September 16, 1940, NA FO 371/24481 C 8923/5143/55; Minute by Roberts, May 13, 1941, NA FO 371/26769 C 4878/5143/55. 18 Samples of testimony: NA FO 371/39480 C 1906/918/55; Records of the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD), London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), ACC 3121 C 11/7/1/6 1943; National Council for Civil Liberties Archives (NCCL), Hull History Centre, DCL/310/8. The papers of MP Tom Driberg (SOC Driberg), Christ Church, Oxford, also contain examples of testimony. 19 “Some Notes on the Poles from Rommel’s Army,” SOC Driberg P7 14. Eager to bring the nascent First Armoured Division up to full operational strength in anticipation of D-Day, Sikorski asked Churchill to secure the transfer of these prisoners from American captivity, NA PREM 3 351/14 (May–June 1943). The

126

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Polish Forces in Britain, although uniquely robust in comparison with those of other exile nations—indeed, fourth-largest after those of the Soviet Union, United States and United Kingdom—were nonetheless notoriously long on officers and short on ranks, and Sikorski had persistently pressed for more troops as well as equipment. 20 Tom Driberg, House of Commons, April 6, 1944, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), 398 H.C. DEB. 5 s. (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1944), col. 2265. Minute by Denis Allen, February 25, 1944, NA FO 371/39480 C 2643/918/55. 21 Engel, Holocaust, summarizes, pp. 115–16. 22 The 12-page Żołnierz Polski-Żyd, September 1943, Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum (PISM), London, A.XII.1/65. 23 Kukiel to General Arthur Grasset, January 26, 1944, NA FO 371/39480 C 1438/918/55. (Kukiel defensively noted much larger desertions in Palestine, but as Engel, Holocaust, pp. 111–14, observes, these were different in motivation and character.) Actually accomplishing the transfers proved more difficult because the Jews balked at the conditions the Polish Army set down, FO 371/39480 C 1906/918/55. 24 Driberg, citing soldiers’ testimony, explicitly blamed the inquiry for worsening the situation: “Persecution of soldiers of Jewish race in the Polish Army,” NA FO 371/39480 C 2243/918/55; See further note 23, above; Engel, Holocaust, pp. 117–21. 25 Adolf Brotman, general secretary of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, forwarded a copy to the Foreign Office, NA FO 371/39480 C 2836/918/55. Polish original (updated in March), PISM A XII, 1/65. 26 Hall to Allen, February 26, 1944, NA F0 371/39480 C 3230/918/55. 27 Orders of the Day by Kukiel, March 13, 1944 and General Kazimierz Sosnkowski (March 20) who, following Sikorski’s death, had succeeded him as C-in-C, NA FO 371/ 39481 C 4296/918/55. 28 The issue of exact numbers is complex. The Polish government spoke of groups of 68, 134, and 23, respectively (the latter being the initial number of the third group, which grew to over 30), “Facts Concerning Attempted Disaffection Among Jewish and Orthodox Soldiers in the Polish Army in Great Britain” [May 1944]), Wiener Library (WL), London, WL 1066/6, p. 1. Twenty-one soldiers and three sailors were sentenced and amnestied. 29 House of Commons, April 5, 6, 1944, Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), 398 H.C. DEB. 5 s. (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1944), cols. 2010–14, 2259–2303. The topic figured again in the debates of April 26, May 10, 17, and, to a lesser extent, May 24, 25, June 8, all of which can be followed via https​://ap​i.par​liame​nt.uk​/hist​ oric-​hansa​rd/co​mmons​/inde​x.htm​l (accessed May 5, 2016). 30 For example, Evening Standard, Economist, and Observer, April 27, 29, 30, respectively, NCCL DCL 45/3.

“The Rot Must Be Stopped Even at the Cost of Some Public Discussion”

127

31 “Protests at arrest of Jewish deserters from Polish Army,” NA FO 371/39481 C 4582/918/55. 32 Sosnkowski had been preparing to order clemency when the government instead asked President Raczkiewicz to issue a wider general amnesty: drafts in English and Polish, May 11, 1944; copy of letter to MP John Mack, May 12, PISM A.XII. 1/65, pp. 483, 492, 494. Amnesty text: “Facts Concerning Attempted Disaffection . . . ,” pp. 7–8, WL 1066/6. 33 Wasserstein discusses underlying anti-Semitic or condescending attitudes, pp. 121–24. 34 Raczyński, London, p. 204. 35 NA PREM 3 355/3, 1944 Poland (Polish-Soviet Relations II); Raczyński, London, April 16, 1944, p. 202. 36 Engel, Holocaust, pp. 117–21; NA FO 371/3984 C 6127, 6147/918/55; notes 23, 24, above. 37 Driberg threatened to raise the issue in Parliament, “Polish breach of faith in connexion with the transfer of Jews . . . ,” NA FO 371/39480 C 2643/918/55. Paul Fussell reflects on the broad functions of rumor in Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 35–51. 38 “Facts . . . ,” WL 1066/6, pp. 4, 3, 5, 2. 39 Uncritical belief in a Soviet plot persists: The Poles in Britain, 1940–2000: From Betrayal to Assimilation, ed. Peter Stachura (London: Frank Cass, 2004), pp. 51–53; Michael Alfred Peszke, The Polish Underground Army, the Western Allies, and the Failure of Strategic Unity in World War II (Jefferson: McFarland, 2005), pp. 122–23; Halik Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and Poles in the Second World War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), pp. 461–62. Even in the simultaneous case of mostly Ukrainian and Byelorussian deserters, whose cause would have been perfect grist for Moscow’s propaganda mill, given the border controversy, the Foreign Office found “no evidence that they received encouragement from Soviet quarters”: Anthony Eden to Churchill, April 5, 1944, FO 371/39480 C 4517/918/55. See also Engel’s profile of the third group, Holocaust, 136. 40 For example, Telegram from A. Clark Kerr, Moscow, to Foreign Office on Tass, April 28, 1944, NA FO 371/39480 C 5610/918/55. 41 “Facts,” p. 6, WL 1066/6; Kukiel, cited in Engel, Holocaust, p. 109; Raczyński, London, May 20, 1944, p. 213. 42 Raczyński, London, p. 210. Raczyński to Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, May 2, 1944; FO Minute, May 5, NA FO 371/39483 C 5933/918/55: See further C 6147, 6188, 6088. Some in the Foreign Office agreed that press coverage was unreasonably hostile to Poland but of course could not intervene. 43 Engel, Holocaust, p. 131.

128

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

44 Daily Herald, April 12, NCCL DCL 45/3. 45 Jewish Chronicle, April 14, 1944, p. 1; News Chronicle, April 8, NCCL DCL 45/3. 46 Raczyński, London, April 11, p. 201. 47 Minute by Denis Allen, April 4, 1944, NA FO 371/39481 C 4570/918/55. See further Dixon (Foreign Office) to Redman (War Office), March 19, and Redman to Dixon, March 22, NA FO 371/39481 C 3386 and 3843/918/55; Minute by Owen O’Malley, February 23, NA FO 371/39480 C 2643/981/55. 48 Allen (Foreign Office) to Major Dru (War), February 18, 1944, NA FO 371/39480 C 2243/91/55. 49 Minutes by Allen and O’Malley, both February 23, 1944, NA FO 371/39480 C2643/918/55. There is no evidence that this was a realistic fear. 50 Drafts of minute to Churchill, March 1944, NA FO 371/39480 C 3121/918/55. 51 There is repeated talk of the need to limit, prevent, or delay public discussion. 52 Roberts to Col. Carlisle, February 26, 1944, NA FO 371/39480 C2643/918/55. 53 Oliver Harvey to O’Malley, February 26, 1944, NA FO 371/39480 C 2643/918/55. 54 The topic arose again on April 6, 26, and May 10, 17. 55 Raczyński, London, p. 201 spoke of “several MP’s of Jewish origin, supported by others who have fallen for Soviet propaganda” and a “Communist.” 56 Allen to Dru (see note 47, above). In both the debates and a subsequent pamphlet, Driberg took pains to give the Polish government credit for its efforts. 57 A view among some in the Foreign Office, which helps to explain its fear of the “rot.” 58 Tom Driberg, Absentees for Freedom: The Case of the Jews in the Polish Forces (London: NCCL, 1944), pp. 2, 3. Cf. Hansard, cols. 2262, 2266. He makes the same point about the fitness and martial temperament of the soldiers in his correspondence with the Foreign Office. Regrettably, I have been unable to locate publication data. Typical initial print runs of NCCL pamphlets aimed at the general public seem to have been 3,000–5,000 copies. NCCL DCL/259/2. 59 Janet Clark, The National Council for Civil Liberties and the Policing of Interwar Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), pp. 80–103. 60 NCCL DCL 41/7, 45/1, 45/2, 45/18, 77/2, 77/3; 100/3, 259/2. 61 End Racial Persecution on British Soil: Report of Speeches Made at a Public Meeting at the Stoll Theatre, London 14th May, 1944 (London: NCCL, 1944), p. 10, DCL 77/2. Further: DCL 45/4. MI5 and the police suspected NCCL of having communist ties; NA HO 45/25465. It is typical of this lacuna in the scholarship that even Engel, Holocaust (pp. 134, 269 n. 168) mentions the NCCL only as organizer of a protest rally, also citing Wasserstein, who, however, omits the sponsorship. By contrast, the NCCL took credit for the transfers and portrayed this episode as the centerpiece of its 1944 efforts in the retrospective, The National Council for Civil Liberties: The Record of a decade of work for Democracy and Civil Liberty 1934–1945 (London: NCCL, 1945), p. 10.

“The Rot Must Be Stopped Even at the Cost of Some Public Discussion”

129

62 SOC Driberg P 7 and 8, passim, e.g. P8/2 Elizabeth Allen (General Secretary of the NCCL) to Driberg, March 27, 1944. 63 Driberg, Ruling Passions (New York: Stein and Day, 1978), p. 203. 64 On the hope-fear dialectic, see Richard Bolchover, British Jewry and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 83–120. Cf. Pamela Shatzkes, Holocaust and Rescue: Impotent or Indifferent? Anglo-Jewry 1938–1945 (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2004). More general treatments: Geoffrey Alderman, The Jewish Community in British Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983); David Cesarani, The “Jewish Chronicle” and Anglo-Jewry, 1841–1991 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 65 For example, BoD Executive Committee Minute Book, 1940–43: April 8, September 11, 1941, February 9, 1942, March 9, 1943, LMA ACC/3121/C/10/1/01; ACC/3121/B5/3/6; BoD Defence Committee Minutes, November 15, 1943, p. 714, WL1658/1/1/2/4. 66 George Orwell, “Anti-Semitism in Britain,” Contemporary Jewish Record, 8:2 (April 1945), 163–71. 67 BoD Defence Committee records, 1939–43, WL 1658/10/26, 10/27. 68 Note that Chamberlain’s wish to have Hore-Belisha replace Macmillan as Minster of Information in 1940 was vetoed by Halifax/Foreign Office because it was felt too difficult internationally (and probably domestically) to have a Jew in charge of British propaganda. Angus Calder, The People’s War: Britain 1939–45 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969), p. 500. 69 Ministry of Information dossiers on anti-Semitism, NA HO 262/9 (minutes and reports, 1942–44), 262/14 (minutes and correspondence, 1941–45). 70 Temple and various correspondents, December 1943–March 1944; letters between Robert Vansittart and Temple, April 29, May 3, 8, 1943, W. Temple 31, W. Temple 16, Lambeth Palace Library, London. Cf. The War Diaries of Oliver Harvey, ed. John Harvey (London: Collins, 1978), entries of July 14, August 7, 1941, pp. 19, 28. Wasserstein summarizes appraisals of domestic anti-Semitism, pp. 115–20. 71 See, for example, David Biale, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History (New York: Schocken Books, 1986). 72 Record of meetings with Polish government ministers in France and, subsequently, Herbert Lucy Baggalay of the British Foreign Office, all April 1940, LMA BoD ACC/3121/C/10/1/1; 3121/C11/2/34; 3121/C/11/6/4/1. 73 The principal documentation is found in LMA BoD ACC/3121/C11/7/1/6 (“Nationalist Polish Forces . . . .” 1943–1944) and ACC/3121/C/11/7/1/7 (“Refugees and Polish Servicemen . . . ,” 1944). 74 For example, report of interview with Prime Minister Mikołajczyk, April 24, 1944, LMA BoD ACC/3121/C/11/7/1/7. 75 Minute Book 32, July 1942–April 1945, Minutes and “Statement on the Polish-Jewish Soldiers by Professor Brodetsky,” April 23, 1944, LMA BoD ACC/3121/A/032.

130

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

76 BoD Defence Committee Minutes of May 4, 1944, WL 1658/1/1/24, p. 767. 77 Letters from the soldiers to Driberg, May 28, June 2, 6, SOC Driberg P 7/31. 78 NA FO 371/39486. 79 PISM A.5/6A/4-23; summarized by Engel, Holocaust, pp. 135–37. 80 News Chronicle, May 16, 1944, p. 2. 81 Engel, Holocaust, pp. 138–78. 82 Fleming, Auschwitz, pp. 222–29. 83 Driberg, Ruling Passions, p. 203.

8

“For a German Audience We Do Not Use Appeals for Sympathy on Behalf of Jews as a Propaganda Line”: The BBC German Service and the Holocaust, 1938–1945 Stephanie Seul

The persecution and mass murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators during the Second World War was a genocide of unparalleled magnitude and a crime against humanity. However, comparatively little attention was paid by governments and publics around the globe to the Jewish tragedy while it was unfolding, despite the fact that plenty of reliable information was emerging from Eastern Europe.1 In an attempt to understand the contemporary reactions to the Holocaust, scholars have studied the media’s responses, concluding that the press in the Western democracies as well as in Soviet Russia failed by and large to give adequate publicity to the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews. Why Didn’t the Press Shout? edited by Robert Moses Shapiro, scathingly criticizes international press responses to the Holocaust as too sparse, incomplete, misleading, and hidden in less visible parts of the newspapers. If the press had been more responsible, the book argues, and had informed the international public early enough and thoroughly enough, the history of the Holocaust might have been different.2 Likewise, Laurel Leff maintains that the New York Times failed to cover the Holocaust adequately. The “final solution” was hidden from readers in the inside pages of the paper and, due to the newspaper’s influence on other media, from the American public at large.3 Similar criticism was voiced of the British press4, and Karel C. Berkhoff has pointed to the similarities in Soviet and Anglo-American media reporting, despite their ideological differences.5 The criticism also extended to broadcasting. The Voice of America—the US government’s overseas broadcasting station, funded by taxpayers’ money—kept virtually silent about the Holocaust.6 In contrast, the BBC—widely regarded as

132

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

the most reliable source of information not only in Britain but also in Europe and around the globe—did report on the Jewish tragedy in its home and foreignlanguage services, but not as much as it could have, given the amount of open and secret information available at the time.7 For many Germans, in particular for critics of the Nazi regime, the BBC’s German-language broadcasts were an important alternative source of information in a country whose media had been subject to strict censorship and manipulation since 1933. Listening to foreign radio stations was illegal and penalties ranged from fines and confiscation of radio sets to imprisonment in a concentration camp, or even capital punishment, but the ban did not prevent Germans from listening in their millions.8 The question of how much was publicly known about the persecution and extermination of the Jews has therefore aroused considerable interest among historians.9 Several studies published in the early 2000s suggest that most Germans had a fairly good idea of what was happening to the Jews in the East due to information spread by the regime’s own propaganda, eyewitness accounts of German soldiers returning from the East, or reports from unofficial sources such as British and Soviet radio broadcasts.10 Often the BBC German-language broadcasts served to confirm the rumors about the persecution and extermination of the Jews circulating in Germany.11 Still, after the war, most Germans questioned about the annihilation of the Jews claimed, unsurprisingly, not to have known anything about it.12 However, the amount of information available to the German public about the Holocaust remains a controversial issue.13 Pursuing these two strands in Holocaust research—the question of the adequacy of the international media’s response to the Holocaust, and the public knowledge of it in Nazi Germany—this chapter explores two important subjects. First, it establishes what the German public could have learned of the Holocaust from the BBC’s German-language broadcasts—one of the few sources of information not controlled by Nazi censorship. Secondly, it examines how the BBC, under the guidance of the British government, used the available information on the Holocaust in its broadcasts. Historical research has revealed that plentiful, detailed, and reliable information, derived from open and secret sources, was available to the British government and the BBC.14 The question arises of how much of this information was used in the BBC’s broadcasts and how it was communicated to the German public. According to the theory of “gatekeeping” in communication research, journalists and editors select, write, edit, position, and schedule information to become news, thus interpreting the world for their audience and influencing

The BBC German Service and the Holocaust

133

the audience’s perception of reality.15 The theory of “agenda setting” moreover describes the way the mass media presents certain topics more frequently than others with the effect that the public perceives those topics as more important. Usually, the selection process is determined less by a conscious desire on the part of the journalists to suppress certain information than by the need to focus a day’s news on a few events, for reasons of lack of space.16 However, during the Second World War, the BBC diverged from these journalistic routines, when the “gatekeeping” and “agenda setting” agency passed from the Corporation to the British propaganda bureaucracy. The German Service—undoubtedly one of the largest and most important of all BBC foreign-languages services—was a crucial weapon in Britain’s war effort against Nazi Germany. On the one hand, it reported about the course of the war from the British perspective and provided the German audience with information otherwise not accessible in Hitler’s dictatorship, thereby countering the lies disseminated by Goebbels’ propaganda. On the other hand, it sought to destroy the German fighting morale and to provoke an internal collapse of the Third Reich by stressing the military, economic, and moral superiority of the Allies and, by implication, German inferiority in all these areas. Hence, the wartime output of the BBC German Service and British government policy toward Nazi Germany became inextricably intertwined. With hindsight one might assume that the Holocaust would have been an important theme in the BBC’s German-language broadcasts and a strong moral argument against the Nazi regime, given the development of Nazi anti-Jewish policy in Germany and Europe, and the prominence of anti-Semitism in Nazi domestic propaganda.17 Yet, although there was no shortage of information on the destruction of the Jews in wartime Britain, and its accuracy was confirmed by the British and Polish governments, British propaganda institutions and the BBC were reluctant to emphasize the specifically anti-Jewish nature of the Holocaust. In order to understand the factors, political and others, that influenced the BBC’s reporting of the Holocaust, we need to take a look at the role the German Service was supposed to play in British foreign policy and in the war on Nazi Germany.

The BBC German Service in British foreign policy and war on Germany The BBC started broadcasting in German at the height of the Sudeten crisis on September 27, 1938, when Prime Minister Chamberlain decided to address the German people personally over the radio and to appeal to them to help him

134

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

save the peace. From this day onwards the BBC, at Whitehall’s request, regularly broadcast a German-language program of news and political comment. Its aim was to inform the German public about British efforts to appease Hitler and to avert war. Furthermore, the propaganda campaign was to warn Hitler that he would risk serious opposition from his own people if he provoked a war involving the British Empire and France, and thus encourage the dictator to seek a peaceful solution to his territorial claims.18 From the first day of its existence, the Foreign Office never made a secret that it considered the BBC German Service a propaganda instrument of the state, and it always retained—and exercised—the right to reject or ask for modification of a broadcast if it were not in line with the government’s foreign policy aims.19 In public, however, both the BBC and Whitehall were eager to conceal that the German Service was supervised by the state. They feared that the transmissions would lose their effectiveness, should it become known that the BBC was guided by the government.20 On the outbreak of war, Whitehall greatly intensified the propaganda campaign. In addition to the BBC’s German-language broadcasts, the RAF dropped millions of leaflets over the Reich. These measures were aimed not only at informing the German people about the British view of the war but also, above all, at reducing German fighting morale and stirring up popular resistance to the Nazi regime. With the start of the war, the organization of propaganda passed to a body called Department of Propaganda in Enemy Countries, or Department EH (called after Electra House, the location of the organization). Its main purpose was to gather intelligence about conditions in Germany and German-occupied Europe and to draft leaflets and directives for the BBC’s foreign-language services. After considerable interdepartmental competition over the political control of British propaganda, the Churchill administration created a new propaganda department in August 1941: the Political Warfare Executive, or PWE. This body was put under the joint control of the Minister of Information, the Minister of Economic Warfare, and the Foreign Secretary. Its main function was to provide intelligence and to issue propaganda directives to the BBC’s foreign-language services directed at enemy and enemy-occupied countries.21 How did the BBC perceive its role as a propaganda instrument of the state? From its foundation in 1922, the Corporation had supported the journalistic principles of truth and objectivity in reporting and of independence from governmental control. However, these principles were more an aspiration than a reflection of reality, and they constantly had to be defended against the British government. Since the days of its first director general, Sir John Reith, the BBC believed that it must serve the “national interest.” Hence, although the BBC was

The BBC German Service and the Holocaust

135

nominally independent from the government, over the years a close and overall friendly cooperation evolved. The senior personnel of both institutions knew each other well, shared the same values and opinions, and abided by the same rules and codes of conduct.22 While during the Second World War the BBC German Service essentially served the propaganda aims of the government and was closely supervised by Britain’s propaganda institutions, in public both the BBC and the Foreign Office claimed that “truth” and “objectivity” were the guiding principles of the German-language broadcasts. Ivone Kirkpatrick, Foreign Office diplomat and BBC Controller of European Services, wrote in the BBC Year Book of 1943: “The European Service of the BBC is not a propaganda service in the commonly accepted sense of the term. It is primarily a news service. . . . The success or failure of our broadcast news service must be measured by the degree of truthfulness with which it portrays the news of the day.”23 As James Curran and Jean Seaton have argued, the principles of “truth” and “objectivity” became themselves a propaganda weapon that served to distinguish British propaganda from that of the totalitarian dictatorships and to demonstrate the superiority of democracy over totalitarianism.24 The close collaboration between the BBC and Whitehall, and the sharing of the same values and opinions, also meant that during the Second World War a consensus evolved in both institutions regarding the BBC’s treatment of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. With hindsight, the crimes against the Jews would seem to offer a strong moral argument, exposing the monstrosity of the Nazi regime. However, reporting the Nazi atrocities seemed undesirable for a number of reasons. First and foremost, all information broadcast on the BBC German Service had to serve the propagandistic objective of speeding up the end of the war by stimulating the resistance of the German people against the Nazi regime. As this chapter demonstrates, continually informing the German public about what was happening to Europe’s Jews was not considered to be an effective propaganda strategy for undermining the enemy’s fighting morale.25 The following analysis of the BBC’s Holocaust reporting reveals three phases that mirror the unfolding of Nazi anti-Jewish policy and the developments in British policy toward Germany.

From Kristallnacht to the outbreak of war, November 1938–August 1939 During the first months of British German-language broadcasting very little was reported about the situation of the German Jews. The period not only witnessed

136

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

an increase in Nazi anti-Jewish terror but also the climax of Chamberlain’s appeasement policy. On the night of November 9–10, 1938, the Nazis staged anti-Jewish pogroms all over the Reich. While the so-called Kristallnacht caused an outcry of indignation in the British press26, London did not issue any official protest to Berlin27, nor did the BBC Home Service report critically about the pogrom.28 Likewise, the BBC German Service avoided mentioning the Jews or criticizing the German government for its anti-Semitic policy. Whitehall took the view that the treatment of the Jews was an internal German affair in which London had no right to interfere. Moreover, Chamberlain did not wish to endanger his appeasement policy designed to avoid war with Germany. Hence, nothing was to be broadcast that might arouse the resentment of the Nazis.29 Little archival evidence is available to reconstruct what the BBC German Service broadcast about the pogrom. However, the Berlin correspondent of The Scotsman reported that the German Service broadcast international press reviews: “This afternoon a taxi-driver told me that he had heard the BBC account of the reaction in the United States and in European countries to the German pogrom, and it had been an ‘eye-opener’ for him.”30 How the Nazis reacted to foreign media reports was revealed on February 3, 1939, when the German Service told its listeners that since last September thousands of German refugees had arrived in Britain. The BBC Home Service, it was announced, would offer that same evening an “electrical recording” of the landing of German refugee children, and of their first impressions of England.31 The broadcast of the German Service was worded in the most inoffensive language and avoided to mention that the children were Jewish and fleeing from Nazi persecution. Still, the Berlin government protested sharply and Goebbels launched a retaliatory press campaign attacking British imperial history and, in particular, British policy in Palestine.32 The British Embassy in Berlin considered it unwise for the BBC to have given “a propagandist value to the news.”33 The Chargé d’Affaires telegraphed: It was a mistake for the BBC to include in their broadcast a Jewish item of this kind which was bound to give the German Government an opportunity which was otherwise difficult to find to protest against our news bulletins. Such inclusion might weaken effect and popularity of these bulletins. I consider that we should concentrate on straight and objective news.34

The Foreign Office agreed. Rex Leeper of the News Department commented: “I think the BBC were not wise in doing this & we are warning them to keep off Jews.”35

The BBC German Service and the Holocaust

137

Apart from the necessities of foreign policy, another factor limiting the coverage of the Jewish persecution was the widespread belief in Whitehall and in the BBC that many Germans were anti-Semitic and hence that propaganda sympathizing with the Jews would be ineffective. In August 1939, the director of the BBC Overseas Intelligence Department reported after a visit to Berlin “that it was extremely damaging to mention or use talks by or about Jews . . . . People were still inclined to prefer anti-Jewish propaganda.”36 This position even led the BBC to decide that German-Jewish refugees should not be employed as speakers on the German Service, as it was thought that Germans were able to recognize Jews by the way they spoke.37 The question of “Jewish accents” was also discussed during the war. A Foreign Office memorandum stated that Germans “claim to recognize their Jewish accents, and, as a result, not only regard the news they read with suspicion, but see in this proof that Britain is ‘run’ by Jews and that the Reich is fighting a war forced upon it by World Jewry.”38 Throughout the war the BBC continued to receive complaints from German listeners about the alleged use of “Jewish voices” on the German Service.39

From the outbreak of war to the German attack on the Soviet Union, September 1939–June 1941 After the outbreak of war the Nazi regime not only intensified the persecution of Jews inside the Reich but also extended it to the occupied territories, and especially to Poland. Each new step in Nazi anti-Jewish policy became speedily known to the British and was reported in the daily press.40 Likewise, the BBC Home Service reported the anti-Jewish campaign. In February 1940 it stated: “In those parts of Poland occupied by the Germans at least 40,000 Jews have died from hunger, cold and various other afflictions.”41 However, the German Service, which was under much tighter governmental control than the Home Service,42 paid considerably less attention to the Jews. The historical documentation is fragmentary, but the available sources suggest that during 1939–41 the systematic persecution and murder of the Jews was treated as a subject of secondary importance. While during the phoney war the German Service widely publicized the Gestapo’s humiliation and persecution of the Polish populace, and in particular of the Polish intellectual elite and clergy,43 the persecution of the Jews in Germany and Poland was given little prominence. The German Service did not make it clear that the Nazis were expelling all Polish Jews from their homes and forcing them into ghettos in the Generalgouvernement, the parts of

138

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Poland occupied by Germany. The persecution of Polish Jews was mentioned only indirectly, or in the context of other themes. The German Service seems to have taken care not to appear openly to take sides in the “Jewish question” or to condemn the Nazis for persecuting Jews.44 This seems striking since, after the outbreak of war, the constraints of the appeasement policy no longer applied. British propagandists were therefore much more open in their criticism of the Nazi regime. They made ample use of their new freedom of expression in areas such as Nazi foreign policy, methods of warfare, economic policy, the rule of the Gestapo inside Germany, and the treatment of the Polish people. But crucially, the unfolding Nazi crimes against Jews were not prominently featured in British propaganda until 1942.45 Various arguments have been put forward to explain why this was so. First, it has been argued that after the outbreak of the war a more extensive coverage of the Holocaust was prevented by a lack of authentic information, and distrust of the information available. However, this argument does not convince, for almost every act of terror against the Jews became speedily known to the British government and was also reported in the British press. Nor can Whitehall’s and the BBC’s reluctance be really explained by the confused nature of the evidence and a general skepticism and disbelief in regard to reports about German atrocities.46 Second, it has been pointed out that the persecution of the Jews had a low priority on Whitehall’s political agenda.47 During 1939–41, and indeed well into 1943, the Allies were on the defensive and preoccupied with their own survival. Too much publicity for the Jews would have led to public calls for their rescue, an undesirable development from the political and military perspective. Interestingly, the same considerations did not apply to the reporting about the persecution of non-Jewish Poles, which was very extensive. But the Poles were Britain’s allies and had to be morally supported, even if Britain was in no position to provide military assistance. Moreover, the Poles themselves had no interest in magnifying the persecution of Jews (for reasons discussed in Chapter 7) but wished the focus on Poland’s suffering to be maintained.48 Third, latent anti-Semitism in Whitehall and the BBC was a significant factor in the neglect of the Holocaust.49 There is ample evidence in the Foreign Office archives of openly anti-Semitic language vis-à-vis the Jews. On many occasions, the diplomats raised doubts about the accuracy of reports and accused the Jews of deliberately exaggerating their suffering in order to encourage the idea of an Allied rescue. Rex Leeper, head of the Foreign Office Political Intelligence Department, remarked in May 1940 that “as a general rule the Jews are inclined to magnify their persecutions.”50 Anti-Semitism is also said to have been the

The BBC German Service and the Holocaust

139

reason why Halifax vetoed Chamberlain’s plan to replace Lord Macmillan with Leslie Hore-Belisha as Minister of Information in January 1940, because the latter was Jewish. The Foreign Office feared that a Jewish-led MoI might damage Britain’s reputation with the neutrals and also increase anti-Semitism at home.51 A fourth factor was the reluctance of the British government to single out the Jews as special victims. A BBC document stated: “We do not recognise the German theory of a Jewish nation and we maintain that Jews are citizens of the country to which they belong.”52 On the one hand, Whitehall believed that singling out the Jews would be tantamount to surrendering to Nazi racial theories. On the other hand, it was feared that emphasizing the persecution of the Jews might give Nazi propaganda an opening to stress the theme of the “Jewish war.” Moreover, emphasizing the “special treatment” of the Jews by the Nazis might, again, raise public demands for a “special solution” of the Jewish problem, for instance, the opening the British Empire to Jewish refugees.53 Finally, the British government was reluctant to publicize the Holocaust for fear that news about the Jews might provoke a negative reaction with the German audience and endanger the success of British propaganda. The foremost aim of the latter was to shatter the German fighting morale and to stir up a revolution that would bring Hitler down and speed up Germany’s military defeat. Within that framework, a focus on the persecution of the Jews was considered ineffective for three reasons: First, the British propagandists were aware of the widespread hostility in Germany toward Jews, even in circles opposed to Hitler.54 Second, they believed that accounts of the persecution would be dismissed as “atrocity propaganda.” And third, they were concerned that too-frequent references to Jews and their suffering would play into the hands of Nazi propaganda and serve to unite the Germans behind the regime.55 Hence, the BBC acceded to the political decision not to use moral appeals to the German people centered on the Jewish persecution. In February 1941, the BBC wrote in a letter to a listener that “for a German audience we do not use, rightly or wrongly, appeals for sympathy on behalf of Jews, as a propaganda line.”56

From the war against the Soviet Union to the defeat of Germany, June 1941–May 1945 The principle of not singling out the Jews for particular attention was only modified in the summer of 1942, when the news of Hitler’s plans to exterminate

140

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

European Jewry was received and understood in London.57 From the beginning of the Russian campaign in June 1941, the Nazi regime and the German military waged a war of annihilation against the Jews of Eastern Europe, whom they considered as forming the “racial basis” for the Soviet state.58 Few sources are available for the first twelve months of the Russian war. In the autumn and winter of 1941 the Nazi terror against Europe’s non-Jewish population continued to be regularly discussed in the weekly directives of PWE to the BBC German Service.59 However, the time was still not considered ripe to launch a campaign centered on the Nazi crimes against the Jews. The most straightforward criticism of the Jewish genocide was offered in Thomas Mann’s radio talks. Since October 1940 the 1929 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature had addressed the German people via the BBC from his American exile.60 Mann’s radio addresses were outspoken in their attack on the Nazi crimes against Jews, Poles, and others. However, as was the general case with British propaganda aimed at Germany, Mann did not single out the Nazi atrocities against the Jews as unique in nature or particularly disgraceful.61 However, from June 1942 onwards the coverage of the genocide increased significantly. The German Service began frequently to report on the deportation and murder of Jews.62 The timing of this development was no coincidence—the Allies were now about to take the military initiative and the reports went hand in hand with expressions of determination to punish all those involved in the mass murders. In September 1942, Thomas Mann spoke about the Nazi plan to exterminate European Jewry completely. He condemned the inhuman living conditions in the Warsaw ghetto, the gassing of thousands of Jews, and the deportation of French Jews to Poland.63 In December 1942, the Holocaust finally became a major theme in British propaganda, and the German Service launched a massive campaign focused on the annihilation of European Jewry.64 In practically all the service’s broadcasts, the wave of indignation in Britain caused by the continuing revelations took the lead. Full details were given of the numbers of Jews already killed, of the joint declaration issued by Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States on December 17, and of Foreign Secretary Eden’s pledge that those responsible would be punished.65 The campaign reached its climax around Christmas, when the German Service broadcast a long feature about the extermination of the Jews. The broadcast, which was read by a narrator and five other voices and also contained an extract from an original recording of a speech by Goebbels, was a mix of a summary of the latest news regarding the extermination of the Jews, a chronology of Nazi anti-Semitic policy from 1933 onwards, and an appeal to the

The BBC German Service and the Holocaust

141

German people to stop the massacres. It opened with a review of the debate in the House of Commons on December 17, 1942, in the course of which the MPs had risen in silence to honor the Jews murdered by the Nazis, and of the Alllies’ joint declaration: “Standing in silence the deputies paid homage to the victims. Never before in the history of parliament had there been such a demonstration; but then never before in the history of mankind had there been a crime of such enormity. This Jewish tragedy—which is at the same time a German tragedy—is the most abominable spectacle of all time.”66 However, at the end of the month the Holocaust lost its prominence in British broadcasts and was once again absorbed into the larger narrative of Nazi crimes committed in the occupied countries.67 Still, during 1943–45 the BBC continued to inform the German public of what was occurring, though no longer in the form of a systematic campaign.68 The broadcasts contained statistics of the number of persons killed and shocking details of the deportation and murder of the Jews, including eyewitness accounts conveying in emotional language the terrible suffering of individual Jews. When, during the closing months of the war, the concentration and extermination camps were liberated and the whole extent of German crimes came to light, British broadcasts gave full details of these monstrous revelations.69 On the whole, in the final two years of the war the BBC’s coverage was substantial and reflected the horror felt in Britain in view of the unprecedented Nazi crimes. Even so, British reporting was influenced by political and military considerations, and it appears that the BBC was again seeking to not overemphasize the special character of the Jewish extermination. This reluctance resulted, partly from a determination not to submit to Nazi racial theory—in other words, to the idea that Jews were different—and partly, now as before, from a political concern not to stir up public demands for the rescue of the Jews or for retaliatory strikes against the Germans.70 Whitehall continued to regard the fate of the Jews as having a low priority. In March 1943, Richard Law, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Foreign Office, explained to a MP that “as a matter of policy we cannot afford to give this question such prominence that it would overshadow or exclude other themes which it is important for our propaganda to put across at the present stage of the war.”71 This chapter asked what the German people could have learned about the Holocaust from the BBC’s German-language broadcasts and how the BBC, under the guidance of the British propaganda bureaucracy, communicated information about the Jewish catastrophe to the German public. As we have seen, the German Service supplied regular reports, albeit in varying degrees

142

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

of intensity, about the fate of the Jews throughout 1938–45. Still, in retrospect, it is clear that the reporting was too infrequent and failed to do justice to the scope of the Jewish tragedy. Apart from December 1942, the German Service did not make the Holocaust a major propaganda theme. Even though the BBC did not disseminate outright lies, it subordinated the selection of news concerning Jews to the needs of British foreign policy and warfare. However, the historical evidence suggests that the BBC did not act unwillingly under the restraint of the PWE directives. Rather, a broad consensus existed in the BBC and Whitehall concerning the question of how to publicize the Holocaust, and war news in general. In February 1940, Noel Newsome, the BBC’s European news editor, specified the principles of news selection for propaganda purposes: “All news and views, in addition to stimulating interest, must, however unobtrusively, serve the one and fundamental propagandist aim of helping us to win this war as rapidly as possible.”72 Accordingly, information on the Nazi persecution of the Jews was only broadcast if considered in line with British propaganda policy, notably with the aim of exploiting the fear and guilt of the German people and stimulating resistance against the Nazi regime.73 Despite these limitations, the BBC German Service nevertheless succeeded in overcoming the Nazi information monopoly. Thanks to the British broadcasts, Germans were able to learn, in shocking detail, about the Holocaust as it was occurring. They were able to learn about the names of the extermination camps, the use of poison gas, and the millions of Jews killed. Consequently, after the war it was hardly plausible for Germans to claim complete ignorance about the Nazi crimes.74 Moreover, as Bernward Dörner has revealed, some German Jews, after hearing BBC reports on the extermination of the Jews in the East, decided to go underground in order to evade deportation.75 Hence, even if the BBC German Service could not influence the behavior of the German public at large and stir up resistance against the Nazi’s anti-Jewish policy, at least it had some practical effects and helped individual Jews survive the Holocaust.

Notes 1 David S. Wyman and Charles H. Rosenzveig, eds., The World Reacts to the Holocaust (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. xix, 606, 705. 2 Robert Moses Shapiro, ed., Why Didn’t the Press Shout? American and International Journalism during the Holocaust (Jersey City: Yeshiva University Press, 2003).

The BBC German Service and the Holocaust

143

3 Laurel Leff, Buried by “The Times”: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). Similar criticism is voiced by Deborah E. Lipstadt, Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust 1933–1945 (New York: The Free Press, 1986). 4 Julian D. Scott, “The British press and the Holocaust 1942–1943” (doctoral dissertation, University of Leicester, 1994), online: http://hdl.handle.net/2381/35594; Simon Leader, “The Holocaust and the British regional press 1939–1945” (doctoral dissertation, University of Leicester, 2004), online: http://hdl.handle.net/2381/31058; Andrew Sharf, The British Press and Jews under Nazi Rule (London: Oxford University Press, 1964). 5 Karel C. Berkhoff, “‘Total Annihilation of the Jewish Population’: The Holocaust in the Soviet Media, 1941–45,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 10:1 (2009), 61–105. 6 Holly Cowan Shulman, “The Voice of America, US propaganda and the Holocaust: ‘I would have remembered,’” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 17:1 (1997), 91–103. 7 Jean Seaton, “Reporting Atrocities: The BBC and the Holocaust,” in The Media in British Politics, ed. Jean Seaton and Ben Pimlott (Aldershot: Avebury, 1987), pp. 154–82; Jeremy D. Harris, “Broadcasting the Massacres: An Analysis of the BBC’s Contemporary Coverage of the Holocaust,” Yad Vashem Studies, 25 (1996), 65–98; Guy Raz, “The BBC and Appeasement: Broadcast Coverage of Nazi Persecution of the Jews, 1933–1938” (M.Phil. dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1997), online: https​://ww​w.rep​osito​ry.ca​m.ac.​uk/ha​ndle/​1810/​26979​0; Gabriel Milland, “Some Faint Hope and Courage: The BBC and the Final Solution, 1942–45” (doctoral dissertation, University of Leicester, 1998), online: http:​//eth​os.bl​.uk/O​rderD​etail​ s.do?​uin=u​k.bl.​ethos​.5010​89; Gabriel Milland, “The BBC Hungarian Service and the Final Solution in Hungary,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 18:3 (1998), 353–73; Stephanie Seul, “The Representation of the Holocaust in the British Propaganda Campaign Directed at the German Public, 1938–1945,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 52 (2007), 267–306; Jan Lanicek, “The Czechoslovak Service of the BBC and the Jews during World War II,” Yad Vashem Studies, 38:2 (2010), 123–53; Renée Poznanski, “Les Français parlent aux Français: Voices from London on the Persecution of the Jews,” in Diasporas and Diplomacy: Cosmopolitan contact zones at the BBC World Service (1932–2012), eds. Marie Gillespie and Alban Webb (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 70–85; Michael Fleming, “British Narratives of the Holocaust in Hungary,” Twentieth Century British History, 27:4 (2016), 555–77. 8 Michael Hensle, Rundfunkverbrechen. Das Hören von ‘Feindsendern’ im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Metropol, 2003). 9 Lars Fischer, “Public Knowledge of the Shoah in Nazi Germany,” Holocaust Studies, 14:3 (2008), 142–62.

144

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

10 Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006); Peter Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewußt”: Die Deutschen und die Judenverfolgung 1933–1945 (Munich: Siedler, 2006); Bernward Dörner, Die Deutschen und der Holocaust: Was niemand wissen wollte, aber jeder wissen konnte (Berlin: Propyläen, 2007). 11 Dörner, Die Deutschen und der Holocaust, p. 199. 12 Ibid., p. 605; Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewußt,” p. 7. 13 Hans Mommsen, Das NS-Regime und die Auslöschung des Judentums in Europa (Bonn: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2014), pp. 205–12. 14 Bernard Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979); Walter Laqueur, The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth about Hitler’s Final Solution (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1980); Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies: How the Allies Responded to the News of Hitler’s Final Solution (London: Holt, 1981); Michael Fleming, Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Fleming, “Narratives.” 15 Pamela J. Schoemaker, Tim P. Vos, and Stephen D. Reese, “Journalists as Gatekeepers,” in The Handbook of Journalism Studies, eds. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 73–87 (here p. 73); Michael Schudson, “The Sociology of News Production,” Media, Culture & Society, 11 (1989), 263–82. 16 Renita Coleman, Maxwell McCombs, Donald Shaw, and David Weaver, “Agenda Setting,” in The Handbook of Journalism Studies, pp. 147–60 (here pp. 147–48). 17 On Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda, see Herf, The Jewish Enemy. 18 Stephanie Seul, “Appeasement und Propaganda 1938–1940: Chamberlains Außenpolitik zwischen NS-Regierung und deutschem Volk” (doctoral dissertation, European University Institute Florence, 2005), online: http://cadmus.eui.eu/ handle/1814/5977, pp. 109–74; Stephanie Seul, “Journalists in the Service of British Foreign Policy: The BBC German Service and Chamberlain’s Appeasement Policy, 1938–1939,” in Journalists as Political Actors: Transfers and Interactions between Britain and Germany since the late 19th Century, eds. Frank Bösch and Dominik Geppert (Augsburg: Wißner-Verlag, 2008), pp. 88–109. 19 Minute Warner, October 4, 1938, The National Archives, Kew, London (subsequently cited as TNA), FO 395/623, P 2868/2645/150. 20 Minute Warner, November 18, 1938, TNA, FO 395/583, P 3234/90/150. See also Seul, “Journalists,” pp. 96–97. 21 Seul, “Representation,” p. 270. On the organization of British propaganda, see Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Vol. 3: The War of Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970); Charles Cruickshank, The Fourth Arm:

The BBC German Service and the Holocaust

145

Psychological Warfare 1938–1945 (London: Oxford University Press, 1977); Michael Balfour, Propaganda in War, 1939–1945: Organisations, Policies and Publics in Britain and Germany (London: Routledge and Keagan Paul, 1979); Gerard Mansell, Let Truth Be Told: 50 Years of BBC External Broadcasting (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982); David Garnett, The Secret History of PWE: The Political Warfare Executive 1939–1945, with an introduction and notes by Andrew Roberts (London: St. Ermin’s Press, 2002); Seul, “Appeasement”; Kristina Moorehead, Satire als Kriegswaffe: Strategien der britischen Kriegspropaganda im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Marburg: Tectum Verlag, 2016). 22 Stephanie Seul, “‘Plain, Unvarnished News’? The BBC German Service and British Propaganda Directed at Nazi Germany, 1938–1940,” Media History, 21:4 (2015), 378–96 (here p. 379), following James Curran and Jean Seaton, Power without Responsibility: Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain, 7th ed. (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 107–13; Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting: Volume One 1922–1939: Serving the Nation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), pp. 101, 108–12. 23 Ivone Kirkpatrick, “Calling Europe,” in BBC Year Book 1943 (London: British Broadcasting Corporation, [1943]), p. 103. 24 Curran and Seaton, Power without Responsibility, p. 133. 25 Fleming, “Narratives,” p. 565. 26 Andrew Sharf, “The British Press and the Holocaust,” Yad Vashem Studies, 5 (1963), 176–78; Sharf, British Press, pp. 58–69; Franklin Reid Gannon, The British Press and Germany, 1936–1939 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), pp. 41, 205, 226–28; Tony Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination: A Social and Cultural History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), p. 35. 27 Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination, p. 50; Stephanie Seul, “‘Any Reference to Jews on the Wireless Might Prove a Double-edged Weapon’: Jewish images in the British Propaganda Campaign towards the German Public, 1938– 1939,” in Jewish Images in the Media, eds. Martin Liepach, Gabriele Melischek, and Josef Seethaler (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2007), pp. 203–32 (here pp. 204–8). 28 Raz, “The BBC and Appeasement,” pp. 3, 75. 29 Seul, “Any Reference,” pp. 207–8; Seaton, “Reporting Atrocities,” p. 163. 30 “Continued Persecution of German Jews,” The Scotsman, November 15, 1938, p. 11. 31 From BBC German Broadcast of February 3rd [1939], TNA, FO 395/625, P 377/6/150. 32 No. 56 telegraphic, Ogilvie-Forbes to Foreign Office, February 6, 1939, ibid.; No. 185, Ogilvie-Forbes to Halifax, February 9, 1939, TNA, FO 395/626, P 440/6/150. See also Seul, “Any Reference,” p. 213. 33 No. 170, Ogilvie-Forbes to Halifax, February 8, 1939, TNA, FO 395/625, P 439/6/150.

146

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

34 No. 56 telegraphic, Ogilvie-Forbes to Foreign Office, February 6, 1939, TNA, FO 395/625, P 377/6/150. 35 Minute Leeper, February 7, 1939, ibid.; Seul, “Any Reference,” p. 214. 36 H. H. Stewart, German News, August 25, 1939, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham, Reading (subsequently cited as BBC WAC), E 9/12/5. 37 Bulletins in Foreign Languages, BBC memorandum, undated, BBC WAC, R 34/325, p. 2. The argument of “Jewish accents” was often employed by anti-Semites eager to show that Jews were different from the society they were living in. Seul, “Representation,” p. 274. 38 Memorandum Selkirk Panton, enclosure to no. 23, Howard Smith (Copenhagen) to Halifax, January 24, 1940, TNA, FO 408/70, Part 89, No. 43, pp. 80–81. See also Moorehead, Satire als Kriegswaffe, pp. 60–61; Seul, “Representation,” pp. 281–82. 39 BBC Surveys of European Audiences: Germany, July 12, 1943, BBC WAC, E 2/194, p. 2; Evidence of Listening to BBC Broadcasts, March 29, 1945, BBC WAC, E 1/766/2. See Seul, “Representation,” pp. 281–82. 40 Laqueur, The Terrible Secret, pp. 67, 197, chapter 3; Sharf, “British Press,” pp. 180–81; Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination, pp. 127–29; Seul, “Representation,” p. 274. 41 Daventry, Rundfunksendung, englisch, 8. Februar 1940, 17 Uhr, RSHA, Amt VI, B-Dienst, No. 60, February 9, 1940, Institut für Zeitgeschichte München (subsequently cited as IfZ), Dc 15.2 (emphasis in original). 42 Ian McLaine, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1979), pp. 230–31. 43 Daventry, 20.30 Uhr, deutsch, November 2, 1939, Sonderdienst “Landhaus,” (Abendmeldung), Bundesarchiv Berlin (subsequently cited as BArch Berlin), R 74/343, p. 92; London, Rundfunksendung deutsch, 18. Januar 1940, 20.30 Uhr, RSHA, Amt VI, B-Dienst, No. 28, January 19, 1940, IfZ, Dc 15.24; London, Rundfunksendung deutsch, 4. Februar 1940, 20.30 Uhr, RSHA, Amt VI, B-Dienst, No. 52, February 5, 1940, IfZ, Dc 15.24. See also Seul, “Appeasement,” pp. 1058–62. 44 Seul, “Representation,” pp. 276–78. 45 Ibid., p. 279. On British propaganda policy see Seul, “Appeasement,” Part IV. 46 Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, pp. viii, 339; Harris, “Broadcasting the Massacres,” pp. 68, 89, 96; Laqueur, The Terrible Secret, pp. 198–99, chapter 3; Seaton, “Reporting Atrocities,” pp. 155, 157–61. 47 Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, pp. 299, 352–55; Laqueur, The Terrible Secret, pp. 10, 202–4, 208, chapter 3; Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, pp. viii, 27, 339; David Silberklang, “The Allies and the Holocaust: A Reappraisal,” Yad Vashem Studies, 24 (1994), 147–76. 48 Laqueur, The Terrible Secret, p. 200; Silberklang, “The Allies and the Holocaust,” p. 172; Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination, p. 170; Seul, “Representation,” p. 280.

The BBC German Service and the Holocaust

147

49 Seaton, “Reporting Atrocities,” pp. 155, 168–73; Laqueur, The Terrible Secret, pp. 91–92; Silberklang, “The Allies and the Holocaust,” pp. 174–75; Harris, “Broadcasting the Massacres,” p. 69. 50 Minute Leeper, May 21, 1940, TNA, FO 371/24472, C 5471/116/55, cited in Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, pp. 166–67. 51 A. J. Trythall, “The Downfall of Leslie Hore-Belisha,” Journal of Contemporary History, 16:3 (1981), 391–411 (here p. 406); Leslie Hore-Belisha, Baron HoreBelisha, Encyclopædia Britannica Online (2018), https​://ww​w.bri​tanni​ca.co​m/pri​nt/ ar​ticle​/2716​91 (accessed June 1, 2018). 52 Yiddish Programmes, Controller Europe, July 3, 1943, BBC WAC, R 34/952, cited in Seaton, “Reporting Atrocities,” p. 170. 53 Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, pp. 163–66; Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, p. 339; Seul, “Representation,” pp. 280–81. On the Nazi propaganda theme of the “Jewish war,” see Herf, The Jewish Enemy. 54 Conditions in Germany, memorandum Halifax, November 23, 1939, WP(G) (39)115, TNA, CAB 67/3, p. 4. 55 Seul, “Representation,” pp. 281–83. 56 Letter, BBC European Services, February 1941, BBC WAC, R 34/702/3, cited in Harris, “Broadcasting the Massacres,” p. 82. 57 Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, pp. 163–66, 296–97. 58 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941,” in Holocaust Encyclopedia, URL: https​://ww​w.ush​mm.or​g/wlc​/en/a​rticl​e.php​ ?Modu​leId=​10005​164 (accessed June 1, 2018). 59 PWE weekly directives for BBC German Service, October and November 1941, TNA, FO 371/26533, C 11508/154/18; and December 1941, TNA, FO 371/26533, C 13600/154/18; Seul, “Representation,” p. 289. 60 Thomas Mann, Deutsche Hörer! Radiosendungen nach Deutschland aus den Jahren 1940–1945 (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1995); Sonja Valentin, “Steine in Hitlers Fenster”: Thomas Manns Radiosendungen “Deutsche Hörer!” (1940–1945) (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2015). 61 Seul, “Representation,” pp. 289–91; Milland, “The BBC Hungarian Service and the Final Solution in Hungary,” pp. 77–78; Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewußt,” p. 240. 62 Output Report. BBC European Services, June 21st–27th, 1942, BBC WAC, E 2/209/1, p. 3. 63 Seul, “Representation,” pp. 288, 292; Mann, Deutsche Hörer!, pp. 75–77; Valentin, “Steine in Hitlers Fenster,” pp. 168–74. 64 Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, p. 174; Harris, “Broadcasting the Massacres,” pp. 78–79; Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewußt,” pp. 240–41; Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination, p. 124.

148

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

65 Output Report. BBC European Services, December 13th–19th, 1942, BBC WAC, E 2/209/1, p. 4. See also Milland, “The BBC Hungarian Service and the Final Solution in Hungary,” Chapter IV; Seul, “Representation,” pp. 293–95; Dörner, Die Deutschen und der Holocaust, pp. 202–10. 66 The War against the Jews, December 27, 1942, BBC WAC, ES 22 (German Service Scripts-Features, April–December 1942), p. 1; Seul, “Representation,” p. 294. 67 PWE Central Directive, December 24, TNA, FO 898/289, cited in Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, p. 174. See also Milland, “The BBC Hungarian Service and the Final Solution in Hungary,” pp. 113–14, 116; Seul, “Representation,” pp. 295–96. 68 Laqueur’s (The Terrible Secret, p. 204) claim that comparatively little was said in the BBC about the Holocaust during 1943 does not apply to the German Service. See Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewußt,” pp. 242–47, 300–4, Dörner, Die Deutschen und der Holocaust, pp. 194–221 and Seul (“Representation,” pp. 295–306) for German Service broadcasts during 1942–45. 69 Output Report. BBC European Services, April 19–22, 1945, BBC WAC, E 2/209/4, p. 4; PWE directive for week beginning April 26, 1945, sent in cypher telegram no. 4140, FO to Washington, April 25, 1945, TNA, FO 371/46727, C 857/23/18, p. 2; Carl Brinitzer, Hier spricht London: Von einem, der dabei war (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1969), pp. 277–81; Milland, “The BBC Hungarian Service and the Final Solution in Hungary,” pp. 260–61; Seul, “Representation,” pp. 299, 305–6. 70 Fleming, Auschwitz, p. 218; Seul, “Representation,” p. 296. 71 Law to David Robertson M.P., March 22, 1943, TNA, FO 34365, C 2957/31/62, cited in Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945, p. 299. 72 Newsome, Presentation of European News Bulletins, February 12, 1940, BBC WAC, E 2/138/1, p. 1. On the subordination of news to British propaganda aims, see Seul, “Appeasement,” pp. 878–79; Moorehead, Satire als Kriegswaffe, p. 336. 73 Fleming, “Narratives,” p. 565. 74 Dörner, Die Deutschen und der Holocaust, pp. 219–21; Seul, “Representation,” p. 306. 75 Dörner, Die Deutschen und der Holocaust, p. 220.

9

Inventing a New Kind of German: The BBC German Service and the Bombing War1 Emily Oliver

“Nation shall speak peace unto nation.” This was the BBC’s founding motto in 1927. Barely twelve years later, Britain was once again at war with Germany, and the BBC’s German Service was to play a strategic part in Britain’s psychological warfare efforts. This chapter examines the service’s output during the later years of the Second World War in order to ask two key questions: How do you speak unto a nation that doesn’t want to hear you? And how do you speak peace unto a nation whose cities you are carpet-bombing? This chapter examines the style of communication the BBC adopted in order to reach Germans, and how it reconciled its mission to broadcast accurate, objective information about the war with communicating the uncomfortable truth that Allied air raids were killing thousands of German civilians. It begins with a brief overview of the German Service’s early history with particular reference to its intended listenership, before analyzing a number of features scripts in order to show that the BBC German Service’s portrayal of the bombing war was closely bound up with its (imagined) target audience of “ordinary Germans.” I argue that comical and satirical features played a key role in softening the blow of bombing reports and convincing Germans that Britain had their best interests at heart.

The voice of Britain The BBC German Service was founded somewhat hastily in 1938, when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain wished to broadcast his speech on the Munich crisis in several different languages, including German. At first operating on an ad hoc basis, then as a subsection of the BBC Features Department, the German

150

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Service finally became a department in its own right on April 16, 1939, with five hours and fifteen minutes of allotted daily air time.2 In October 1940, a 29-yearold Englishman was placed in charge of the German Service: Hugh Carleton Greene, brother of novelist Graham Greene, was fluent in German, having previously worked as the Daily Telegraph’s Berlin correspondent. He proceeded to restructure the service, adding features, satire, and other formats to its hitherto limited output, while retaining the key focus on news and commentary. By the end of 1941, Greene had given the German Service the shape it would retain until the end of the war, and the entire department moved to Bush House, where it would remain until its closure in 1999. Through chairing daily program meetings, Greene succeeded in turning a heterogeneous group of British, German, and Austrian writers, journalists, academics, politicians, directors, and actors into an efficient broadcasting team. Over the course of the Second World War, the German Service’s importance continued to increase, as did its allotted airtime. One of Greene’s first innovations was to change the German Service’s introductory announcement from its neutral “Hier ist der Londoner Rundfunk” (“This is Radio London”) to the clarion call “Hier ist England! Hier ist England! Hier ist England!” (“This is England! This is England! This is England!”), emphasizing the service’s identity as a British station rather than a mouthpiece for German-speaking émigrés.3 According to a confidential 1942 BBC report, “Germans might be distrusted in Germany because they would be regarded there as renegades, so courting in Germany the reaction observed in this country in the case of [Lord] Haw-Haw.”4 A later report on the German Service’s output confirmed that “the German listener is undoubtedly addressed with the voice of Britain to a degree unequalled in any other of our European Services.”5 Indeed, the term “voice of Britain” can be taken quite literally in this context, since almost all on-air commentaries were spoken by British staff members, whereas German and Austrian employees were only permitted to voice particular parts in features, or to appear as newsreaders.6 While emphatically insisting on the German Service’s British identity, Greene also aimed to improve the style and quality of its German language broadcasts. Initially, all content was scripted in English and subsequently translated into German by different staff. However, in July 1941, Greene complained that a “good talk or a good news item is not infrequently spoilt by translation into long-winded German.”7 One of Greene’s innovations was to merge the functions of language supervisor and subeditor, meaning that all translations were checked by their original author to make the style more accessible and its effect more

The BBC German Service and the Bombing War

151

immediate.8 Whereas previously scripts had been edited in English, cutting and final edits were now performed on the German text to ensure that the translated item still conveyed the intended meaning. While émigrés such as Robert Lucas, Carl Brinitzer, and Martin Esslin (a.k.a. Julius Pereszlenyi) now provided most of the scripts, every single one of these still “had to be read, checked and passed by a British subject in a leading position before it was allowed to go on the air.”9 In the interests of security, the BBC also assigned switch censors to each of its foreign service departments, who monitored broadcasts and were empowered to switch off microphones in an emergency.10 The Nazis attempted to jam British radio propaganda by broadcasting interference noises on the same wavelength. Following a trip to Stockholm in August 1942 to assess the impact of jamming on BBC transmissions, Greene made further changes to the German Service. He concluded that broadcasts were audible even during intense jamming, but that the noise had a tiring effect on listeners, which necessitated stylistic changes.11 Greene insisted on clear, slower delivery, reducing the number of words per minute. He sought out presenters with “deep resonant voices rather than high pitched voices.”12 News bulletins were now read by two announcers presenting alternate items, and elaborate features using complicated effects were eliminated entirely. Moreover, Greene claimed that he and his staff had “invented a new German style,” abolishing long, complicated syntax, and favoring precision and clarity over beauty of expression.13 The main way in which the German Service aimed to attract listeners was its claim to be the voice of truth. In December 1938, the BBC’s magazine The Listener had proclaimed that the service would provide “plain, unvarnished news rather than . . . sensationalism or propaganda.”14 The service hoped that by truthfully reporting Britain’s losses, failures, and military defeats, it would acquire a reputation as an accurate source of information which could then also be believed when it announced Allied victories and advances.15 The stylistic implications of this were a calm, measured delivery by all speakers and a “matterof-fact tone in the commentaries” to contrast with the hectoring sounds of Nazi programs.16 A 1942 report on the German Service recorded that “exaggeration, excitement, threats and extravagance in all forms were avoided.”17 Although the BBC aimed to set itself apart from Nazi broadcasts by avoiding exaggeration, its claims to truth, authenticity, and objectivity were nevertheless part of a larger propaganda strategy (as Stephanie Seul makes clear in Chapter 8).18 In a 1940 policy paper, Greene set out the German Service’s key objectives: “1) to convince the audience that we are likely to win; 2) to make them want us

152

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

to win.”19 The double-edged nature of this mission was elaborated a little more in a 1943 report, stating that the German Service consistently aimed to break down the will to fight of the German people by convincing them that defeat is certain, but that defeat at the hands of the Allies would not have intolerable consequences for the ordinary citizen. In short, . . . to provide a judicious blend of “despair” and “hope” propaganda.20

While accurate and up-to-date news remained at the heart of all programming, this mixture of “despair and hope propaganda” was achieved through a variety of other formats, including talks, satirical features, discussions, and music, as well as a weekly round-up of events in Britain (“England diese Woche”). The common denominator was that all of these formats should act as “a vehicle for propaganda” and “bait for the news.”21

Imagined audiences Since listening to the BBC from within Germany and Nazi-occupied territories was necessarily a clandestine activity, it is extremely difficult to estimate the number of listeners during the war years—and harder still to make conclusive statements about their identity. Several sources put forward a figure of ten to fifteen million listeners for the last year of the war, but in the absence of reliable data this is difficult to corroborate.22 Two factors, however, suggest that listenership in Germany was significant throughout the war: (1) the high penalties imposed on clandestine listeners by the Nazi regime, and (2) the Nazis’ persistent attempts at broadcast jamming, which specifically targeted programs transmitted from London. There is little doubt that listenership increased from autumn 1941 onwards, as the tide of war began to turn and German broadcasters attempted to conceal German defeats and losses.23 While the German Service could never be sure of who was actually listening during the war years, it did have a very clear notion of its intended listenership. In a 1985 interview, Hugh Greene claimed that the wartime German Service had been aimed at Germany’s “entire population, whether Nazi or non-Nazi.”24 He maintained that while the active opposition to Nazism within Germany had been a tiny minority, “there was a large number of people who were generally against it,” and that “a Nazi could be turned around.”25 Although contemporary statements regarding German attitudes to Nazism were less optimistic, there was a general consensus that the BBC should address itself to ordinary Germans

The BBC German Service and the Bombing War

153

and judiciously differentiate between warmongering Nazis and the supposedly peaceful German population—something the MoI was also determined to do.26 A 1943 BBC report on the European Services’ output stated: “We have always made a distinction between the German war machine and the German people.”27 Indeed, when Hugh Greene was pushing for a complete restructuring of the Service’s translation practices in August 1941, he used precisely this argument to justify his reorganization plans: In connection with my proposal that the final subbing of German Talks and News should be done in German, I think it is worth while to bring to your attention an example of the sort of thing that occurs daily as a result of subbing, translating and language supervising functions being entirely separated. The following sentences occurred this morning in a story included in our 10.00 a.m. bulletin: “The Berlin wireless was careful yesterday not to mention German losses during this period. German losses at British hands since June 22nd have in fact amounted to 448 aircraft . . . .” These sentences were translated as follows: “Der Berliner Rundfunk hütet sich wohlweislich, die Verluste zu erwähnen, die die Deutschen während dieser Zeitspanne erlitten haben. Tatsächlich haben die Deutschen seit dem 22. Juni durch die Royal Air Force 448 Flugzeuge eingebüßt.” You will note that the use of the phrase “die Deutschen” gives the German translation a slightly different shade of meaning to the original English. This is much more noticeable when listening in than when reading it. This is admittedly a small point. But it is the sort of small point which matters a great deal at a time when we are trying to avoid identifying the Germans with their rulers.28

In Greene’s view, the German translation placed too much emphasis on the fact that “the Germans” had sustained significant losses at the hands of the RAF. If rephrased to show that “the Nazis” or “the Third Reich” had lost large numbers of aircraft, the item would sound more like a strategic military report with the emphasis squarely on the material disadvantage of the enemy. This would also be closer in tone to the original English bulletin. By contrast, broadcasting the fact that “the Germans” had lost almost 450 aircraft shifts the focus to the human cost in German lives destroyed when their planes were shot down by the British. This is further emphasized through the use of the participle erlitten, a derivative of the verb leiden (to suffer), even though the original does not use the phrase “to suffer losses.” In this instance, Greene was probably right to be so particular about phrasing. The German translation comes close to stating bluntly the unspeakable paradox underlying the German Service’s mission: convincing

154

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

ordinary Germans that Britain had their best interests at heart, when every day the country was taking direct action to kill more Germans.

Telling the truth about bombing Aspiring to be the voice of truth entailed reporting as accurately as possible on Britain’s losses during the early war years. However, as the tide of war began to turn and Allied troops gradually gained the upper hand following the German disaster at Stalingrad, the German Service faced a new dilemma: how to convince Germans of the righteousness of the British cause while the British were carpet-bombing their cities and killing thousands of civilians. As more and more German cities came within range of Allied bombers, Germans were now witnessing firsthand the devastation of war and its impact on civilians. The BBC did not attempt to shroud the air war in silence. Of almost 1,000 extant features scripts for the period from January 1943 to December 1944, over 11 percent focused wholly or partly on the bombing of German cities.29 Although these programs were never the main output since they were intended as bait to get people to listen to the news, they nevertheless provide a rich corpus for analysis. They ranged from detached, factual reports to invented scenarios and dialogues, and the scripts employed a range of different strategies for broaching the sensitive topic of bombing. The satirical features in particular were much less constrained by form than the news bulletins, being fictional in the first place. Comedy series such as Kurt und Willi, Frau Wernicke (both scripted by Bruno Adler), and The Letters of Corporal Hirnschal (by Robert Lucas) played an important part in achieving the BBC’s “blend of ‘despair’ and ‘hope’ propaganda” by adopting relatable, average Germans as their protagonists, who could voice German listeners’ everyday worries and fears. The following analysis of individual features scripts provides insights into the different strategies the German Service used to talk about the bombing war, the service’s attitude to the German population during the later war years, and the important tonal distinctions between different formats dealing with the same issue. One of the most frequently used formats for reporting on the bombing war was to give factual information on targets and numbers of bombs dropped. Many scripts simply listed recently targeted cities or numbers of aircraft produced by different countries.30 Others stressed the considerable advantage in air power Britain and the United States had gained over the Luftwaffe between 1940 and 1943 by giving updates on recent war production figures.31

The BBC German Service and the Bombing War

155

When reporting on the air war, the German Service constantly sought to keep the focus on tactical and technical details rather than on the human lives lost. The MoI similarly emphasized technical detail in its Official War Books series, which became highly popular, as readers felt they were being trusted with accurate information. In the BBC’s case, focusing on the technical aspects of warfare enabled the German Service to point out Britain’s superiority and the likely course the air war would take, without drawing too much attention to the fact that thousands of German civilians were losing their lives as a consequence of British actions. The number of scripts drawing on the list format indicates that it was one of the most commonly used for features during the war years. This in itself, however, is remarkable, since it is hard to imagine such lists and comparisons of figures providing a particularly engaging listener experience. One of the format’s advantages was that it squarely fulfilled the aim of providing “straight” and unbiased news. However, these types of scripts could offer little independently verifiable evidence to a listener in Germany and might therefore easily have been dismissed as British propaganda. Another way in which the BBC German Service sought to focus more on technical detail and less on the human cost of air raids was to stress in almost every broadcast that Britain was specifically and exclusively aiming at industrial targets. A broadcast on “Bombing and Production” by Martin Esslin from June 1943 spelled out the aims of Britain’s bombing campaign in Germany. It cited German military correspondence claiming, “The aim pursued by the British leadership through its air raids on Germany is undoubtedly to bring the armaments industry to a standstill.”32 The script went on to explain why air raids were particularly focused on the Ruhr: 2nd VOICE The Ruhr is the largest industrial area of the European mainland . . . 1st VOICE In 1932, the Ruhr was responsible for almost 75% of coal produced in Germany. 2nd VOICE The Ruhr was responsible for almost 80% of steel produced in Germany. NARRATOR One cannot move mines to the East. Nor can one move furnaces. In the Ruhr a significant part of German armament potential remains crammed into an area vulnerable to Allied air raids.33

While adhering to factually accurate information, the report skillfully avoids any mention of the fact that the Ruhr is also one of Germany’s most densely populated areas, and that the repeated air raids on it endangered countless civilians’ lives. This strategy was repeated shortly after air raids on Berlin had begun, with a script

156

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

from September 1943 claiming that “while the Ruhr is Europe’s largest centre for heavy industry, Berlin is the largest European centre for light industry.”34 Esslin’s script explained that strategic air raids were necessary because “40% of Berlin’s population, i.e. over 2 million people, work in the war industry,” but it made no mention of the fact that these people would potentially be killed, or at best rendered homeless by the air raids on their city.35 The vast majority of scripts dealing with the air war in 1943–44 instead stressed Britain’s systematic and precise approach to bombing, even though by this point the British had given up on the ideal of bombing accuracy and were instead undertaking a policy of bombing at night-time to reduce morale.36 In these scripts, “ordinary” Germans figured only in their capacity as workers, not as potential victims. As Allied bombing of German cities intensified over the course of 1943, the German Service frequently directed listeners’ attention to the past by stressing that it was the Nazis who had first used the ruthless practice of carpet-bombing as part of their blitzkrieg strategy, and that consequently the German Reich was reaping what it had sown. This was a somewhat harsh message to convey to “ordinary” Germans experiencing bombing for the first time. One might expect that listeners would not respond well to being told they deserved their current suffering. One way of driving this message home without affronting listeners was to embed it in a comedy feature, which could take more liberties than a factual broadcast. The Frau Wernicke series, written by Bruno Adler and read by actress Annemarie Haase, was centered on a garrulous Berlin housewife, who was supposedly devoted to the Fatherland, but whose rants about recent events often betrayed a dislike and distrust of the Nazi leaders. On the subject of bombing, Frau Wernicke contrasted the Germans’ attitude at the beginning of the war with more recent reactions: Well, back then, when the Luftwaffe was superior, we cheered when the English cities burned. I mean, I didn’t really notice much of this cheering, perhaps because I don’t really mix with the better folk, only with the good ones—but I did read about it in our papers, that we were apparently filled with the deepest gratification. And what back then was just settling accounts and punishment on our part, today that’s considered cowardice, meanness, and terror from the other side. And why? Well, obviously, cos now they’re the stronger ones.37

Although Frau Wernicke reminds the listener that “we cheered when the English cities burned,” she is quick to qualify the pronoun “we” by stressing that she never really witnessed this celebratory attitude and only learned how she was supposed to react from the newspapers. She suspects that the reason for this is her exclusion

The BBC German Service and the Bombing War

157

from high society—the implication being that high-ranking Nazis would have celebrated military victories while the majority of the population carried on as normal. Through a play on words, the script distinguishes between “the better sort,” with whom Frau Wernicke has no contact, and “the good,” whom she prefers. Within the same sentence, the meaning of “good” shifts from “wealthy” or “upper class” to “morally upstanding” or “kind,” suggesting that ordinary Germans like Frau Wernicke have a better moral compass than their leaders and would not have rejoiced at British suffering at the beginning of the war, but that they are now forced to suffer the consequences of their leaders’ actions. The differences between Nazi leadership and ordinary Germans were a recurring theme of various satirical features, including the Kurt und Willi series, also scripted by Adler and set in Berlin. Kurt was a naïve schoolteacher, whose best friend Willi worked for the propaganda ministry and could therefore enlighten him as to what was truly going on in Nazi Germany. In a script from December 1943, the two meet not in their usual café on Potsdamer Platz but in a rundown remote bar, because—as Willi informs Kurt—the intensifying air raids on Berlin mean that “not even the bank vaults are safe anymore.”38 This leads Kurt and Willi to discuss the impact of the most recent raids on Berlin: WILLI My God, do you have any idea what kind of catastrophic confusion there’s been in the better circles since the large banks have been hit?! KURT Well, to be honest, Willi, the fellow citizens with whom I’ve been spending these past dreadful nights aren’t overly concerned with that. They’re happy that they just about made it out alive.39

By using the two friends as examples, the broadcast stresses the diverging priorities of different social classes as concerns the effects of bombing: while high-ranking officials are mainly concerned with the security of their assets and accumulated wealth, ordinary Germans consider themselves lucky if they can escape a raid alive. Another way of highlighting the gap between Nazi officials and ordinary people was to contrast responses of the British and German leadership to the bombing of civilian targets. In a July 1943 broadcast, the head of the features department Marius Goring (under his pseudonym Charles Richardson) stressed that the London Blitz had served to strengthen the unity of purpose between the British people and their government: The way in which King George, the Queen, and Winston Churchill observed the progress of the attacks, personally supporting practical aid on the ground again and again, is only one symbol of this unity.40

158

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

The German Service contrasted the British leadership’s caring attitude with Hitler’s cynical disregard for human lives lost in his quest for power—again using Frau Wernicke as a mouthpiece. In a fictional (and entirely one-sided) conversation between Frau Wernicke and Ivan, the Ukrainian waiter in her local Berlin pub, she is keen to stress Hitler’s concern for bombing victims: But don’t you go thinking that it’s just us that are worried about our bombed out fellow citizens, our Adolf himself is too. And just so you have an idea of how worried he is—just the other day after the heavy attack on Bochum, where apparently it rained down thousand-kilo-bombs like leaflets, he was so terribly worried that he . . . well, what do you think he did in his pain? No, no, you’ll never guess: he TELEPHONED! Believe it or not! Just imagine, he phoned up Gauleiter Hoffmann, actually phoned him, and asked how it’s all going in Bochum . . . .41

Not only does the monologue convey some factual information (i.e., there has recently been a significant air raid on Bochum), but Wernicke’s praise for Hitler’s reaction is structured as a guessing game for her interlocutor, thus building up suspense by delaying the reveal of what Hitler actually did after the raid. This build-up of tension is followed by a deflating let-down, in which Hitler’s action of telephoning the local administrator functions as a kind of punch line to stress its complete inadequacy as a response to the victims’ suffering. This script also directly compares Hitler’s reaction with that of the British leadership, when Wernicke repeats what her interlocutor Ivan has supposedly interjected: Churchill, that old stuffed shirt, goes to see the people after an air raid, you say, and even the English King and Queen clamber about in the ruins? Gosh, just imagine, if our Führer stood at the graves of the victims—what do you reckon would happen! What—what’s that you say?—Bloody hell, they’d push him in? Well, you’re a fine one—that leaves even me gobsmacked!42

The question of what would happen if Hitler went to mourn at the graveside of recent bombing victims sets up the next joke, which is reported second-hand from Ivan who remains just out of earshot. Thus, Frau Wernicke’s own belief in the Führer is not called into question, but she is still forced to parrot the curmudgeonly suggestion that many Germans might be tempted to push Hitler into a grave alongside the civilian victims. Although her reaction to this is one of shock, Wernicke does not contradict Ivan or suggest that what he is saying constitutes treason. The script sets up a sense of complicity with its listeners,

The BBC German Service and the Bombing War

159

inviting them to share in a gleeful, illicit thought experiment of simply disposing of Hitler in the manner of a slapstick comedy gag. An interesting exception to the rule of using humor to discuss the effects of bombing on ordinary Germans was a script for the women’s program from July 1943, which focused on the fact that Hitler’s disastrous Russian campaign was keeping German men far away from their families. After presenting an old song from Westphalia, the narrator muses: I can imagine that the soldiers from Westphalia are particularly homesick for their wives and families, for today the gigantic battle over Germany’s heavy industry is being fought over Westphalia, over the Ruhr.43

The bombing of the Ruhr is still associated with heavy industry, but the script’s focus is specifically on these men’s attachment to their loved ones, who are in peril due to the British air raids: These men in the East are at the front and they know that their wives at home are also at the front. Two-thousand kilometres lie between these fronts and the men cannot get home to see how their families are doing.44

Instead of detailing what could potentially have happened to the soldiers’ wives while their husbands are away on the Eastern Front, the broadcast describes the wives themselves as being “at the front,” thus also turning them into combatants. This description of the two fronts emphasizes the danger both parties face but does so without dwelling on their emotional responses to it. The script walks a fine line between acknowledging the men’s fears for their families’ safety and not providing any concrete detail on the dangers they face as a consequence of British raids. The script that dealt most explicitly with the air war’s impact on people’s lives was once again a satirical feature. Robert Lucas’s series The Letters of Corporal Hirnschal was an epistolary comedy feature in which a simple soldier, Adolf Hirnschal, wrote to his wife Amalia, detailing his naïve and fervent belief in the righteousness of the Führer’s cause, but simultaneously exposing the glaring contradictions between Nazi ideology and wartime reality. In this particular letter, Hirnschal reports a conversation with his fellow soldier Katting, who owns a farm in Westphalia: “Hirnschal,” says tall Katting all of a sudden, “How long is this going to go on for? What are we actually fighting for?” And I answer him: “They say we’re fighting for our beloved German homeland.”—“Then why are we stuck here in Russia,” says Katting, “thousands of kilometres from our ‘homeland,’ while the

160

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

bombs are falling on our cities?” I get a bit nervous at that and answer: “They also say we’re fighting for our families, Katting.” At that Katting sits up and says: “Then why don’t we just go home, now that our families are in danger? That’s our damn duty, Hirnschal, we can’t just leave our wives and children in the lurch in their hour of need.”—At that I shake my head and say: “You don’t understand, Katting. Our beloved Führer can’t let that happen. If we all go home, who’s going to fight the Bolsheviks and the plutocrats? The whole war will be over if we just go home.” But at that tall Katting jumps up all excited and says: “Damn right, Hirnschal, then the whole war will be over, and if the war is over, then our families will no longer be in danger.”45

By transposing them into a comic mode, the script is able to voice an ordinary soldier’s fears about his family’s safety, while simultaneously exposing the absurdity of attempting to defend the German homeland and the German people on the remote Russian front. Katting’s concern at not being able to help his family in their “hour of need” is genuine and relatable, thus undermining Hirnschal’s increasingly paradoxical claims as to what they are fighting for. The logical conclusion Katting draws from Hirnschal’s explanations that if they all go home, “then the whole war will be over, and if the war is over, then our families will no longer be in danger,” reads rather like a simplified summary of the BBC German Service’s aims and objectives. A common thread running through all the BBC German Service’s policy decisions and scriptwriting choices during wartime was its aim to speak to (and perhaps for) a broad audience of ordinary Germans. The analysis of features scripts shows that in regard to the complex issue of British air raids, the German Service was forced to walk a very fine line between supporting British military strategy and convincing Germans that it was their leaders not they themselves who were under attack—despite appearances to the contrary. One reason for this was the BBC’s need to attract a German audience in unfavorable conditions. Accusing all Germans of having started the war was hardly a good way to garner new listeners or to keep the existing ones interested. However, reporting somewhat accurately on the bombing war without making German listeners feel victimized by the British was a difficult task: the BBC therefore attempted to redirect its listeners’ resentment for the air raids away from the British government and toward the Nazi leadership. In its quest to appeal to the broadest possible audience within enemy territory, the BBC German Service tried to address a fictional category of “ordinary” Germans, who were neither Nazi officials, nor part of the active political opposition, nor persecuted minorities, but still politically interested enough

The BBC German Service and the Bombing War

161

to risk listening to enemy broadcasts. These exclusionary factors are similar to Elizabeth Heineman’s findings on how Germans tend to categorize their experiences when being interviewed for histories of everyday life in wartime and postwar Germany: Histories of everyday life and oral histories often attest to the ways nonpersecuted and non-activist Germans recall a past of “ordinary Germans” that excludes the experience of the persecuted and the activists, who numbered in the millions. This opposition of “ordinary Germans” to the “others” has helped to create an apparently homogenous category of “ordinary Germans” that downplays significant differences among them.46

Instead of a retrospective categorization by Germans themselves during the postwar era, the BBC’s (and MoI’s) explicit strategy of distinguishing between Nazis and “ordinary Germans” suggests that this was a viewpoint already encouraged through British propaganda during the war. A variety of different programs invited listeners to identify with a fictional German “man on the street,” and thus encouraged listeners to think of themselves as “ordinary Germans”—a category whose main characteristics included war-weariness and disillusionment with the Nazi leadership. This potentially enabled any Germans who did not feel they had benefited sufficiently from the war to consider themselves victims of Nazi oppression rather than fellow-travelers and enablers of a monstrous regime. In this way, the BBC German Service may well have played a significant role in constructing one of postwar Germany’s founding myths, by inventing a new kind of German to suit its wartime output.

Notes 1 This work was funded by the Leverhulme Trust through a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. All translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. 2 See Gunda Cannon, “Hier ist England”—“Live aus London”: Das deutsche Programm der British Broadcasting Corporation 1938–1988 (London: BBC External Services, 1988), p. 3. 3 See Hugh Carleton Greene, interviewed by Wolfgang Labuhn, “‘Hier ist England!’: The German Language Service of the BBC during WW II,” prod. Peter Schaufler, May 8, 1985 (BBC German Service), A33/164, Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv (DRA), Frankfurt/Main. 4 “BBC German Service,” March 25, 1942, E1/758/2, BBC Written Archives Centre (BBC WAC).

162

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

5 “Extract from Output Report of B.B.C. European Services dated January 10th–16th 1942” (corrected to: 1943), p. 2, E1/758/2, BBC WAC. 6 See Cannon, “Hier ist England,” p. 6. 7 Memo from Hugh Carleton Greene to European News Editor, subject: “Suggestions for Reorganisation of German Service,” July 17, 1941, R13/148/2, BBC WAC. 8 See “Reorganisation of the German Service,” BBC Weekly Bulletin, November 6, 1941, E1/758/1, BBC WAC. 9 Alfred Starckmann, “Changing the Guard: The Transition from Emigrés to Recruits on the Staff of the BBC’s German Service,” in “Stimme der Wahrheit”: GermanLanguage Broadcasting by the BBC, eds. Charmian Brinson and Richard Dove (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003), pp. 185–95 (p. 188). 10 See Cannon, “Hier ist England,” p. 4. 11 Ibid., pp. 9–10. 12 Hugh Greene, “Visit to Stockholm in 1942,” September 18, 1963, E1/758/2, BBC WAC. 13 Hugh Carleton Greene, interviewed by Labuhn, “Hier ist England!.” 14 “News for Foreigners,” The Listener, December 8, 1938, p. 1228. 15 See Gerard Mansell, Let Truth Be Told: 50 Years of BBC External Broadcasting (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982), pp. 90–91. 16 Ibid., pp. 163–64; see also Cannon, “Hier ist England,” p. 10. 17 “BBC German Service,” March 25, 1942, E1/758/2, BBC WAC. 18 See Stephanie Seul,“‘Plain, Unvarnished News’? The BBC German Service and Chamberlain’s Propaganda Campaign Directed at Nazi Germany, 1938–1940,” Media History, 21 (2015), 378–96 (p. 380). 19 Hugh Carleton Greene, “Layout of BBC Broadcasts in German,” September 3, 1940, p. 1, E1/758/1, BBC WAC. 20 “Extract from Output Report of B.B.C. European Services dated January 10th–16th 1942” (corrected to: 1943), E1/758/2, BBC WAC. 21 “BBC German Service,” March 25, 1942, E1/758/2, BBC WAC. 22 See Asa Briggs, The BBC: The First Fifty Years (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 236; Cannon, “Hier ist England,” p. 10; Robert Lucas, “The German Service of the BBC,” May 7, 1983, p. 37, RLU 3/1/55, Robert Lucas Papers, Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London. 23 See Cannon, “Hier ist England,” pp. 9–10. 24 Hugh Carleton Greene, interviewed by Labuhn, “Hier ist England!.” 25 Ibid. 26 See Seul, “Plain, Unvarnished News,” p. 385. 27 “Extract from Output Report of B.B.C. European Services dated January 10th–16th 1942” (corrected to: 1943), E1/758/2, BBC WAC. 28 Memo from Hugh Carleton Greene to Overseas News Editor, subject: “German Reorganisation Scheme,” August 23, 1941, R13/148/2, BBC WAC.

The BBC German Service and the Bombing War

163

29 The corpus analyzed comprises a total of 976 features scripts from January 1943 to December 1944, of which 66 were wholly and 42 were partly concerned with the bombing war. Unfortunately, the features scripts for January to June 1945 (the period including some of the most destructive raids, e.g., Dresden) have been lost. 30 See for example, Julius Pereszlenyi, “Bombing Range,” prod. Julius Gellner, August 11, 1943, German Service Scripts: Features (July–December 1943), BBC WAC. 31 See for example, “England diese Woche,” no. 77, September 3, 1943, pp. 5–6, German Service Scripts: Features (July–December 1943), BBC WAC. 32 “Das Ziel, das die britische Führung mit ihren Luftangriffen auf Deutschland verfolgt, ist unzweifelhaft das, die Rüstungsindustrie lahmzulegen.” Julius Pereszlenyi, “Bombing and Production,” prod. Julius Gellner, June 24, 1943, German Service Scripts: Features (January–June 1943), BBC WAC. 33 “2. VOICE  Das Ruhrgebiet ist der gewaltigste Industriebezirk des europäischen Festlandes . . . 1. VOICE  Das Ruhrgebiet lieferte 1932 fast 75% der in Deutschland gewonnenen Steinkohle. 2. VOICE  Das Ruhrgebiet lieferte fast 80% des in Deutschland erzeugten Stahls. NARRATOR  Bergwerke kann man nicht nach dem Osten verlegen. Auch Hochöfen nicht. Im Ruhrgebiet ist und bleibt ein wesentlicher Teil des deutschen Rüstungspotentials auf engstem Raum den alliierten Luftangriffen ausgesetzt.” Ibid. 34 “ während das Ruhrgebiet das größte Zentrum der Schwerindustrie Europas ist, ist Berlin das größte europäische Zentrum für Leichtindustrie.” Julius Pereszlenyi, “Topical Berlin,” prod. H. W. Buxbaum, September 2, 1943, German Service Scripts: Features (July–December 1943), BBC WAC. 35 “40% der Bevölkerung Berlins, also über 2.000.000 Menschen arbeiten in der Kriegsindustrie.” Ibid. 36 See Richard Overy, The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2013); Dietmar Süß, Tod aus der Luft: Kriegsgesellschaft und Luftkrieg in Deutschland und England (Munich: Siedler, 2011). 37 “Ja, damals, wie de Luftwaffe ieberlejen war, da ham wa jejubelt, wenn de englischen Städte jebrannt haben. Ick hab zwar nicht jemerkt von den Jubel, vielleicht weil ick nicht mit de bessern Leute vakehre, lieber bloß mit de juten—aber jelesen ha’ck et in unsre Zeitungen, det wa alle erfüllt waren von de tiefste Jenuchtuung. Und wat damals von uns bloß Abrechnung und Strafjericht war det is heute von de andern Feigheit, Jemeinheit und Terror. Und warum? Klar, weil die nu die Stärkeren sind.” Bruno Adler, “Frau Wernicke on Bombing, Führer’s Health etc.,” prod. Julius Gellner, March 13, 1943, German Service Scripts: Features (January–June 1943), BBC WAC.

164

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

38 “Nicht mal die Bankgewölbe sind mehr sicher.” Bruno Adler, “Kurt and Willi: Bombing and Conferences,” prod. H. W. Buxbaum, December 7, 1943, German Service Scripts: Features (July–December 1943), BBC WAC. 39 “WILLI  Mensch, hast du ne Ahnung, was für ne katastrophale Verwirrung in den besseren Kreisen herrscht, seit die Grossbanken getroffen worden sind?! KURT  Also—um die Wahrheit zu sagen, Willi—die Volksgenossen, mit denen ich in diesen Schreckensnächten zu tun hatte, sind davon nicht übermäßig beunruhigt. Die sind froh, dass sie ihr nacktes Leben retten konnten.” Ibid. 40 “Die Art wie König Georg, die Königin und Winston Churchill den Verlauf der Angriffe verfolgten, wie sie immer wieder persönlich an Ort und Stelle für Hilfsmaßnahmen sorgten, ist nur ein Zeichen dieser Einheit.” Julius Pereszlenyi, “The Third Dimension,” prod. H. W. Buxbaum, July 10, 1943, German Service Scripts: Features (July–December 1943), BBC WAC. 41 “Aber jloob nich, det bloß wir uns sorjen um de ausjebombten Volksjenossen, det tut sojar unser Adolf höchstpersönlich. Und damit du dir nen Bejriff machst, wie der sich sorgt—neulich nach den schweren Anjriff uf Bochum, wo et de Tausendkilobomben bloß so jeregnet haben soll wie Flugblätter, da hat er sich so furchtbar jesorgt, det er . . . na wat denkste, wat der in sein’ Schmerz jemacht hat! Nee nee, det errätste nich: TELEFONIERT hat er! Ob’s de’s jloobst oder nich! Stell dir det bloß mal vor, den Jauleiter Hoffman hat er anjerufen, richtig anjerufen und jefragt, wie et denn so jeht in Bochum . . .” Bruno Adler, “Frau Wernicke on Air Raid Victims and the Führer,” prod. Julius Gellner, June 26, 1943, German Service Scripts: Features (January–June 1943), BBC WAC. 42 “Der Tschurtschill, der olle Waschlappen, der jeht nach nem Luftanjriff zu de Bevölkerung, sagste, und sojar der englische König und de Könjin steijen in de Ruinen rum? Mensch, mal dir doch det mal aus, wenn unser Führer an dem Jrab von de Opfer stünde—wat gloobste wat da passieren würde! Wat—wat sagste?— Heiljer Strohsack, rinschubsen würden se ihm? Mensch, du bist ne Nummer—da bleibt sojar mir de Spucke weg!” Ibid. 43 “ich kann mir vorstellen, dass die Soldaten aus Westfalen sich besonders nach Hause sehnen zu ihren Frauen und Familien, denn über Westfalen, über der Ruhr tobt heute die gewaltige Schlacht um Deutschlands Schwerindustrie.” Julius Pereszlenyi, “A Song of Woe,” prod. H. W. Buxbaum, July 8, 1943, German Service Scripts: Features (July–December 1943), BBC WAC. 44 “diese Männer im Osten stehen an der Front und sie wissen, dass auch ihre Frauen zu hause an der Front sind, zweitausend Kilometer liegen zwischen diesen Fronten und die Männer können nicht heim, zu sehen wie es ihrer Familie geht.” Ibid. 45 “Hirnschal,” sagt auf einmal der lange Katting, “Wie lang wird das noch so weitergehen? Wofür kämpfen wir denn eigentlich?” Und ich antworte: “Sie sagen, wir kämpfen für unsere deutsche Heimat.”—“Warum sitzen wir dann hier in

The BBC German Service and the Bombing War

165

Russland,” meint drauf der Katting, “tausende Kilometer von unserer ‘Heimat’ entfernt, wenn die Bomben auf unsere Städte fallen?” Darauf werde ich ein wenig nervös und antworte: “Sie sagen auch, wir kämpfen für unsere Familien, Katting.” Darauf setzt sich der Katting auf und sagt: “Warum gehen wir dann nicht gleich nach Hause, wo unsere Familien jetzt in Gefahr sind? Das ist doch unsere verdammte Pflicht und Schuldigkeit, Hirnschal, wir dürfen doch unsere Frauen und Kinder in der Stunde der Not nicht im Stich lassen.”—Darauf schüttle ich den Kopf und sage: “Das verstehst du nicht, Katting. Das kann doch unser geliebter Führer nicht zulassen. Wenn wir alle nach Hause gehen, wer wird denn dann gegen die Bolschewiken und gegen die Plutokraten kämpfen? Dann ist doch der ganze Krieg zu Ende, wenn wir einfach nach Hause gehen.” Aber da springt der lange Katting ganz aufgeregt auf und sagt: “Ganz richtig, Hirnschal, dann ist der Krieg zu Ende, und wenn der Krieg zu Ende ist, dann sind doch unsere Familien nicht mehr in Gefahr.” Robert Ehrenzweig [a.k.a. Robert Lucas], “Hirnschal Letter No. 64,” prod. Julius Gellner, June 28, 1943, German Service Scripts: Features (January–June 1943), BBC WAC. 46 Elizabeth Heineman, “The Hour of the Woman: Memories of Germany’s Crisis Years and West German National Identity,” The American Historical Review, 101 (1996), 354–95 (p. 357).

166

10

Diverging Neutrality in Iberia: The British Ministry of Information in Spain and Portugal During the Second World War Christopher Bannister

Spain and Portugal represented two vital but decidedly different problems for the MoI during the Second World War. While each nation was a neutral power in the war, they took diverging paths in their neutrality, with Spain aligning itself closely with the Axis and Portugal with the Allies. The challenges this “diverging neutrality” represented for the MoI will be the subject of this chapter. It will outline the different approaches taken in the early stages of the war in each country and the problems that the MoI encountered in each, as well as detail, as the MoI’s overall overseas strategy altered, the extent to which these problems were overcome. The central contention will be that the problems faced by the offices in the Iberian Peninsula offer a strong case study of the limitations of the MoI’s efficacy overseas. The importance of Spain and Portugal to the British war effort cannot be overstated. Both were strategically vital: ensuring the neutrality of each, or at least their non-belligerency, was imperative for British interests. Spain guarded the gateway to the Mediterranean, and its entry into the war on the side of the Axis would have spelled disaster for British hopes of retaining Gibraltar—and with it British naval capability in Southern Europe and North Africa. Portugal, possessor of the vitally positioned Azores islands, was one of the keys to the war in the Atlantic. Additionally, Spain and Portugal supplied raw materials to both the Axis and Allied powers. Spain was an important supplier of pyrites to the Axis and, along with Portugal, was blessed with a natural abundance of wolfram (tungsten), a vital component in munitions. As the Iberian Peninsula was Germany’s sole source of wolfram, ensuring a favorable political and economic situation that allowed the Allies to inflate the price of the Spanish and Portuguese product became an important part of Allied strategy.1

168

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Portugal had been a long-standing ally of Great Britain, and the danger of its entry into the war on the side of the Axis was never a concern for British officials. Some form of relationship had existed between the two countries since 1386, and was formalized and renewed in the modern era by the Treaty of Windsor in 1899. This treaty had survived the First World War and Portugal’s turn to authoritarianism with the rise of Antonio Salazar and the establishment of the Estado Novo in 1933. At the outbreak of war, the Salazar government announced that the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance still stood and that Portugal would remain neutral in the war, albeit with a favorable approach to the Allies.2 Alignment with British interests was a pillar of the foreign policy of the Salazar dictatorship, but that did not necessarily mean belligerency as Salazar was primarily concerned with self-preservation. As the Estado Novo now shared the peninsula with a new, aggressive dictatorship that harbored territorial ambitions in Portugal, and was backed by the German and Italian states, a cautious approach was necessary.3 The alliance held throughout the war, with Portugal even leasing air bases on the Azores to the British in 1943.4 In the overall understanding of the conflict, and from the perspective of the MoI, an Axis-aligned Portugal was never likely.5 In comparison with Portugal’s political situation, Spain’s was a far more fractious issue for British officials, with a belief prevailing that Franco’s regime was little different from those of Hitler and Mussolini.6 In the early years of the war, there was a genuine concern that Spain would enter the war on the side of the Axis and thus spell disaster for the Allies. Spanish belligerency, it was feared, would cause the fall of Portugal and most likely the loss of the entire Mediterranean.7 These anxieties were not unfounded; in 1940, many in the dictatorship believed that Spain, despite being left in physical and economic ruin after three years of bloody civil war, stood to gain a great deal from the conflict. Greedy eyes were fixed on France’s North African possessions, and plans were made to erase a long-standing national shame: Britain’s “occupation” of Gibraltar.8 While Franco’s 1940 meeting with Hitler in the French town of Hendaye would result in the Caudillo (Franco’s preferred dictatorial epithet) declining to enter the conflict, Spain did declare as a non-belligerent in support of the Axis in June of that year, a position it would hold until October 1943.9 The relationship between Francoists and the Axis was a strong one. The self-styled nationalists had relied on significant Italian and German support in their recent victory in the Civil War, and strong ties had developed between the dictatorship and the Fascist and National Socialist states.10 The new ruling party of Spain, the fascist Falange Española Tradicionalista de las JONS, was openly pro-German, with many influential figures in government such as

Diverging Neutrality in Iberia

169

Ramón Serrano Súñer, the Minister for Foreign Affairs (and Franco’s brotherin-law), frequently voicing their admiration for the Axis.11 This admiration was translated into preferential treatment for German propaganda, even as the tide of war and Spanish public opinion turned against the Axis, not to mention proAxis column inches in the national press right through to 1945.12 Germany was held up as a protector of European interests and a bulwark against communism. Britain, on the other hand, was presented as selfish and self-serving.13 There was an erroneous belief among many falangistas that Great Britain was a supporter of the Republicans in the Civil War and remained an active threat to the regime.14 This anti-British sentiment often manifested itself in outward displays of contempt, with one particularly egregious example coming on June 24, 1941, when news of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union reached Spain. The British Embassy was stormed by groups of celebrating supporters of the Falange, armed with rocks conveniently transported to the location by official trucks.15 This contempt for Britain, rooted in a willful misunderstanding of Britain’s foreign policy and political attitudes, would be a key problem for the MoI during the war. The alliance between Great Britain and the Soviet Union that resulted from the German invasion cannot be overestimated from a Spanish perspective. For the Francoists, the Civil War had been fought in large part not as a war between Spaniards but rather as the struggle of the Spanish patria against an atheistic, Soviet invader.16 The invasion of the Soviet Union provided the opportunity for vengeance, and a force of volunteers and conscripts, known as the Blue Division, was dispatched to the Eastern Front in the summer of 1941.17 The existence of the Blue Division was testament to the antipathy many Francoists (and Franco himself) felt toward the Soviet Union. Roughly 50,000 Spaniards joined Hitler’s fight against Bolshevism in Russia, with 22,700 perishing there.18 Moreover, the Anglo-Soviet Agreement did little to dispel the idea peddled in German propaganda and falangista circles that Great Britain was a self-serving, perfidious nation, willing to do anything for its own survival. Consequently, even as the war wore on and Spanish attitudes toward Britain thawed in the warmth of Allied success, the Soviet connection remained a sensitive issue. The work of all British officials, and by extension the work of the MoI, in the Iberian Peninsula must therefore be understood in the terms outlined above, namely, the strategic importance of each nation and the diverging attitudes in each toward Great Britain. The propaganda approach taken by the MoI to each should have been decidedly different. However, there came a point in the war at which it became possible to present Britain’s case in a way that suited several

170

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

international markets. The MoI offices in Spain and Portugal would begin the war with quite different propaganda programs yet, by the end, both countries were receiving much of the same material and being presented with a similar image of Great Britain. The strong relationship between Portugal and Great Britain meant that the MoI had very favorable conditions in which to conduct its operations. It was the responsibility of each individual MoI national mission to produce its own material, and in Portugal this initially began with the importing of material from Great Britain. British newspapers were shipped in large numbers, with copies of every major national British newspaper, the illustrated weekly The Sphere, London’s Evening Standard, and the satirical current affairs magazines Punch, all arriving in Lisbon on a regular basis from 1940.19 Despite the fact that they were written in English, there was a demand for these papers, with one MoI informant observing that “one does not see British newspapers displayed on Portuguese bookstalls for any lengthy time. . . . It is only German, French and Italian papers which have a poor sale that are on view for considerable periods.”20 Moreover, while others had difficulty getting past the Portuguese censor— France the periodical of De Gaulle’s Free French was banned, for example—the MoI had no problem stocking the stands with British newspapers.21 This favorable environment in the early years of the war allowed the MoI to focus on the fraternal bond between Great Britain and Portugal expressed in the traditional Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. Many publications were produced in Lisbon which celebrated this long-standing agreement. Os Portugueses perante a Aliança Inglêsa (The Portuguese before the English Alliance), published in 1941, detailed the travails Portugal faced prior to the signing of the alliance and the benefits it had subsequently brought.22 A Aliança Luso-Britânica, also published in 1941, celebrated the longevity of the alliance. It provided a timeline from 1147, when British Crusaders helped Afonso I of Portugal to reconquer Lisbon from the Moors, all the way up to the Salazar dictatorship, highlighting not only the military cooperation in the Peninsular War and the First World War but also the cultural visits of Englishmen, such as Henry Fielding, to Portugal.23 A year earlier, the Catholic journalist (and author of The Portugal of Salazar) Michael Derrick was employed to write a pamphlet entitled A Guerra e a Aliança LusoBritânica (The War and the Luso-British Alliance) that outlined the deep kinship between the nations. Derrick observed that, although Britain was a liberal, democratic state and Portugal was not, the alliance was predicated on the fact that they were both Christian nations. It was partly a “pact of mutual interest” between nations, but mostly it was a “testament that each nation recognises the

Diverging Neutrality in Iberia

171

basic values of European Christian civilization.”24 Britain and Portugal were not simply allies, but defenders of a way of life, sharing an historical understanding of Europe rooted in conservative, Christian ideas, and each equally unimpressed by the grand political designs of the Axis. Derrick consequently took the opportunity to present Germany as a threat to this idea of “civilization.” Germany, as evidenced by its treatment of the Catholics of Poland, rejected this idea of European civilization and the sovereignty it bestowed upon its peoples.25 The war was not presented as a political struggle between democracy and totalitarianism, but as the “acceptance or rejection of the traditional Christian concept of humanity and morality.”26 The idea of Germany as an oppressive, expansionist, and un-Christian aggressor nation was developed elsewhere, particularly in reference to Poland. A series of lectures by the Polish cardinal August Hlond entitled A perseguição feita à igreja católica na polónia ocupado pelos alemãis (The Persecution of the Catholic Church by the Germans in Occupied Poland) was published in 1941. This “civilizational” understanding of the conflict permitted the MoI to sidestep any questions regarding British opposition to totalitarianism and instead focus on German aggression and oppression. The message in Portugal was therefore clear: Britain was Portugal’s closest and oldest ally and its interests and those of Portugal were interlinked. However, despite this clear position, there were major concerns at the MoI headquarters in London about the material and its readership. The majority of the pamphlets were printed on poor quality paper, with printed covers without illustrations. The text itself was presented in a less-than-digestible manner: in the smaller pamphlets it took the form of lengthy blocks of very small print. Even the MoI’s sole regular publication, the newsletter Embaixada Britânica—Boletim de Informações, was unbound and printed on low quality newsprint.27 The lackluster quality of propaganda in Portugal did not go unnoticed. One MoI official from a different section described the work done by the Lisbon office as “below par” and in need of more “supervisory control.” A. N. Daye, the acting chairman of the Anglo-Portuguese telephone company and an important local business ally, went further and said that he was horrified by the drab quality of the material and the negative effect it was having. Daye claimed that he had been told “many startling and humiliating things” relating to British propaganda. He stated that one Portuguese had even implored him to “get our propaganda closed down because of the damage it was doing to British prestige,” while another believed that the poor quality was “the greatest asset Germany possessed in Portugal.”28

172

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

However, Portugal was not the only overseas market that was not receiving sufficiently good propaganda material. It had become a major issue across various departments and, in 1941, resulted in Sir Kenneth Grubb, previously head of the MoI’s Latin American Section and recently appointed to director of overseas operations, putting into place new policies with the aim of creating a higher standard of material. The intention of these reforms was to limit wasted energy through a pooling of information at Senate House, and the adoption of a more uniform propaganda strategy. The existing propaganda policy was a bespoke one, with the respective national offices identifying a target audience and creating a campaign to appeal to a specific national market. Grubb saw this as an egregious waste of resources, arguing that “most foreign propaganda problems [could] be approached from the angle of discovering how much of their content is common to all overseas activities,” and working from there. The solution he proposed was to bring the direction of propaganda “in house” and to allow an “overseas executive committee” to design and produce material that would address the issues that affected multiple markets. The savings made, allied with the pooling of shared information fed back to Senate House from the various Press Attachés, would result in a higher quality of propaganda material for all markets.29 While the new material would eschew the idea of speaking to a single national audience, it would nevertheless have a clear focus, with a particular audience in mind. The idea that the material would be a general representation of British interests was explicitly rejected by Grubb’s colleague and fellow reformer, John Rogers. “It is axiomatic,” Rogers wrote, “that propaganda is only a means to an end.” Background information on Britain could be left to the British Council; MoI propaganda needed to ensure that “specific groups of people could be coerced or cajoled into taking specific action.” That this audience would not be limited to single nation was immaterial.30 There would nevertheless still be scope for nation-specific propaganda material on an issue-by-issue basis. In Portugal, this new approach led to a considerable improvement in the aesthetic quality of material produced and a broadening of its appeal as Portuguese-language translations of popular MoI publications were disseminated from the Lisbon office. (The fact that these translations could also be used in the Brazilian market fitted perfectly with Grubb’s aims.) Exciting new publications, printed with full-color covers, such as Pêlo à mocidade (Call to Youth) about the Air Training Corps and Malta Ataca (Malta Attack), were published in 1943.31 Colorful booklets on good quality stock finally replaced the long blocks of prose printed on poor-quality paper. There were bright and featured banner

Diverging Neutrality in Iberia

173

headlines and shorter, snappier paragraphs of easy-to-read text, all accompanied by photographs or exciting infographics. Further examples include Fábricas da Liberdade, a booklet on British factories at war, A batalha da inglaterra, a Portuguese-language translation of the highly popular “Battle of Britain” book, and Churchill, which collected inspiring quotations from the prime minister and placed them alongside pictures of the man in action.32 The topics covered were broader and helped create a richer and more interesting picture of the British war effort and those involved in it. There was still place for nationally focused material, some of it as uninspiring as before. The drab Embaixada Britânica—Boletim de Informações, still printed on shoddy newsprint, remained until the end of the war, as did the printing of material directly related to LusoBritish relations, but these were no longer the sole form of communication from the British government to the Portuguese public. The Spanish case would be a similar tale of two halves, but the reasons for this were decidedly different, with the MoI in Spain affected far more by the events of the war. When considering the work of the MoI in Spain, one needs to be acutely aware of the other efforts of the British in influencing the Franco dictatorship’s wartime policy. Unlike in Latin America, where the MoI had been a central part of British overseas strategy even before the outbreak of the war, the ministry’s work in Spain was subservient to the efforts of the diplomatic corps stationed in Madrid and under the leadership of Ambassador Sir Samuel Hoare.33 Any attempt to understand British efforts in Spain will fail without an understanding of Hoare’s work, which was rooted in what he termed “the school of the carrot.”34 Understanding that the political situation in Spain was unlikely to change, despite vociferous protestations from figures at home, Hoare hoped, through a firm but generally positive approach, to convince Franco and his government of the importance of Britain to the continued survival of the dictatorship.35 Despite this approach, Hoare personally had a very low opinion of Franco, describing him as a “small, quiet, fat Gallego” with “unconscionable complacency.”36 Samuel Hoare’s efforts were extensive—reassuring officials of both a pro- and anti-British persuasion that Great Britain had no intention of attacking Spain; threatening restrictions on the import of goods from the British Empire; and, in numerous cases, bribing officials and influential military figures.37 Hoare did the majority of his vital work in keeping Spain as non-belligerent in the early years of the war, particularly 1940–41.38 All these activities further reduced the influence of the MoI in Spain, already struggling with major difficulties in getting material past a repressive and uncooperative censor.

174

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

The Civil War of 1936–39 had brought with it a policy of strict censorship that would become a feature of the regime. This included strict pre-publication censorship of books and translations, as well as stringent guidelines imposed on newspapers, the editorial staff of which were all expected to be political loyalists.39 In the early months of the war, there were abortive attempts to include British material in some established Spanish newspapers, as was the strategy in other neutral countries.40 One such effort was made in October 1939, when plans were put in place to have Douglas Woodruff, editor of the Catholic periodical The Tablet, write a column to be placed in a prominent Spanish daily, with the conservative newspaper ABC considered the most promising option.41 This endeavor revealed the naivete of the MoI in the Spanish media landscape. Faced with a stringent censor who was decidedly hostile to the placing of articles in newspapers by foreign powers, regardless of the pecuniary incentive, the MoI had no alternative approach, and the article never made it into print.42 Despite various obstacles, the MoI nevertheless had an important threefold role to play in the critical 1940–41 period and as the war progressed: one, to ensure that Axis and Falange propaganda did not go wholly unchallenged; two, that pro-British voices were part of the broader national conversation; and three, that, through the MoI’s “white” propaganda (as opposed to the SOE’s anonymous “black” propaganda work), Great Britain was seen as an honest and enthusiastic communicator with Franco’s Spain. The early period of the war represented a significant challenge for the MoI. Wartime censorship, allied with extreme repression, had resulted in a public sphere that was to outside observers overwhelmingly hostile to democracy and the democracies. This was certainly the impression conveyed by Tom Burns, an official of the MoI’s Religious Division and, from 1940, its Press Attaché. He observed that in Madrid in 1939: The average Spaniard has a vague idea that England is bitterly anti-Catholic, which for a Spaniard naturally means Anti-Christian. A vague idea that an amalgam of Judaism, Freemasonry (naturally in its continental form) and Protestantism . . . governs the whole of British policy possesses most Spaniards who think about these things. This is joined to a conviction that we are a wholly decadent democracy, a term associated with the worst abuses of the regime which they have successfully overcome.43

The task for the MoI was not to overcome this overwhelming antipathy—as the stringent censor and the MoI’s own limited budget meant that a public relations campaign of the required scale was an impossibility—but instead to present a

Diverging Neutrality in Iberia

175

more representative impression of Great Britain. An authentic image of Great Britain and her war effort needed to be presented in a way that would appeal to Franco’s “New Spain.” From very early in the war, the MoI recognized the importance of both the Catholic faith and the Catholic Church to the Franco dictatorship. An internal MoI paper from 1939 outlined how central Catholicism needed to be to its work: The Catholic approach to Spain is particularly important since for the majority of Spaniards who fought in the Nationalist [Francoist] cause the defence of the religion of the country was a prime motive for their action, and even those with whom religion was not a prime factor were convinced that they were fighting not only the enemies of Spain, but the enemies of European civilization.44

Any successful relationship between Great Britain and Spain had to be predicated on a respect for the Catholic faith. Burns, having been well briefed, wrote to his colleagues that “the only approach to Spaniards was a Catholic one,” that the average Spaniard “would listen to the views of Englishmen writing as Catholics, dealing with the issue as it affected Catholicism,” and that “they would not have any particular sympathy for any other point of view.”45 In the early stages of the war, the religious approach was steadily employed but in a limited fashion, as the ministry struggled to forge a policy that could pass the censor. Copies of The Tablet were shipped to Spain for distribution, although the fact that they were in English somewhat limited their appeal. The translation of the MoI’s English Catholic Newsletter, the Noticiario Católica, was sent to Spain, but in negligible numbers, with only 2,500 copies reaching Madrid.46 However, the stringent censor ensured that any plans for a more widespread media campaign were halted before they could take flight.47 Despite the setbacks, the MoI’s religious focus was not misguided. The Nazis’ conduct in the war—particularly against Catholic and Western European nations—had led to criticism, if not outright condemnation, from many in the Spanish Catholic Church. In a letter to the MoI’s Religions Division in 1942, the bishop of Gibraltar observed that the Spanish Church was now “showing an increasing measure of appreciation of the moral issues involved in the present world conflict.”48 The bishop’s letter outlined the politics of Spain’s various archbishops and, in between dismissing the archbishops of Burgos and Santiago de Compostela as “old,” emphasized the moral disparity between traditional Catholic values and those of many Nazis. A particular point of contention mentioned was the recent publication in Spanish of Nazi philosopher Alfred Rosenberg’s The Myth of the Twentieth Century (El mito del siglo XX). The bishop

176

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

claimed that the work, with its expressed rejection of traditional religion, had angered both the archbishop of Valladolid, who condemned the work for its “pagan orientation,” and the archbishop of Gerona, who declared that the book was “prohibited” to Catholics.49 The ministry did not fail to cultivate such fertile ground: the presentation of the Nazi state as anti-Catholic was to be one of the central thrusts of the MoI’s religious message throughout the war, particularly in its latter half. In 1942, reacting to Nazi efforts to present the invasion of the Soviet Union as a moral crusade against atheism, MoI officials from Madrid visited every diocese in the country with the aim of establishing contacts with the local Spanish clergy. This was all part of the effort to convince the Spanish people that “Nazism was the immediate and most real enemy of their sacred heritage.” The project was a success, but relied on personal relationships and a trust of the clergy, not a controlled and considered publication campaign, to “foster a genuine indigenous movement against the Nazi gospel.”50 In 1943, the newly-established Overseas Executive Committee for Spain (later renamed the Overseas Planning Committee)—as part of an overall propaganda objective dedicated to the “elimination of German influence” in Spain—aimed to build on the ministry’s clerical networking efforts with the creation of commensurate propaganda material. It created a plan to “convince Spaniards that Germany is the implacable enemy of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.” This plan asserted that propaganda material needed to cover at least one of the following topics: the poor treatment of Catholics in Germany and occupied countries; the “gross violation” of Christian ethics in acts such as euthanasia; the importance of British Catholics to the British war effort; and, in direct reference to Rosenberg’s book, the pagan policy of the Nazi leaders.51 In keeping with Grubb’s desire to share successful propaganda between countries, pro-Catholic material from the Latin American market was shipped to Spain and disseminated alongside copies of The Tablet and the Noticiario Católica. These pieces were relatively inoffensive and included one pamphlet entitled Los Catolicos de Gran Bretaña en la Guerra (The Catholics of Great Britain at War) that celebrated the contribution of Catholics to the British war effort. The pamphlet went to great lengths to assure its readers that Catholicism and Britishness were not mutually exclusive, and that the whole of the English Catholic Church, laity and clergy, supported the war effort.52 Por Avión, a translated fortnightly digest of the British news, poked gentle fun at the Nazis’ paganism in a cartoon entitled alaridos del destino (Howls of Fate). The cartoon

Diverging Neutrality in Iberia

177

showed Hitler, distressed by ringing alarm bells labeled “North,” “South,” “East,” and “West,” worriedly consulting a crystal ball while surrounded by horoscopes.53 Adopting this gentle approach to the Spanish market was a conscious decision, for there were more aggressively anti-Nazi, religion-themed materials in Spanish available to the MoI. One such piece, disseminated in Latin America, was a 1942 pamphlet entitled Cien millones de mártires católicos (One hundred million Catholic martyrs) which had a cover picturing Christ crucified on a swastika. The reasons for not disseminating this in Spain are not made clear, but one can assume it was due to fear of the censor.54 However, while the religious approach formed the central plank of the MoI’s Spanish campaign throughout the whole war, relying on a single issue was never a safe policy. This was particularly the case after 1941, when Great Britain found itself allied with the irreligious Soviet Union. As has been made clear, the Civil War had been fought as a “crusade” against the “atheistic hordes” of Moscow, and negative Spanish attitudes toward the Soviet Union had not abated with the conclusion of the conflict.55 This was further proven by the deployment of the Blue Division in 1941 and the thousands who remained in Russia even after the division’s official withdrawal in 1943 as part of the Blue Legion.56 When the MoI tried to emphasize the recent developments in religious freedom in the Soviet Union, it was fighting a losing battle against one of the foundational myths of the Franco regime.57 For as long as it fought alongside the Soviet Union, Great Britain’s religious integrity was questionable. This feeling was occasionally conflated with a mistrust of Britain’s Protestantism. The latter suspicion was, despite the MoI’s best efforts, difficult to counter.58 An example of this can be found in 1942 when stories were disseminated that misquoted the archbishop of Canterbury and described him as a “friend of Bolshevism.”59 The frailty of a single-issue campaign meant that the MoI needed other means of presenting the British nation to Spaniards. With the fall of Mussolini in July 1943, this was made significantly simpler. With the fascists out of power in Rome, the Falange’s supremacy in Franco’s government waned, allowing for more pro-British monarchist and military groups to gain the upper hand.60 This also led to the Falange losing its iron grip on censorship, thus admitting more MoI material into the Spanish market and allowing for a broader, more detailed picture of Great Britain to be presented to Spaniards.61 Outlined by the Overseas Planning Committee, the focus of MoI propaganda in Spain from 1943 onwards was to be the projection of an image of Britain both “at war” and “in general.” The “at war” presentation was to offer a British rejoinder to “the long and dull diet of Axis propaganda” to which Spaniards had been subjected and to make a case

178

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

for the Allied military effort being of benefit to Spain. The vague “in general” instruction demanded that “a general background picture of developments in Britain to-day” be created to suggest the high standard of living in Britain, with material related to British social progress and scientific breakthroughs presented as evidence for this. The names Keynes and Beveridge were cited in every iteration of the committee’s plan.62 There was also the unsurprising diktat to present the Germans in as least flattering a light as possible, blaming them for Spain’s ills.63 The weekly digest of British news Por Avión, following its first number in 1943, became a central means by which the MoI could broaden its message. Specifically created for the Spanish market, Por Avión, as a translated selection of British newspaper articles, had an easier time getting past the by now relaxed, but by no means toothless, censor. This was because the magazine was presented clearly as a digest of the press in Britain as opposed to a focused piece of propaganda—with its masthead stating clearly “Selections of the English Press.” Nevertheless, the articles were judiciously selected and followed the message outlined by the Overseas Planning Committee, with its content focused on Britain’s martial prowess and its social and scientific advances—and Germany’s failings. In articles relating to British and Allied military strength, Por Avión would often focus on the work of Bomber Command. An isotype, from the January 1944 issue, featured small representations of bombed-out factories and claimed that 49 of 58 German cities whose population numbered over 100,000 had been “subjected to devastating attacks of the RAF.”64 An article, copied from the Sunday Times, described bombing raids over Berlin, outlining the bravery, conviction, and composure of the crews of Bomber Command as they rained down terror on the German capital.65 Another isotype from 1944 illustrated the extent of destruction wrought on all major German cities, with handy percentages provided. Cologne was 50 percent destroyed, Essen was 43 percent destroyed, and a huge 74 percent of Hamburg lay in ruins.66 The focus on the bombing raids of the RAF, especially on German factories, demonstrated the breaking of the German war machine and the inevitability of the Allied victory. Alongside these military-focused selections, there were articles on British social advances such as the Beveridge Report and scientific breakthroughs such as penicillin. A 1943 Economist article translated as El mínimo de bienestar (“The Minimum of Wellbeing”) was published highlighting British plans to enact a welfare state after the war—it made it clear that Britain was fighting not only a war against Germany abroad but also a “struggle against misery” at home.67

Diverging Neutrality in Iberia

179

Science was covered in an article taken from the pages of the Daily Telegraph and reprinted in a February 1944 edition of Por Avión. The article described penicillin and its practical applications but ended by making it clear that it was “impossible to say” when it would be available to the civilian population.68 The implication being that its fate was the same as that of the British war effort. Finally, there were articles that covered German brutality. A Daily Telegraph piece detailed the Nazi-engineered famine in Greece in an article entitled “Nazi Troops Harrass Greeks that Suffer From Hunger”; a Times piece related the destruction of Oradour-sur-Glane in France; and a Daily Express cartoon pictured Hitler standing in front of a gas extermination van demanding that the Nazis create tortures that could match those of the Japanese.69 Articles with a particular focus on Western European countries and Catholic Poland appeared frequently and were designed to highlight Germany’s brutality toward their supposed brethren in Western and Christian Europe. In keeping with this approach, and owing to the widespread Spanish antipathy to the Soviet Union, German excesses on the Eastern Front went unreported, even in articles about the war in Russia.70 The relaxation of the censor meant that Por Avión was not the only publication that could now be published in Spain: a number of the MoI’s international publications, including the popular War in Pictures, became available to Spanish audiences.71 As implied by the title, this magazine celebrated Britain’s martial prowess in the conflict with illustrations of British and Allied military might. The relaxation also meant that the previous problems with placing British material in Spanish newspapers mostly disappeared, with Tom Burns bragging in his 1944 Press Attaché’s end-of-year report that “the department is now one of the busiest in the office.”72 By the final year of the war, the ministry had a publication profile in Spain that was relatively comprehensive, with many of the publications, such as War in Pictures, designed not specifically for Spain but for the international market. Gradually, the work of the ministry in Spain was “normalized,” and thus it came to resemble much of the work done by the ministry elsewhere—including Portugal.

Notes 1 Christian Leitz, “Nazi Germany’s Struggle for Spanish Wolfram during the Second World War,” European History Quarterly, 25:1 (1995), 71–92; Leonard Caruana and Hugh Rockoff, “A Wolfram in Sheep’s Clothing: Economic Warfare in Spain, 1940–1944,” The Journal of Economic History, 63:1 (2003), 100–26.

180

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

2 Fernando Rosas, “Portuguese Neutrality in the Second World War,” in European Neutrals and Non-Belligerents During the Second World War. ed. Neville Wylie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 271. 3 Fernando Rosas, Portugal entre a paz e a guerra: estudo do impacte da II Guerra Mundial na economia e na sociedade portuguesas (1939–1945) (Lisbon: Editorial Estampa, 1990), pp. 44–46. 4 Christian Leitz, Nazi Germany and Neutral Europe During the Second World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 154. 5 Ibid., pp. 279–82. 6 Christian Leitz, “‘More Carrot than Stick’: British Economic Warfare and Spain, 1941–44,” Twentieth Century British History, 9:2 (1998), 248. 7 Wayne H. Bowen, Spain during World War II (Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2006), p. 33. 8 Samuel Hoare, Ambassador on Special Mission (London: Collins, 1946), pp. 93–95; Gustau Nerín and Alfred Bosch, El Imperio que Nunca Existió (Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 2001), pp. 113–14. 9 Bowen, Spain during World War II . . . , pp. 28, 53–54. 10 Javier Rodrigo, “On Fascistization: Mussolini’s Political Project for Franco’s Spain, 1937–1939,” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 22:4 (2017), 469–87. 11 Wayne H. Bowen, Spaniards and Nazi Germany: Collaboration in the New Order (Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2000). 12 Mercedes Peñalba-Sotorrío, “German Propaganda in Francoist Spain: Diplomatic Information Bulletins as a Primary Tool of Nazi Propaganda,” Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 37:1 (1960), 61. 13 Ibid., p. 53. 14 Robert Cole, Britain And The War Of Words In Neutral Europe 1939–45: The Art Of The Possible (New York: Palgrave, 1990), p. 72; For more on Britain being no ally to the Republic during the Civil War, see Enrique Moradiellos, La perfidia de Albión: el gobierno británico y la guerra civil española (Madrid: Siglo veintiuno, 1996), passim. 15 Paul Preston, The Politics of Revenge: Fascism and the Military in 20th-century Spain (New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 72. 16 Xosé-Manoel Núñez Seixas, ¡Fuera el invasor! Nacionalismos y movilización bélica durante la guerra civil española (1936–1939) (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia, 2006). 17 Xavier Moreno Juliá, Blue Division: Spanish Blood in Russia, 1941–1945 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2016). 18 Xavier Moreno Juliá, “Los muertos de la División Azul,” Historia, Antropología y Fuentes Orales, no. 42 (2009), 86. 19 INF 1/825, Letter from Press Attaché, July 9, 1940. 20 INF 1/825, Memorandum from Station superintendent, Lisbon, British Overseas Airways Corporation, September 12, 1940.

Diverging Neutrality in Iberia

181

21 Ibid. 22 INF 2/27, General Publicity Material in Portuguese, 1942, Os Portugueses perante a Aliança Inglêsa. 23 INF 2/27, General Publicity Material in Portuguese, 1942, A Aliança Luso-Britânica. 24 INF 2/27, General Publicity Material in Portuguese, 1942, A Guerra e a Aliança Luso-Britânica, p. 11. 25 Ibid., p. 8. 26 Ibid., p. 9. 27 INF 2/28, General Publicity Material in Portuguese, 1945, Embaixada Britânica— Boletim de Informações. 28 INF 1/540, A. N. Daye, acting chairman of Anglo-Portuguese Telephone Company, June 18, 1941. 29 INF 1/135, “Overseas Propaganda,” Kenneth Grubb, August 6, 1941. 30 INF 1/135, undated minute sheet, John Rogers to Grubb and Mr. Bamford. 31 INF 2/28, General Publicity Material in Portuguese, 1945, Pêlo à mocidade; Malta Ataca. 32 All from INF 2/28, General Publicity Material in Portuguese, 1945. 33 INF 1/751, MINISTRY OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY DIVISION: PLANNING SECTION Report on Latin America. 34 Samuel Hoare, Complacent Dictator (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1947), p. 45. 35 Denis Smyth, Diplomacy and Survival: British Policy and Franco’s Spain, 1940–41 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 32; Hugh Dalton, the Minister for Economic Warfare of 1940–42 referred to the British attitude toward General Franco as going in excess of appeasement, to the point of “sheer abasement.” Ben Pimlott, The Second World War Diary of Hugh Dalton 1940–1945 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1986), p. 113; Hoare, Ambassador . . . , pp. 48, 173–74. 36 The term “Gallego” is a name for people from Franco’s home region of Galicia. Ibid., pp. 222, 283. 37 Bowen, Spain during World War II . . . , p. 33. 38 Smyth, Diplomacy and Survival . . . , passim. 39 Justino Sinova, La censura de prensa durante el franquismo (Barcelona: Delbolsillo, 2006), pp. 41–46. 40 Robert Cole, “The Other ‘Phoney War’: British Propaganda in Neutral Europe, September–December 1939,” Journal of Contemporary History, 22:3 (1987), 12. 41 INF 1/765, Letter from editor of the New Catholic Herald to Tom Burns, September 21, 1939. 42 INF 1/572, Letter from Madrid Press Attaché to MOI Overseas Division. Undated. 43 INF 1/765, “Press Activities in Spain.” Burns would later go on to become the editor of The Tablet and, in 1944, the son-in-law of the famed Spanish polymath Gregorio Marañón.

182

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

44 INF 1/765, Untitled Religions Division Paper, October 18, 1939. 45 INF 1/765, Ministry of Information Religions Division PRESS AND PROPAGANDA IN SPAIN by Tom Burns, October 1939. 46 INF 1/765, Letter from Tom Burn to Leigh Ashton, January 2, 1940. 47 The beginning of the war had seen plans put in place for a corps of British Catholics, such as Douglas Francis Jerrold, Christopher Hollis, Robert Sencourt, and E. Allison Peers, all contributing pieces for the Spanish press on a regular basis. INF 1/765, Anonymous “Suggestions for Action.” Undated. 48 INF 1/765, THE SITUATION CONCERNING THE SPANISH CHURCH AND PUBLIC OPINION from the Bishop of Gibraltar, June 1942. 49 Ibid. 50 FO 371/34766, C 13958 Ministry of Information, MADRID BUDGET, December 1943–December 1944, pp. 15–16. 51 FO 371/34766, C.14838/26/41, “Overseas Planning Committee: Plan for Propaganda in Spain,” Draft Second Revision of Policy Plan, September 13, 1943. 52 INF 2/20, General Publicity Material in Spanish, Los Catolicos de Gran Bretaña en la Guerra. 53 Por Avión, No. 4, January 1944, p. 6. 54 INF 2/20, General Publicity Material in Spanish, Cien millones de mártires católicos. 55 Michael Richards, A Time of Silence: Civil and the Culture of Repression in Franco’s Spain, 1939–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 1998), pp. 11–19. 56 For a full overview of the Blue Division, its participants, and their motivations, see Xosé Manoel Núñez Siexas, Camarada invierno: Experiencia y memoria de la División Azul (1941–1945) (Barcelona: Crítica, 2016). 57 FO 371/34766, C.14838/26/41, “Overseas Planning Committee: Plan for Propaganda in Spain,” Draft Second Revision of Policy Plan, September 13, 1943. 58 The MoI wished from very early on in the war to ensure that British Catholics were presented as equal citizens and that they faced none of the obstacles or restrictions they faced in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. INF 1/765, Untitled Religions Division Paper, October 18, 1939. 59 INF 1/765, Letter from Mr McCann to Mr Hope, Religions Division, May 28, 1942. 60 Preston, The Politics of Revenge . . . , p. 77. 61 FO 371/34766, C.14838/26/41, “Overseas Planning Committee: Plan for Propaganda in Spain,” Third Revision of Policy Plan, October 6, 1943. 62 FO 371/34766, C.14838/26/41, “Overseas Planning Committee: Plan for Propaganda in Spain,” Draft Second Revision of Policy Plan, September 13, 1943. 63 FO 371/34766, C.14838/26/41, “Overseas Planning Committee: Plan for Propaganda in Spain,” Third Revision of Policy Plan, October 6, 1943. 64 Por Avión, No. 4, January 1944, p. 5. 65 Por Avión, No. 8, March 1944, pp. 2–3.

Diverging Neutrality in Iberia

183

Por Avión, No. 10, April 1944, p. 5. Por Avión, No. 1, October 1943, p. 5. Por Avión, No.7, February 1944, pp. 2–3. Por Avión, No. 11, April 1944, p. 6; No. 21, September 1944, p. 5; No. 9, March 1944, p. 7. 70 One article on the Soviet Union that was included was the “Diario de Leningrado” (Diary of Leningrad), from the pages of the Evening Standard. This spoke more of the bravery of the civilian population of the city than of the horrors imparted on them by the Germans. Por Avión, No. 8, March 1944, p. 6. 71 FO 371/34766, C.13958, Ministry of Information, MADRID BUDGET, December 1943–December 1944, 8–9. 72 Ibid. 66 67 68 69

184

11

“Innocent Efforts”: The Brotherhood of Freedom in the Middle East During the Second World War Stefanie Wichhart

The well-known travel writer Freya Stark, reflecting on her wartime oral propaganda campaigns in the Middle East, observed that “the whole of my work was talk.”1 While serving as Assistant Information Officer in Aden, she developed a MoI–sponsored organization that evolved into the Ikhwan al-Hurriya, or Brotherhood of Freedom, a cell-based organization with chapters in Egypt, Iraq, and the Palestine Mandate. Established in 1940 when Britain’s wartime prospects looked grim, the Brotherhood’s local grassroots networks harnessed the power of the spoken word to encourage Britain’s allies in the Arab world and to counteract Axis propaganda. Rejecting the term “propaganda” with all of its negative connotations, Stark instead preferred the term “persuasion” to describe “those innocent efforts which characterise our Ministry of Information.”2 Laurence Grafftey-Smith, who directed his own oral propaganda efforts from the British Embassy in Cairo, praised Stark’s Brotherhood, which “made other organisations, based on the money-motive, look old-fashioned, crude and rather dirty. . . . Its success, which was invaluable, owed everything to the simplicity and sincerity of Freya herself, and was a remarkable instance of the persuasive power of positive good.”3 In fact, the Brotherhood was far more than an oral propaganda campaign. Both the MoI and military intelligence organizations saw its potential as a vehicle for intelligence and surveillance, and as the war progressed the organization was retooled to foster pro-British sentiment after the war through “education for citizenship.” The wartime work of the Brotherhood of Freedom lay at the nexus of propaganda, intelligence, and policy, and provides a lens for examining the blurry lines between black and white propaganda and the overlapping

186

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

jurisdictions of the myriad agencies active in the Middle East. It also enriches our understanding of the MoI’s work and the way in which oral propaganda techniques were adapted to local environments.

The Brotherhood’s origins, 1940–41 The MoI’s early wartime print and broadcast campaigns in the Middle East were designed to convince Arab audiences of British military strength and to provide “antidote” material, directly responding to Axis propaganda attacks.4 Yet British representatives in the region reported to London that these efforts were proving ineffective.5 Fighting the Axis challenge required more than carefully tailored BBC broadcasts and well-placed newspaper articles, which failed to resonate with their Arab audiences. What was needed, at a time when the war was not going well for Britain, was what one MoI official later described as “publicity without victory.”6 In April 1940, Professor Laurence Rushbrook Williams, head of the MoI Middle East Section, toured the region to assess the status of propaganda campaigns and improve coordination.7 The result was an expanded MoI presence in the Publicity Section of the British Embassy in Cairo and the initiation of oral propaganda projects that could reach the broader public. Rumors and whispering campaigns were employed in various theaters of war, but British officials considered this method to be particularly well suited to the Arab world because, as Freya Stark later observed, “the spoken word is the traditional way by which every great movement in the Arab world has spread, from ancient beginnings to the last revolt which freed them from the Turks.”8 Whispering campaigns tapped into British orientalist assumptions about the “Arab mind,” which officials firmly believed was attracted to intrigue and rumor.9 Unlike the MoI’s “white propaganda,” for which the British source was readily apparent, whispering campaigns were classified as “black propaganda” because the true origin of the messages was carefully concealed. Crafting these campaigns was particularly challenging, as rumors would only be effective if listeners believed that they originated from local sources.10 Whispering campaigns came to represent the pinnacle of orientalist expertise, and its practitioners prided themselves on their success in using rumor to reach an audience beyond official circles.11 Successful whispering campaigns required careful coordination with both policy makers in London—to ensure that the rumors being spread would serve British interests—and wartime intelligence organizations, which could

“Innocent Efforts”

187

provide feedback on local reception of these efforts.12 This coordination proved particularly challenging in the Middle East theater, with its dizzying array of constantly evolving diplomatic, military, and intelligence organizations, often working in heated competition with each other.13 Rushbrook Williams performed a valuable job as mediator in these turf wars. While acting as head of the MoI’s Middle East section, he also maintained his prewar offices in both the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office, allowing him to ensure coordination of propaganda lines and policy.14 At the same time, he initiated black propaganda rumor campaigns in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, serving as the Arabic section of SO1, the propaganda arm of the SOE in London in 1940–41.15 Rex Leeper noted that Rushbrook Williams “has from the beginning of the war been sending directives to the Middle East on both overt and covert propaganda,” working closely with Colonel Iltyd Clayton, General Wavell’s Publicity Liaison Officer in Cairo, on subversive propaganda.16 The Brotherhood of Freedom was often referred to as “Miss Stark’s Organisation,” but she credited Clayton with the initial idea, which they discussed when she visited Cairo in her capacity as Assistant Information Officer. The implementation, however, was Stark’s, and the organization’s structure closely reflected her evolving philosophy of propaganda. As she explained in a June 1940 letter to Rushbrook Williams, it was important to develop methods that would “rally to our side not the interested but the disinterested feelings of our districts,” to capitalize on people’s desire “to give rather than to receive.” Empowering local allies to make an effective and tangible contribution to the war effort would build loyalty to the cause and also help to alleviate the “inferiority complexes” that she believed often emerged as a result of these efforts.17 Stark returned to Aden after meeting with Clayton and, with MoI Public Information Officer Stewart Perowne, developed this kernel of an idea into the “Friends of Freedom.”18 Launched in September 1940, the new network would be “secret, private, and informal” with minimal British interference, a reflection of her conviction that bureaucratic restrictions strangled Britain’s propaganda efforts.19 The organization required an oath of loyalty and absolute secrecy, partly to protect members from possible retribution at a time when pro-British sentiments were unpopular, but also because, as a later report noted, “secrecy and disguise undoubtedly strike a responsive chord in the Arab character.”20 This would also give it greater effectiveness: “The propaganda, to be efficacious, should not be foreign at all, i.e. it should be made by the people of the country for whatever the country might be.” Stark envisioned small cells of Arabs committed to the Allied cause who could continue to spread the pro-democracy message

188

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

even if the region fell to the Axis, providing a form of long-term insurance behind enemy lines. She saw this as a very urgent undertaking, as “one would like to have at least something started in Cairo before the invasion.”21 Stark was viewed as the perfect individual to develop oral propaganda networks. She had honed her language skills and built personal contacts through her extensive travels in the region before the war, and she was primarily known as a travel writer, allowing her to distance herself from British official circles. She harnessed her amateur status and gender to clothe her efforts in an air of innocence and idealism.22 Yet she was also adept at navigating the gray areas between overt and covert propaganda and intelligence. At the same time, as she was traveling around North Yemen in 1940 in her guise as a travel writer, cinema projector in hand to show British publicity films in the harems of Sana’a, she was also collecting information for military intelligence in Cairo and contributing to subversive propaganda among Italian communities in Aden, Libya, and East Africa.23 In September 1940, Stark was transferred to Cairo where she established the Ikhwan al-Huriyya, or Brotherhood of Freedom, drawing on the Aden prototype. The Brotherhood was, as one MoI official described it, “a set of secret anti-Axis societies which takes advantage of the Arab liking for such activities and provides an underground means of communication in all circumstances.”24 Stark provided an idealized account of its genesis in her 1944 memoir East is West, recounting a visit by two young Egyptian college students, Muhammad and Kemal: “Their wish was a simple one: they believed in the principles of democracy and were anxious to help in the defeat of the Axis. . . . In the afternoon sunshine we abandoned the idea of helping democracy by force of arms, and laid instead the foundations of a little society that should work for the same end through persuasion.” She told them about her work with the Friends of Freedom in Aden, and the first Brotherhood cell was born.25 The Ikhwan al-Hurriya’s cellbased structure drew inspiration from Stark’s previous research on the Assassins of medieval Persia, the Arab secret societies of the early twentieth century, and a more well-known Ikhwan, the Muslim Brotherhood.26 All were welcome to join. Members were organized into committees of five to twenty members led by a committee holder and were encouraged to form their own new committees to help the Brotherhood grow.27 In her wartime memoirs, Stark portrays the organization as a spontaneous, organic growth, drawing members from all walks of life from the wealthy to small shopkeepers, from students at Cairo University and religious scholars at al Azhar to doctors, lawyers, and army officers. Describing the idyllic early days

“Innocent Efforts”

189

of the Brotherhood in Egypt in East is West, Stark recalls of the cell meetings: “It was a simple organisation; it just met, and drank coffee and talked” and a local journalist “wrote a small bulletin of our discussions so that all our members might think over the same things.”28 In Stark’s narrative, diplomatic and military officials looked on in bemusement at the new organization, humoring her with their skeptical support. In fact, the Brotherhood drew on the resources of the Publicity Section at the British Embassy in Cairo in terms of both staff and budget, and closely reflected Stark’s own and Rushbrook Williams’s appreciation of the intelligence value of oral propaganda. Stark’s Brotherhood was classified as “black propaganda,” and after January 1941 its work was coordinated with the SOE.29

The Brotherhood expands, 1941–43 Stark visited Baghdad in spring 1941, arriving in the earliest days of the pro-Axis Rashid Ali Coup. She was one of many British citizens who spent the month of May trapped in the British Embassy as British forces fought the Iraqi military to unseat Rashid Ali’s government, an ordeal that she described in a series of articles for The Times and in her memoirs.30 By the end of the month Prime Minister Rashid Ali and his supporters had fled the country, the Regent had returned and a pro-British government was in place. In its aftermath the British reestablished their military presence in Iraq, as well as greatly expanding their diplomatic and intelligence networks.31 After a struggle between various Heads of Mission for her services, Stark was officially transferred to Baghdad in Summer 1941 and the Egyptian organization continued under the leadership of Ronald Fay, a British official from the Egyptian Ministry of Education. Stark was given an appointment as second secretary at the Baghdad Embassy with a directive from the MoI to help rebuild support for the Allies and “to be responsible for contact with students and women, also organize secret societies and tour the country.”32 She proceeded to establish Brotherhood cells in Iraq using the model developed in Egypt. According to its official handbook of regulations, the Brotherhood was “a social organization whose object is to bind together those who believe in the ideals of freedom and democracy.”33 The choice of the words “freedom” and “democracy” was deliberate and reflected two of Stark’s key principles of effective propaganda, as outlined in her 1943 “a Pamphlet in Defence of Propaganda.” She stated that propaganda should focus on a positive message; rather than directly attacking the

190

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

German argument, an approach which could easily be dismissed by listeners, one should build up a vision of an alternative and brighter vision of the future that would keep “our people too interested to think much of Hitler’s world.”34 Stark viewed this propaganda work in religious terms, noting that the term “propaganda” originated with the Jesuits and meant “simply in a sense of Gospel, the spreading of a faith.” Religion, both Christian and Muslim examples, provided the inspiration for her cell-based organization, and she frequently described her efforts as the spreading of ideas with missionary zeal.35 For Stark and Perowne, the message of the Brotherhood was the secular gospel of democracy and the Allied cause. The keyword “democracy” allowed the organization to move beyond a merely pro-British line, which was a difficult sell in the Arab world at a time when there was widespread anger with British policy in Palestine. Stark’s second principle of propaganda was “the seizing of the enemy's catchwords with all their wealth of association attached.” The slogan “freedom” was one of the most important examples of this; used by the Axis to foment anti-British sentiment, the Brotherhood reclaimed the word for the Allies.36 Yet the Brotherhood served another purpose as well. Considered too provocative for wider circulation outside government circles, Stark’s pamphlet explained the unique work of the Brotherhood to officialdom and outlined its potential intelligence value. As Stark observed, “It has always seemed to me that intelligence and propaganda should go hand in hand. We made, in the world of ideas, a two-way stream of traffic.” Not only would cells receive information in the form of the weekly bulletin, but they would also be invited to share feedback with the British staff. With cells spread across Egypt and Iraq and members drawn from different backgrounds, British officials could gauge the local reception of the propaganda message and adjust it to better fit the intended audience.37 The mechanism for this two-way exchange of information was embedded in the Brotherhood’s structure. As the handbook of regulations for Egypt noted, among the duties, the members were: To make themselves fully acquainted with the ideals and principles of democracy and to disseminate these. To attend the meetings of their groups and report to them all dangerous rumours. To forward to the office in Cairo reports of dangerous rumours current in their district and to make suggestions for subjects to be dealt with in the coming bulletin. Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the fact that the object of the bulletin is not primarily to give the latest news, but to provide each group with a weekly

“Innocent Efforts”

191

guide for talk and to give the members facts which they can use in contradicting false and dangerous rumours. The bulletin will not have served its purpose until they have understood and assimilated it sufficiently to be able to reproduce it in individual conversation outside the place of the meeting.38

Articles in the bulletin provided talking points on current issues of concern in individual countries and background information on global developments, such as the great power conferences. Separate bulletins were designed for Egypt and Iraq to meet local requirements, although they shared much of the same material and reprinted each other’s articles. The weekly bulletin was carefully crafted to facilitate the “two-way traffic” Stark envisioned. It was, she noted, the centre of our doctrine . . . . In it we gathered, from the doubts and rumours of our brethren, collected through the week the means they should take to counteract and answer: we told them why it did not matter if the Italians took Capuzzo and Bardia, and came marching into Egypt herself: why democracy was sure in the end.39

A December 1943 Egyptian bulletin instructed readers: “When hearing a rumour, we should ask ourselves if it would help the Germans or the Allies. In the former case, we should fight it on every occasion.” It then provided the example of rumors of a German “secret weapon.” Readers were warned not to believe the rumors until there was proof of their accuracy: “No doubt that rumours referring to secret weapons are fabricated by Goebbels for the only purpose of reviving the German morale & disturbing the allies. But the allied morale is very far from being influenced by such nonsense.”40 Some issues of the bulletin moved beyond the power of suggestion and openly solicited responses from members. When textile rationing was introduced in Iraq in 1944, the bulletin included an article explaining the new system, noting that the Brotherhood was providing this information in the hopes that the members will do their best to pass on to their friends. . . . We would remind Ikhwan that we should be very glad if they would write to us and tell us any misunderstandings or obstacles to the smooth working of the rationing scheme which they may have observed in their own district-provided of course that these difficulties are general and not merely personal.41

An “Examination Papers” feature offered writing prompts to which members were invited to draft responses. Selected submissions were printed in subsequent

192

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

issues of the bulletin to spark conversation in the cells. A 1943 bulletin included prompts on the value of literacy: 1. Do you think it makes a man happier to be able to read and write? 2. What social and political problems in our country do you consider would be immediately solved if everyone could read and write; which do you consider would not be solved; and do you think there are any new difficulties which might be created by general literacy?42

British propaganda efforts in the early months of the war were criticized for sounding too “British,” with awkward translations that fell flat on the ears of Arab listeners. By focusing on the transmission of ideas and allowing the individual members to articulate the ideas in their own words, Stark argued that “we were able to touch and retouch them, to give them the content we desired, and so to say grow our plant all over again from the beginning in its own native soil.”43 This principle was reflected in the crafting of the bulletin. The content was based on directives from the British Embassy Publicity Section, and the draft bulletin for Egypt was reviewed by the Egyptian members of the Brotherhood’s Central Committee, one of whom translated it into Arabic. The translation was checked by another subcommittee and, to ensure that the original message was not corrupted in the process, it was then retranslated back into English. Every Wednesday, the bulletin was mailed to committee holders, who were responsible for reading it to their committee members at the weekly meetings in order to equip them to transmit the information to others in their daily conversations.44 The material came from a wide variety of sources in response to recent internal and international developments, including magazines, British Council material, and the Public Relations section.45 In keeping with her conviction that bureaucracy strangled publicity efforts, the Brotherhood in its early years under Stark left a very limited paper trail, much to the MoI’s frustration. Elizabeth Monroe noted in November 1942 that MoI officials in London had little sense of how the organization actually functioned or of its efficacy. She particularly wanted to know about “the way in which the committees are made use of for intelligence purposes.”46 The Brotherhood in Iraq reported that the weekly bulletin not only communicated information to members but had also been “adopted as one of the two guidance documents given out at the weekly conference between the Intelligence branches of the Embassy, Army and Public Relations in Iraq,” closing the propaganda, policy, intelligence loop.47

“Innocent Efforts”

193

The Brotherhood occupied a unique space between black and white propaganda. The British source of the message was evident to the members, yet veiled in its transmission to the general public, as members took the talking points and shared them in their own words. The organization went beyond merely spreading a message and gathering feedback. Brotherhood meetings had an educative function as well, and were designed to inculcate members with a deep commitment to the Allied cause, in keeping with Stark’s conviction that the ultimate goal of persuasion is “the spreading of ideas that are genuinely believed.”48 MoI officials recognized the work of the Brotherhood as qualitatively different from traditional oral propaganda. Other whispering campaigns were designed to “inspire sympathy for and confidence in ultimate victory of United Nation’s with particular reference to the part played by the British Commonwealth in this” and “to combat, by statements based on truth, the rumours etc. spread by Axis agents and sympathizers.” By contrast, the goal of the Brotherhood was “to bring together all who support the general principles of democracy and to gain adherents to those principles. The members are not necessarily pro-British though definitely anti-totalitarian.” Oral propagandists were paid and operated in isolation, while members of the Brotherhood were volunteers and their identities were known to other members. A 1942 MoI report concluded: “While many aspects of their work co-incide, oral propaganda is purely a war-weapon while the Brotherhood of the Free contains also seeds of a more lasting organisation.”49 Brotherhood leaders were always looking for opportunities to expand their networks. Drawing on her earlier experiences with publicity in Aden, Stark believed that women had been overlooked as potential channels of transmission of British publicity within the home, both for their influence on their husbands and in shaping the education of their children.50 Three small Akhawat (sisterhood) cells were established in Iraq, with plans to expand. This women’s organization had its own bulletin “devoted to matters connected with homebuilding, care of children, clothes, and other things of feminine interest.”51 While valuing the potential contribution that women could make to the democracybuilding process, Brotherhood officials also confined the scope of this work to the domestic sphere. Brotherhood publications reinforced traditional gender roles in order to assuage any concerns that participation in the new Akhawat might undermine patriarchal authority. As the Iraqi Brotherhood’s bulletin stated in a 1943 article on the Akhawat, The principle on which the work of the Akhawat is based is that in developing her sense of responsibility in management of the affairs of her home, especially

194

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

as regards the early care and training of children, woman is making as important a contribution to the establishment, development and realization of democracy, as is the man in developing his sense of responsibility as a citizen in managing the affairs of his village or his profession.52

The MoI had originally envisioned a replication of the Brotherhood model in Palestine, but, unable to find a qualified and available male leader for the new branch, ultimately scrapped the idea. They did, however, have a capable female leader in the form of Miss Lulie Abu’l Huda, a young Oxford-educated woman who had worked closely with Stark in Egypt. In spring 1943, the Akhawat (sisterhood) was established in Palestine under the name “Women’s Social Endeavour Society” and flourished under Lulie Abu’l Huda’s leadership.53 Unlike the whispering campaign model used in Egypt and Iraq, it drew inspiration from British Women’s Institutes. The society published its own bulletin and members engaged in charitable work, offering literacy classes, sewing clothing for poor girls, and holding fundraisers.54

From oral propaganda to “Education for Citizenship,” 1943–45 By 1943, the Brotherhood had matured and was consolidating its influence. It was no longer secret and underwent a major organizational change, sparked by Stark’s departure for a MoI-sponsored speaking tour in North America.55 Major Christopher Scaife, an Arabic-speaking army officer injured at Tobruk, became the new director of the Brotherhood, with area officers in each of the three territories in which the Brotherhood now operated.56 By the end of 1943, the Brotherhood was thriving, at least on paper, with over 40,000 members in Egypt, 7,000 members in Iraq organized into 650 committees, and 500 female members in Palestine. And yet the organization faced an existential crisis. Stark observed in April 1943 that the Brotherhood in Iraq was in the “doldrums owing to various causes, chiefly the passing of Iraq from a battle area to a backwater. The immediate war objective thereby ceases to operate.”57 As the tide of the war shifted in the Allies’ favor, both Brotherhood leaders and MoI officials in London began questioning whether the organization had outlived its purpose. No longer a brave band spreading the pro-Allied message against all odds, its members now faced suspicion as clients of an imperial power reasserting its influence over the states in which the Brotherhood operated. In response, Major Scaife retooled the message and purpose of the Brotherhood, suggesting that the organization’s focus should switch from

“Innocent Efforts”

195

fighting Axis influence to “education for citizenship.”58 The Brotherhood could channel the frustrations of Arab youth into a more pro-British direction, at the same time combating growing communist influence, which was overtaking fascism as the main ideological threat to the British in the Arab world.59 This new message allowed the Brotherhood to complement, rather than compete with, MoI propaganda. As Scaife explained, “Other parts of our Public Relations and Information organization will be concerned with creating good relations with ‘the Democracies’; the Ikhwan al-Hurriyah will be concerned with creating understanding of ‘Democracy.’”60 Training progressive young Iraqis and Egyptians in the workings of democracy and instilling in them democratic values would, it was hoped, lead to effective political reform when their generation someday assumed positions of influence in their governments. A November 1943 bulletin, issued on the second anniversary of the publication of the first issue, included an opening article tracing the history of the Brotherhood in Iraq and its newfound purpose. The Brotherhood was conceived as a way to rally the “believers of democracy” in the Arab world and equip them to “counteract the misleading statements of upholders of the Axis by courageous and well-informed talk whenever they might find themselves.” The organization proved its value in the context of the El Alamein campaign, boosting morale at the most difficult time of the war for Egypt, but even though that threat had passed, the Ikhwan still had a vital role to play. Drawing on Allied internationalist rhetoric, the bulletin framed this purpose in global terms: “In entering on the task of preparing the conditions favourable to the development of a true democracy here among our own people, we Ikhwan al Hurriyah in Iraq are entering a greater brotherhood which is working for Man's freedom throughout the world.” While the challenge of building democratic institutions might not be as exciting as the Brotherhood’s work in its early years, it was just as important for setting Iraq on the path of progress as it looked ahead to the postwar period.61 MoI officials in London periodically expressed doubt as to whether or not the Brotherhood was fulfilling its intelligence function, noting that despite the high membership numbers for Egypt “the duties of membership would appear to us so slight as to be negligible.”62 Scaife addressed these concerns by bolstering the bureaucratic apparatus of the Brotherhood, regularly sending copies of bulletins to London along with monthly returns from R.W. Fay, the director in Egypt. The monthly return listed what was covered in the bulletin and feedback from the various cells on the material presented, fulfilling the promise of the two-way flow of information envisioned at its genesis.63

196

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

During his December 1943 visit to Cairo, K. G. Grubb, Controller of the Overseas Division of the MoI, met the organization’s leaders and attended meetings of some of the local Cairo committees in order to determine the Brotherhood’s fate. He left impressed with Scaife’s leadership and with the Brotherhood’s potential postwar value, writing to Elizabeth Monroe that, of the many oral propaganda organizations in Egypt, the Brotherhood “was much the best organization.” It operated in a wide area, responded to policy concerns, and enjoyed strong leadership and official support.64 Unlike other British-funded whispering campaigns, “its members, in theory at least, worked because they believed in it and not because they were paid.”65 In addition to its oral propaganda function, it was also “a most valuable training ground for democratic procedure and political growth. Unless we can promote these last-named developments, we will indeed have won a war for the M. East, but at the same time have deprived ourselves of the fruits of our victory.”66 The MoI hoped that the Brotherhood would provide a mechanism for continued British influence in the Arab world in the postwar period and that the membership fees and subscriptions of local members would make it financially independent.67 The Foreign Office and the Arab Planning Panel in Cairo concurred, and the Brotherhood in both Egypt and Iraq received budget increases.68

The Brotherhood after the war With the approaching end of the war, the future of the Brotherhood was once again the subject of debate. Should it be dismantled, or could it find a new purpose? The general consensus was that if it were to be disbanded this should happen gradually through a period of transition. Otherwise, as Ambassador Cornwallis warned, they ran the danger of seeing it “degenerate into an agglomeration of local cabals, devoted to political intrigue and personal chicanery” for which Britain would be responsible.69 Shutting the organization down too quickly would also be read as a sign of British weakness and willingness to cede influence to rivals, most importantly the Soviet Union.70 The Brotherhood of Freedom was, as MoI officials recognized, a multifaceted organization with the potential to serve as a vehicle for intelligence and gauging public opinion. At its genesis in 1940 Stark believed her new organization would ensure continued pro-Allied sentiment if the unthinkable happened and the Arab world fell under Axis control. In a similar manner, at the end of the war MoI officials hoped that the retooled Brotherhood, with its emphasis on “education for citizenship,” would

“Innocent Efforts”

197

continue to foster pro-British sentiment even though Britain’s official presence in the region was receding with the dismantling of the wartime propaganda and intelligence organizations. Yet the MoI also identified a number of vulnerabilities in the organization. From the very beginning Stark had declared that the Brotherhood was apolitical, but it was frequently under suspicion for political activities. The new “education for citizenship” campaign, with its focus on fostering respect for the democratic system, was difficult to separate from political activity, particularly in Iraq.71 MoI officials and diplomats also expressed concern that the Brotherhood was overly reliant on the leadership of charismatic individuals such as Stark, Scaife, and Fay and that, without their leadership in the postwar environment, the organization would be unsustainable.72 These fears proved well founded. Colonel Scaife, the director of the Brotherhood, became the new British Adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Education in 1944, and hoped to turn the Brotherhood into the ministry’s Adult Education program, thereby transforming it into a truly Iraqi organization.73 However, the organization flagged without his leadership and by September 1945 membership had dropped. The Iraqi committees rarely met to fulfill their most important function: the public reading and discussion of the weekly bulletin. The MoI decided to close the Iraqi men’s branch in November 1945 but continued publishing the bulletin and supporting the small Iraqi women’s branch, which had 100 dues-paying members.74 This postwar women’s organization ultimately proved a disappointment as well, and it was closed in June 1946.75 While the MoI planned to continue the Palestine organization in the postwar period, hoping to turn it into a financially selfsustaining group, Miss Abul Huda’s departure for Oxford to continue her studies left the organization leaderless and it ultimately closed in Palestine in 1946. Of the three branches, the Egyptian organization was on the firmest footing at the end of the war, claiming over 50,000 members in 1948, and it was not disbanded until the 1952 revolution. The intelligence value of the Brotherhood in Egypt had increased, with the MoI reporting that the embassy used the organization “for intelligence purposes, i.e. as a sounding board of public opinion.”76 British officials frequently questioned whether or not Egypt’s high membership numbers translated into active participants, but they nevertheless hoped that the organization would prove useful in providing pro-British oral propaganda in the midst of contentious postwar negotiations on revisions of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty.77 In 1943 when the MoI debated the long-term potential of the Brotherhood of Freedom Elizabeth Monroe had asked “whether a British-inspired organisation

198

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

of this type does not run the risk of laying us open to accusations of interference during periods of Egyptian xenophobia which are a likely postwar reaction to the British predominance during the war years.”78 The warning embedded in this question was prescient, and after the war Egyptian members faced periodic opposition, press campaigns attacking the organization, bomb threats, and harassment.79 When London raised the possibility of reviving the Brotherhood in 1953, E. Gathorne-Hardy, a British official who had worked with the Brotherhood in Egypt, was doubtful: Attacks in the press were as bitter as they were immediately after the abrogation of the treaty. The Ikhwan were blamed for the burning of Cairo on January 26th, the burning of the Coptic Church in Suez, and the shooting of Sister Anthony. Wild accusations were made against Mr. Fay, and against me personally. The press also claimed that the organisation was a fifth-column gang of spies opposed to the new regime, and ex-members in the army were dismissed from their posts.80

As the fate of the Egyptian branch of the Brotherhood of Freedom demonstrates, Stark’s “innocent effort” was ultimately unsuccessful in distancing itself from its roots as a vehicle for British oral propaganda. Convinced that rumor and intrigue appealed to Arab audiences and provided the most direct route to winning public sympathy, Britain employed methods that ultimately contributed to the many postwar conspiracy theories surrounding British influence in the Middle East, and made it increasingly difficult to deny such involvement or influence. When placed in the larger context of Britain’s other wartime propaganda efforts, these campaigns made British declarations of non-intervention in local affairs ring hollow, with implications for Anglo-Arab relations that long outlasted the war.

Notes 1 Freya Stark, Dust in the Lion’s Paw: Autobiography 1939–1946 (London: Arrow Books, 1961), p. 120. 2 Freya Stark, “A Pamphlet in Defence of Propaganda” (undated 1943), FO930/278, The National Archives (hereafter TNA). 3 Laurence Grafftey Smith, Bright Levant (London: John Murray, 1970), pp. 222–23. 4 Minute by Warner, April 30, 1939, FO 395/650, TNA. For the context of these discussions in the intewar period see P. Taylor, The Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propaganda 1919–1939 (Cambridge, 1981); for examples of MoI print campaigns in the Middle East see David Welch, Persuading the People: British Propaganda in World War II (London: The British Library, 2016), pp. 178–86.

“Innocent Efforts”

199

5 Stark to Harold, August 26, 1940, OIR/R/20/B/1419, British Library (hereafter BL). 6 “Note on the Work of the Brotherhood of the Free (Ikhwan al Hurriya) 1940–1945,” November 28, 1945, N. Farquhar Oliver, Middle East Division, MoI, FO 930/36, TNA. 7 From Secretary, Political and Secret Dept. India Office, to Pol. Res in Persian Gulf, March 9, 1940, IOR/L/PS/12/361, BL. 8 Stark, “Pamphlet,” FO930/278. 9 For the interwar context of British assumptions about the value of rumor and deception in the Arab world, see Priya Satia, Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 137–49. Satia observes that orientalism “not only empowered the British to dominate the ‘Orient’; it armed them, through the agents’ immersion strategy, with an excuse for their unscrupulousness in doing so. It normalized intrigue in the Middle East.” Satia, Spies in Arabia, p. 141. For an assessment of how these assumptions about the “Arab mind” influenced Anglo-American propaganda in the Middle East, see James R. Vaughan, The Failure of American and British Propaganda in the Arab Middle East, 1945–1957: Unconquerable Minds (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 54–69. 10 Rushbrook Williams memorandum, January 6, 1941, and SOE Middle East and Balkans-Activities of Directorate of Special Propaganda, April 10, 1942, FO898/113, TNA. 11 Satia provides useful insight on the “cultural formation of intelligence agents” in the Middle East. Satia, Spies in Arabia, p. 5. 12 Minute by Rushbrook Williams, July 11, 1939, FO395/650, TNA. 13 Saul Kelly, “A Succession of Crises? SOE in the Middle East, 1940–45,” in The Politics and Strategy of Clandestine War: Special Operations Executive, 1940-1946, ed. Neville Wylie (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 131–33. 14 Rushbrook Williams memo, December 19, 1940, FO 898/113, TNA. 15 For the details of these complex arrangements and the coordination of Rushbrook Williams’s work with other organizations, see Minute for Leeper, December 6, 1940, Rushbrook Williams to Warner enclosed in Memo to Pearson, January 29, 1941, and Rushbrook Williams to Pearson, March 19, 1941 and February 21, 1941, FO 898/113, TNA. 16 Minute for Leeper, December 6, 1940, FO 898/113, TNA. 17 Stark to Rushbrook Williams, June 26, 1940, CO 725/73/9, TNA. 18 Minute by Perowne, September 12, 1940, IOR//R/20/B/1419, BL. 19 Stark to Harold, August 26, 1940, OIR/R/20/B/1419, BL. 20 N. Farquhar Oliver, “Note on the Work of the Brotherhood,” FO 930/36, TNA. 21 Stark to Harold, August 26, 1940, OIR/R/20/B/1419, BL. 22 Helen McCarthy explores the role that gender played in Stark’s wartime diplomatic career in Women of the World: The Rise of the Female Diplomat (New York: Bloomsbury, 2015), pp. 183–88.

200

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

23 Memorandum on Anti-Italian Propaganda in the Middle East, Thornhill and Stark, August 15, 1940, FO 898/113, TNA. See also Jane Fletcher Geniesse’s biography, Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark (New York: the Modern Library, 1999), pp. 249–53. 24 Donavan to Woodburn, July 28, 1941, FO 930/124, TNA. 25 Freya Stark, East is West (London: Arrow Books, 1945), pp. 53–55. 26 Geniesse, Passionate Nomad, p. 261; Stark, “Pamphlet,” FO930/278. 27 Handbook of Regulations, Ikhwan al-Hurriya, Cairo, FO 930/278, TNA. 28 Stark, East is West, p. 53. 29 January 9, 1941, minutes of a January 6, 1941 meeting between Pollock and Rushbrook Williams at the MoI regarding covert propaganda in the Middle East, FO 898/113, TNA. 30 Stark, Dust in the Lion’s Paw, pp. 88–116. 31 For Iraq during the Rashid Ali coup, see Reeva Spector Simon, Iraq Between the Two World Wars: The Militarist Origins of Tyranny, updated ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), ch. 6. 32 N. Farquhar Oliver, “Note on the Work of the Brotherhood,” FO 930/36, TNA. For the struggle that led to Stark’s appointment as Second Secretary in 1942, see Geniesse, Passionate Nomad, pp. 288–92. 33 Handbook of Regulations, FO 930/278, TNA. 34 Stark, “Pamphlet,” FO 930/278, TNA. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Handbook, FO 930/278, TNA. 39 Stark, “Pamphlet,” FO930/278, TNA. 40 Egypt Bulletin, December 21, 1943, FO 930/248, TNA. 41 Egypt Bulletin, February 12, 1944, FO 371/40078, TNA. 42 Bulletin of the Ikhwan al Hurriyah, November 13, 1943, bulletin no. 104, Iraq, FO 930/248, TNA. 43 Stark, “Pamphlet,” FO930/278, TNA. 44 Fay, undated 1946, “Note on the Structure, Functions and Cost of the Ikhwan al Hurriya,” FO 930/433, TNA. 45 Chancery, Embassy Baghdad to Eastern Department, June 20, 1944, FO 930/278, TNA. 46 Monroe to Tweedy, November 30, 1942, FO 930/278, TNA. 47 OEPEC Iraq Budget April to September 1942, May 29, 1942, FO 930/278, TNA. 48 Stark, Dust in the Lion’s Paw, p. 64. 49 Cairo Empax, October 15, 1942, INF1/422, TNA. 50 Stark, East is West, p. 31.

“Innocent Efforts”

201

51 Bulletin of the Ikhwan al Hurriyah, November 13, 1943, bulletin no. 104, Iraq, FO 930/248, TNA. 52 “The Work of Women in our Society,” Bulletin of the Ikhwan al Hurriyah, November 13, 1943, bulletin no. 104 Iraq, FO 930/248, TNA. For details on the work of the Palestine group, see reports in INF1/424, TNA. 53 For Lulie Abu’l Huda see Geniesse, Passionate Nomad, p. 265. 54 N. Farquhar Oliver, “Note on the Work of the Brotherhood,” FO 930/36, TNA. For a detailed overview of the Palestine branch’s social work see “Report on ‘the Brothers of Freedom’ Society in Palestine,” October 1, 1945, INF 1/424, TNA. 55 Geniesse, Passionate Nomad, pp. 307–17. For a critique of Stark’s American tour, see Efraim Karsh and Rory Miller, “Freya Stark in America: Orientalism, Antisemitism and Political Propaganda,” Journal of Contemporary History, 39:3 (July 2004), 315–32, www.jstor.org (accessed August 3, 2017). 56 Scaife to Assistant Finance officer, MIME Cairo, December 21, 1944, INF1/424, TNA. For information on the British staff of the Brotherhood, numbers of positions, and so on, see Oliver to Dundas, April 19, 1944, FO 930/278, TNA. 57 Stark to Harold, April 18, 1943, FO 930/278, TNA. 58 Scaife to Cornwallis, December 12, 1943, FO 930/248, TNA. 59 Major Scaife, “Objects of the Ikhwan al Hurriya and Methods of Working in al-‘Iraq,” proposed re-statement, November 1943, and Scaife, “Memorandum on the Ikhwan al-Hurriya by the Area Officer,” December 17, 1943, FO 930/278, and Cornwallis to Eden, February 27, 1944, FO 371/40078, TNA. 60 “Brief Memorandum on the Function and Future of the Ikhwan al-Hurriyah in al-‘Iraq.” December 12, 1943, FO 930/248, TNA. 61 Bulletin no. 104, Iraq, November 13, 1943, FO 930/278, TNA. 62 Serial no. 206, from Director, ME Division, M of I, London to M of I ME Services, Cairo, November 11, 1943, FO 930/248, TNA. 63 N. Farquhar Oliver, “Note on the Work of the Brotherhood,” FO 930/36, TNA. Numerous examples of these monthly returns from 1945–1946 can be found in FO 930/278, 433, 434, and 435, TNA. 64 Grubb to Monroe, January 5, 1944, FO 930/278, TNA. 65 D. O’Donovan, “Note on Discussion on Ikhwan El Hurriya,” December 1943, FO 930/278, TNA. 66 Grubb to Monroe, January 5, 1944, FO 930/278, TNA. 67 Scaife, “Memorandum” and “Brief Memorandum,” FO 930/248, TNA. 68 Mr. O’Donovan to Monroe, February 7, 1944, FO 930/278; Minute by Hankey, April 28, 1944, FO 371/40078; Extract from Minutes of the Meeting of the Arab Panel Committee, January 24, 1944, FO 930/278, TNA. 69 Cornwallis to Eden, February 27, 1944 enclosed on Dundas to Oliver, May 12, 1944, FO 930/278, TNA.

202

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

70 Ryan, “Future of the Ikhwan al Hurriyah in Iraq,” September 18, 1945, FO 930/36, TNA. 71 For the “education for citizenship” campaign and the debate about the dangers of fostering democracy and possible politicization of the Brotherhood, see Stefanie Wichhart, “Selling Democracy during the Second British Occupation of Iraq, 1941–1945,” Journal of Contemporary History, 48:3 (2013), 509–36 (pp. 518–20). 72 See, for example, Serial no. 206, from Director, ME Division, MoI, London to MoI ME Services, Cairo, November 11, 1943, FO 930/278; Cornwallis to Eden, February 27, 1944, enclosed in Dundas (Foreign Office) to Oliver, May 12, 1944, FO 930/278, TNA. 73 Minute by Perowne, December 2, 1944, FO 624/37, TNA. 74 Ryan, “Future,” FO 930/36, TNA. 75 O’Malley to Becher, June 14, 1946, FO 930/36, TNA. 76 N. Farquhar Oliver, “Note on the Work of the Brotherhood,” FO 930/36, TNA. Numerous examples of these monthly returns from 1945–1946 can be found in FO 930/278, 433, 434, and 435, TNA. 77 Vaughan, The Failure of American and British Propaganda in the Arab Middle East, 1945–1957, pp. 27–28. 78 Serial no. 206, from Director, ME Division, M of I, London to M of I ME Services, Cairo, November 11, 1943, FO 930/248, TNA. 79 See Fay’s monthly returns 1947, FO 371/63033, TNA and Geniesse, Passionate Nomad, p. 305. 80 E. Gathorne-Hardy to Duke, “Ikhwan al Hurriya,” January 7, 1953, FO 953/1316, TNA.

12

“The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?” The BBC and India During the Second World War Chandrika Kaul

Introduction Of all the major British cultural institutions, the BBC had the most distinct empire agenda as forcefully articulated by its first director general, Sir John Reith. It is widely acknowledged that the Second World War propelled the BBC into an unparalleled sphere of prestige and influence at home and overseas. However, what is not sufficiently appreciated is the significant role played by the BBC vis-à-vis India, the proverbial jewel in the British Crown. On the one hand, as I have discussed in Communications, Media and the Imperial Experience, the establishment of broadcasting and All India Radio (AIR), as well as the development of a culture of radio within the subcontinent, owed a great deal to the BBC’s input.1 On the other—and forming the focus of this chapter—we have the BBC itself and its Indian service. Combining an institutional approach with examining the role of human agency, this chapter explores issues relating to censorship, propaganda, imperial soft power, and broadcasting culture. It analyzes the development of the BBC offices in New Delhi, its output for India under the dictates of war, the role of key BBC personnel, and the relationship between the BBC and the Raj. The BBC under Reith had taken a keen and continuing interest in Indian broadcasting as an integral element of Britain’s global imperial network. Its investment in India-related programming gathered momentum during the 1930s and was given a boost by the inauguration of the Empire Service in 1932, which was diversified into the Eastern Service (ES) and the General Overseas Service (GoS) during the war. Asa Briggs has argued that few departments “enjoyed such autonomy

204

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

in their early years. Few also enjoyed such outside influence.”2 The Empire Service was conceived primarily as “a sentimental link between residents in the overseas dependencies and the Mother country and the fostering of British propaganda using the word in its widest sense.”3 This voluntary projection of Britishness and a distinct cultural identity, was supported by official funding from the late 1930s. The consolidation of empire unity via the wireless was made more urgent as it was perceived to be under threat by the “machinations of other great powers.”4 Yet Reith was convinced that broadcasting could also be “the determining factor in the future of India—the integrator” and instrumental in establishing a new order of cultural modernity.5 His perspective was infused with a Christian zeal and he felt keenly the role that the BBC and AIR could play in tackling the problems resulting from mass illiteracy, poverty, and poor communications. Reith supported the fledgling broadcasting service within India by proffering advice and loaning expertise, including Lionel Fielden, who went out as the first Controller of Indian Broadcasting, as well as arranging technical training for AIR staff in London.6 Rural broadcasting and schools programs produced in London continued to receive substantial airtime before and during the war, these being retransmitted via the AIR networks. As the BBC’s flagship journal, The Listener, commented: “We ought not to be backward in using this instrument for the benefit of the largest peasantry in the world.”7 Broadcasting, the journal claimed, was akin to Jadu (magic) for villagers.8 This self-styled role of the BBC as a cultural and educative integrator, continued into the 1940s, but the Corporation was now also harnessed as a weapon in the war effort and the Raj agenda was subtly but surely propagated. Undoubtedly, therefore, at one level the BBC as a national institution was a proactive arm of the imperial machine during the war. Further, its Reithian approach, aligned with the public service remit, contained more than a hint of Kiplingesque paternalism and one can point to manifestations of cultural imperialism or to use Gauri Vishwanathan’s phrase, the “masks of conquest.”9 My approach in this chapter does not make such questions irrelevant. However, what I want to emphasize is that the BBC must be judged in historical perspective. The relationship between imperial power and broadcasting culture needs to be explored rather than assumed. With respect to India, the BBC did become part of the “mediascape” (to use Arjun Appadurai’s term) of empire. Nevertheless, I would argue that throughout this process, the BBC retained a marked degree of critical independence. This was reflected in its war news: “It could not tell the whole truth; but it consciously eschewed lies and distortion.”10 The BBC’s approach to India was, at times, equivocal, as it attempted to reconcile

“The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?”

205

the mantra of independent programming with the demands of war propaganda and imperial solidarity. Yet, the manner in which the BBC negotiated these difficulties during the 1940s testified to the resilience of its policy framework, the imaginative input of its staff, as well as an adherence to journalistic professionalism which, in turn, also helps to explain the longevity of its success in broadcasting to the subcontinent, which continues to this day.

The BBC in India The war provided the BBC with an ideal platform on which to demonstrate the unique attributes of broadcasting—a medium without borders—as well as its persuasive strengths allied to the core values of public service broadcasting. The importance of intelligence gathering was increasingly emphasized by the MoI in its dealings with the BBC, indeed, it has been suggested that it used the latter’s monitoring service as a proxy for a world service.11 The war acted as the catalyst for BBC’s expansion within India. The unfolding crisis on the Eastern Front with a resurgent Japan further shifted the spotlight firmly toward the subcontinent. Stephen Fry, the Empire Intelligence Officer at the BBC, stressed the “cardinal importance” of their own accredited representative, “both on grounds of supplying us with the service of information . . . and also . . . acting as liaison between us and all the various interests in India with which we should be more and more concerned as events develop.”12 Additional impetus was provided by the establishment of South East Asia Command and the need to reach British soldiers, as well as report this new war front to home audiences.13 The setting up of a Delhi office began with the aim of intelligence gathering set firmly center stage, and being conceived as “a valuable point of contact” in the prosecution of the war.14 Laurence Brander, who had been a professor of English at Lucknow University for over a decade prior to the war, was employed at its outbreak as Intelligence Officer in the ES. In this capacity he was sent to Delhi to establish a listener research office, “strictly that and nothing more.”15 However, as he reminisced later, “I discovered at once that listener research was the least part of my work. As soon as it was known that a BBC office was opened in Delhi everybody crowded in.”16 Brander was asked to help with propaganda to boost army morale as well as publicize BBC programs, discovering in the process what he claimed was “a most violent and persistent radio war going on.”17 The reception of BBC broadcasts was weak when compared with the German, Russian, and especially Japanese transmissions after the latter had captured the facility of

206

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

medium wave transmission in Rangoon. This helped fortify British resolve to establish a permanent BBC base and a succession of enterprising directors were appointed to hold the fort in Delhi. These men were distinguished BBC staffers whose names are all but forgotten today but their firsthand testimonies impart an authenticity and vibrancy to institutional accounts. The first India director was 34-year-old Donald Stephenson, who had previously been the assistant director of Near East services and had served in the Middle East as an RAF officer before the war. A significant part of Stephenson’s remit involved political diplomacy. He acknowledged that the “status and repute” of the BBC gave him “great facility of access” to senior Government of India (GoI) officials and nationalists.18 His efforts at “making and maintaining” official and military contact meant walking a tightrope between independent journalism and political participation. Indeed, the entire workings of the Delhi office highlighted the specific challenges faced by the BBC in trying to operate within empire and yet isolated from imperial controversy. As Stephenson pointed out: It is necessary, though extraordinarily difficult, to keep one’s sphere of activities within the legitimate province of broadcasting. In this country everyone seems to take a hand in politics, and the man who concentrates on his own job seems to be a rare phenomenon.19

He also identified an ambiguity in the response of Indians toward the BBC. As I have discussed elsewhere, this echoed the experience of Fielden as Controller of AIR in the late 1930s.20 Stephenson felt there was dissatisfaction despite the BBC being “listened to with surprising frequency and with much good-will.” This, he argued, was because BBC broadcasts “addressed directly to the Indian people originated as a political expediency dictated by the outbreak of war.” Further, there was “a profound sense of disappointment” that the BBC was “bound by the ‘sealed lips’ policy on the more controversial details of India’s grievances.”21 However, while the extent of the BBC’s ability to engage with public controversy might well have frustrated Indian politicians, its reputation and ability to reach a transnational audience ensured that it remained an attractive medium, especially in the absence of any political airtime afforded to nationalists on AIR.

Insights into BBC war programming As a perusal of BBC output reveals, its “war of words” encompassed the Indian empire.22 With thousands of Indian troops serving overseas and many Britons

“The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?”

207

and Americans based in the subcontinent, India was increasingly in the center stage in the war effort. Given its firm belief in the importance of empire loyalty, many BBC features were geared to uplifting morale and encouraging enthusiasm and optimism.23 “Empire for War” became a key rallying theme in Indian output. During September 1939, The Listener had a full-page front cover image of an Indian soldier in resplendent ceremonial gear standing guard in front of the Government House in Madras.24 Inside, Lord Hailey described “How India Will Help” and, elsewhere Malcolm MacDonald enthused about “Comradeship within the Empire.”25 What is equally revealing is what the BBC chose to omit, that is, at this juncture, Indian political unity was a phantom of the imperial imagination. The elected ministries of the Indian National Congress (INC), holding office in the majority of the provinces, had resigned en masse in protest at India being dragged into the war without their prior approval. Eric Blair, a.k.a. George Orwell was engaged for two years (1941–43) in producing detailed weekly commentaries on the progress of the war as part of the news bulletins prepared for Eastern transmission, which allowed him to debunk what was felt to be misleading enemy propaganda. Such rallying programs were part of the overtly propagandistic use of the medium and to this extent, the BBC had to march to the propaganda drum of the Raj, Whitehall, and the MoI. Further, as the conflict continued, the BBC was keen to project not just the loyalty of the king’s Indian subjects as evidenced in their war effort but also the progressive nature of the British Empire, which implicitly also served to justify and explain such loyalty. This involved features on various aspects of the socioeconomic development of the subcontinent. Most importantly, the official project of constitutional devolution for India after the war continued to preoccupy the BBC. A seminal step in this process was Sir Stafford Cripps mission to India with the so-called Cripps Offer in 1942. The man and his mission received significant airtime with Cripps himself taking to the microphone in extended broadcasts. Another important aspect of the BBC’s war output was the development of new creative programming in English. The cornerstone of this project was the forty-five minutes devoted daily to “literary” general talks directed by Orwell. He defended the use of English, claiming that the minority of influential Englishspeaking Indians in South Asia and the West could, nevertheless, help influence a wider public opinion. As Orwell opined, “the best bridge between Europe and Asia, better than trade or battleships or aeroplanes, is the English language.”26 The widening reach of the English language press in India also served to add value to such initiatives, as did their re-enforcement through publication in The

208

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

Listener. Orwell’s eclectic literary series featured a range of Indian literary and cultural icons like the writers Mulk Raj Anand, Prem Chand, and Cedric Dover, J. M. Tambimuttu, the Ceylonese Tamil poet, and Narayana Menon and Princess Indira of Kapurthala. Davison contends that the BBC proved “fertile ground for the continuation of Orwell’s interest in what would now be classed as postcolonial literature but in its ‘pre-post-colonial’ stage.”27 In addition to Orwell, British luminaries included E. M. Forster, T. S. Eliot, Stephen Spender, Rebecca West, Gordon Childe, and Wickham Steed. Their topics ranged from English poetry through the Chinese revolution to the future of science. Princess Indira analyzed parliamentary debates in a weekly series titled, The Debate Continues, as well as hosting Hello Punjab that featured contributions from Indian soldiers stationed in Britain. Anand was the author of such iconic novels as Untouchable and Coolie, had helped establish the Progressive Writers Association with the likes of Ahmed Ali (who was also involved with Orwell’s broadcasts), was a member of the Labour Party, and had taught at WEA and schools in London. Anand explained his motivation for participating in this BBC initiative: “I think of them as dialogues held in London in war time such as may make the English less the collective ‘they’ and more the individual human beings to the Indian listeners.”28 During 1942, he was employed, for example, to give twelve-minute talks on H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw in the series These Names Will Live, which was part of the program Through Eastern Eyes.29 Orwell also requested talks on the meaning of words which had recently come into common usage explaining how “our idea is to make these catch-phrases more intelligible, and at the same time, of course, to do a bit of anti-Fascist propaganda.”30 Anand duly obliged with commentaries on “Fifth Column,” “Living Space,” “Propaganda,” and “New Order” during March–April 1942 as part of a series titled New Weapons of War.31 He also delivered twelve talks during June and July 1942 for Orwell’s series Meet My Friend, where Anand was enjoined to select and interview speakers and broadcast for six to seven minutes each week.32 An insight into the rationale behind the BBC’s target audiences was provided in The Listener.33 Responding to critics who questioned the value of such highbrow talks for an audience of “bewildered Indian peasants [and] tense fighting Sikhs,” the writer contended that there was no generic “Indian listener” and this category encompassed non-Indians residing overseas, including the English, Scots, Irish, and Americans, who picked up the BBC’s Eastern transmissions. Together with this “exile” audience, was the “educated” Indian whose “fine and subtle” mind was being provided by the BBC with

“The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?”

209

not only cultural programmes to awake and hold his interest; a clear, steady picture of the real Britain is projected to him through the eyes of fellow-Indians; he is shown our war-effort and encouraged in his own; he is told how we hope to tackle post-war reconstruction and encouraged to learn from it any lessons that may be helpful to India.34

In addition to the Orwellian imperative to persuade the English-educated elites, the BBC was keen to produce programs that catered to what they perceived to be the needs of the masses, both civilian and military. This was reflected in an increased sensitivity to Indian language broadcasts, though there was little by way of any policy blueprint for such transmissions. By 1943, half of the BBC’s output to India came to be conducted in Indian languages where “particular stress [is] laid upon cultural interests common to both India and Britain.”35 The Hindustani service was the first to begin on May 11, 1940, with Tamil and Bengali following a year later on May 3 and October 11 respectively, being joined from March 1, 1942, by a Marathi service.36 By January 1944, the broadcasts to “Indian Overseas” including troops, contained a daily transmission of between thirty and sixty minutes in Bengali, Punjabi, Hindustani, English, Tamil, Malayalam, and Gujarati. As many as thirty Indians were temporarily employed in London during the war, some were recruited domestically, others seconded from AIR, including such well-known names as Balraj Sahni. They were responsible for some new programming not linked to the military effort, for instance, the Marathi service featured a review of the Beveridge Report.37 By the summer of 1944, we witness a peak in general of BBC foreign language broadcasts, with the total volume being over 130 hours per day in 46 languages.38 Along with direct transmissions to India, there were rebroadcasts of programs from the UK including from the Home, Forces, and GoS, a process facilitated by the BBC staff based in India. The BBC adopted Hindustani, the hybrid language used in Northern India, as its “official” language in news bulletins, rather than Hindi or Urdu, to avoid getting embroiled in communal controversy. The Hindustani service was edited by Sir Malcolm Darling, a distinguished Indian civil servant and former financial commissioner of the Punjab, and subedited by Fielden. (Unfortunately, marked differences of opinion and temperament meant that Fielden did not stay long in the post.) Zulfikar A. Bokhari, seconded from AIR, was selected as the Chief Indian Adviser, a post he held for two years. At AIR, Bokhari had worked closely with Fielden and had also trained in London before the war. His selection arose from the desire of the BBC to have “an Indian of experience organise a supply of recordings and scripts for India.”39 Bokhari occasionally undertook one-off

210

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

assignments as well, for instance, early in 1940, the GoI wanted Indian listeners to be provided with an insight into the lives of their brethren fighting in distant lands, and it was decided to send him to France to “make records of talks by Indian personnel” on the Western front.40

Imperial soft power and the BBC Over the course of the twentieth century, the Raj was routinely engaged in imperial soft power strategies via the media to persuade and propagandize.41 The British national press, the Anglo-Indian press, Reuters news agency, and, increasingly the BBC, became critical in this process of mediated proselytization. During the war, officials instructed the BBC on the imperial interpretation of political and military developments and demanded coverage and publicity for specific issues and events. This was not surprising given its position as a national broadcaster, the complexity of imperial policies and the imperatives of winning a world war. How this worked in practice, from relatively everyday issues to major catastrophes, demonstrates the importance of broadcasting to imperial soft power strategies as well as enables an assessment to be made about its success and limitations. The IO while admitting the problematic nature of any attempts to censor the BBC and “to lay down a hard and fast line,” nevertheless claimed that the global reach of broadcasting strengthened its case for demanding a more responsible approach. We have a right to expect the greatest care on the part of the BBC in editing Indian news and are entitled to require of them a very special degree of co-operation, such as we cannot demand from the newspapers . . . that they have a very special responsibility with the world as an audience and in view of the fact that they speak directly to India on a Special Empire service.42

The BBC instituted regular planning meetings for its ES attended by representatives of the IO and the MoI and the ensuing discussions suggest their close working relationship during the war. The frequent “Guidance from the India Office” memos from L. F. Rushbrook Williams to the BBC, in his dual capacity as chief official publicity liaison and as director of ES, testify to the assiduity with which imperial bureaucrats monitored the broadcaster and reveal the issues that perturbed them. Rushbrook Williams had enjoyed a varied career as a historian and civil servant and was uniquely well placed in

“The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?”

211

this role having earlier worked successively as director of the Central Bureau of Public Information in Delhi, at the War and Colonial Offices, and as head of the Middle East section of the MoI.43 Sometimes the “Policy Guidance” was unequivocal: thus one directive ordered, “No reference to be made in Eastern Service broadcasts to Subhas Bose and the Indian Independence Army.”44 On other occasions the Raj sought to control the BBC’s employment policy as well as influence the trajectory and content of its programming, thus imposing a form of de facto censorship. Potential recruits had to pass official scrutiny and the litmus test of political empathy was routinely applied to delay or reject travel permits for Indians. Overall, there is little to suggest that the BBC systematically ignored or went against Rushbrook Williams’s recommendations, especially in relation to the prosecution of the war, but he was not infallible, as will be discussed later. The Raj’s investment in broadcasting soft power can also be witnessed in its attempts to influence output in the BBC’s Hindustani service. The GoI felt “due attention should be given to the cultural aspects of life which has great value in India, and we hope that readings from Indian poets and writers will be included.”45 More of this perspective, it was suggested, ought also to be incorporated in the English programs directed at India. There is not very much in the BBC Overseas programme which appeals to the educated Indian; the talks are mostly on war subjects and much of the music and entertainment is of the music-hall variety which Indians do not appreciate at all. Occasional talks by distinguished writers or scientists and readings from Shakespeare or other poets would be of much greater value to the Indian audience as the projection of the best side of English life.46

The aim was to present the best of British culture and underline its values and, thus by implication, help demonstrate the superiority of Pax Britannica as a civilizing force. Arguably, this reaction was also dictated by Axis propaganda that relentlessly beat the drum about British dictatorship over subjugated imperial populations. It is worth noting how the official outlook chimed with Orwell’s own assessment and conviction of the difference between good and bad propaganda. Their common aim was to highlight the superiority of British civilization rather than undertake a demonization of the enemy. The Hindustani service was also potentially valuable within India because, as the Viceroy acknowledged, with the prohibition of public broadcasting of German programs, “it will be the only Hindustani programme from abroad which the man who has not got a receiving set himself will be able to listen to.”47 (In reality, the GoI was powerless to jam the airwaves as its intercepts of detailed enemy propaganda reveals.) After a

212

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

shaky start, including complaints about factual and linguistic errors, the service was considered to be “daily improving,” and both Darling and Fielden were “congratulated on so successfully making bricks with very little straw.”48 News, especially during the war, was the keystone of broadcasting, and given the reach and immediacy afforded by the BBC’s coverage, it became a battleground in the implementation of imperial soft power strategies. A. H. Joyce, the IO Information Officer, put the case eloquently when he argued that while it was “quite out of the question” that Indian news and newsmakers were totally ignored by the BBC, yet “there is a clear case for asking the BBC to exercise the greatest possible care and to ensure that their News Editors consult this department whenever they are in doubt as to the advisability of using any particular item.”49 He also insisted that there was “room for much closer liaison” between the BBC News Department and the IO with regard to the “day-to-day handling” of news.50 The BBC had to rely, like the British press, on Reuters for the bulk of its information about India including details of its military campaigns overseas. Despite the pressures of winning a war, Joyce was adamant that the Raj needed to persuade rather than coerce and was against any attempts “to prevent Reuters from carrying material . . . as such action might give rise to awkward repercussions, both in India and on the part of newspapers in this country.”51 Instead, in time-honored fashion, Joyce “discussed the matter” with Reuters news manager in London and suggested whether they might “consider careful sub-editing of Congress propaganda with regard to its relative importance to world news as a whole.”52 Despite such efforts, the Raj could not hope to dictate the corporation’s line and the BBC retained substantive creative and journalistic independence. If we peruse BBC output, it becomes clear how it continued to back a policy of engaging with prominent books of the day including those critical of the empire, which were occasionally also published in The Listener; for instance, Henry Brailsford’s Subject India (1943). The BBC maintained the right of reviews to adopt a political stance, provided these did not degenerate into propaganda. The difficulty of determining when this occurred meant, in effect, that the BBC often managed to skim under the government’s radar or deflect official criticism. W. J. West has also argued that Orwell was not averse to ignoring completely official instructions, for instance, in 1942 over the line to be adopted vis-àvis M. K. Gandhi.53 Further, consider the BBC’s coverage of sensitive political developments on the Home Service, for example, the rejection of the Cripps Offer by the INC. The BBC duly featured the government point of view with the Secretary of State, Leo Amery, who accused the INC of wanting power to be

“The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?”

213

“handed over immediately and unconditionally to a group of Indian politicians responsible to nobody—a group which they would have dominated. This would have been the negation of democracy.”54 Amery claimed that the “great Moslem community” and the “Depressed Classes,” were both opposed to the INC and equally importantly, their campaign of opposition would damage the war effort: “Certainly the Congress intend that it should do damage.”55 Yet, the BBC also took the lead in commissioning a series of round table discussions to explain the mission and its aftermath, featuring Indians from various political parties. The Corporation was well aware of the significance of its platform at this politically sensitive juncture and the potential impact on a Home audience. As Sir Richard Maconachie noted, “Their discussions could hardly fail to make it clear to the radio audience that the result of Sir Stafford’s mission was due to the inability of the Indian parties to reach agreement among themselves.”56 In Delhi, there was concern that such public pronouncements, especially when retransmitted to India, would stoke the fires of political protest and arm their opponents with ammunition that would be difficult to counter. Finding himself in the firing line, the Viceroy, Linlithgow made his displeasure apparent: “I am perfectly clear myself as to the grave disadvantages . . . of encouraging political leaders to make statements on the wireless. . . . The less we talk and fuss about India, the better from all points of view.”57 However, in London, the perspective was markedly different. The BBC had liaised with the IO and had the backing of Brendan Bracken, the Minister of Information, in its attempts through such formats to reach what it believed was a motivated minority of the Home audience who followed Indian affairs with greater engagement than the general listener. On this occasion, such broadcasts also served to expose the deep divisions within the Indian body politic, helping to demonstrate the difficulties facing the British in their attempts to reach a solution about the constitutional future of India. Amery reassured the Viceroy that Reuters “will not carry any reference to them in messages to India.”58 However, he also pointed out how “from our point of view” the series had been “an undoubted success.” “The discussions were really lively because the different debaters felt keenly and expressed their several points of view forcibly, notably Iqbal Ali Shah, the Moslem League protagonist, who seems to have greatly impressed the ordinary listener. The result is that Krishna Menon and his crowd here are very angry and have even tried to voice their protest through questions directed to the Minister of Information.”59 Menon was a successful editor, Labour Party member, and, most importantly, a firebrand nationalist and secretary of the India League, the most influential Indian lobby in Parliament. Amery’s sense of accomplishment

214

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

was re-enforced by the positive coverage afforded by sections of the national press, as the conservative Spectator noted: The BBC discussion on India . . . was a great success, so much so that this particular method ought to be, and no doubt will be, actively developed. The three Indians—a Congress member, a Moslem League member and a Moderate—did their parts admirably, and the accident of differences in tone and accent effectively emphasised the differences in their points of view. For British listeners the debate had a most valuable educational value in demonstrating the difficulty of reaching any solution while the Congress and Moslem League policies remain irreconcilable, and Mr Carl Heath, the English participant in the discussion, pointed out usefully that in addition to the Moslems there were other “minorities” like the Sikhs and the Depressed Areas, whose claims have to be considered. [signed] Janus.60

Thus Indian issues mediated via the BBC had the ability to impact on domestic politics. The BBC helped expose the different mentalities between imperial center and periphery and revealed ambiguities in the British approach to India. Despite official attempts to deploy the soft power of broadcasting in the service of the Raj, the fact remained that the BBC’s correspondents exercised an editorial independence which was not shared by their AIR counterparts, and one over which the government had no final say. The Corporation thus operated as an enclave of media freedom within an imperial system of censorship and control. This is clear from the fact that the BBC Delhi office gave airtime to prominent nationalists especially in times of crisis. As the Viceroy remonstrated on one occasion: “I have been very much disturbed by prominence of late given to Nehru’s and Gandhi’s utterances in the BBC’s overseas broadcast.” Linlithgow cited the case of Nehru’s press interview in Bombay on June 17, 1942, “which was quoted at quite disproportionate length” and presented “in most favourable light. . . . Why our sole national broadcast organisation which is presumably under the control of HMG at least in war should lend itself to this propaganda passes my comprehension.”61 Another example of the BBC’s editorial stance can be witnessed in the furor that arose over its coverage of the Great Bengal Famine. Over two million had died during 1943–44 due to natural causes exacerbated manifoldly by imperial neglect, mismanagement, and war pressures. Writing at the end of September 1943, Rushbrook Williams made clear the level of IO “dissatisfaction” with BBC’s Home news treatment. His astute analysis of the friction between the imperial and the broadcasting points of view as well as the policy divisions between IO and GoI, is worth quoting at some length. Williams admitted that he had been,

“The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?”

215

conscious of an incompatibility of viewpoint which has on occasion been too marked for me to resolve. From the standpoint of the News Department, the “story” was an important one. . . . From the standpoint of the India Office, any prominence given to the Famine story was a matter of regret: and probably the only “line” which would have satisfied the authorities would have been extremely curt and summary notices. . . . The difficulty was aggravated by a certain difference of view-point between the authorities in Britain and in India. The former have proved reluctant to reconsider their decision against importing food stuffs into India: the latter regard such a step as necessary. The BBC Delhi correspondent, Kennard, who is generally “safe” because he checks up with official opinion, reflected in this instance the local view: with the result that the use made of him by Home News gave further offence to the Secretary of State. Finally, the publication of the Gregory Committee’s Report—an important longrange document on the whole food situation of India—gave the famine story a longer run than might otherwise have been the case, besides emphasising anew the controversial “import” question.62

This was a complex internecine disagreement dealing with an unprecedented catastrophe and one where the view of the IO as to “undesirable treatment of a news-story [ran] counter to the canon of news values observed by News Division.”63 Rushbrook Williams acknowledged the importance of preserving editorial discretion and his responsibility in representing the IO view to the BBC and vice versa. Yet he was forced to admit that “circumstances such as these leave me ‘the meek ass between two burdens,’ with little possibility of satisfying either party.”64

Impact of BBC India programming The limited survey data available combined with the infancy of listener research in India, makes it challenging to reach conclusive judgments about the extent and nature of the impact of BBC programs on home and overseas audiences. A key determining variable was the level of radio penetration within India, which remained low. In 1939, the figure for receiver sets sold in British India stood at 92,782.65 By 1943, estimates ranged between 155,908 and 162,000 sets. Nonetheless, it is worth bearing in mind that these figures tell only a partial story since, as several BBC commentators noted, the habit of communal listening was becoming widespread and radio could reach thousands outside the major metropolises. Much like the impact of newspapers and print in a largely

216

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

illiterate country, listenership far outstripped ownership of radio sets. Another issue was the relatively small number of weekly hours devoted to vernacular transmissions from the BBC, which militated against the growth of a large audience. Additionally, competition within India from longer and sustained enemy broadcasts was considered to be an important factor working against the BBC, often made worse by the poor quality of the reception of its short-wave programs in the subcontinent.66 Any conclusions drawn about the impact on the home front also needs to be cautious and is necessarily incomplete, as contemporary appraisals about imperial broadcasting and public opinion are perforce limited. There is also continuing debate about the nature and extent of the influence of empire on British culture in general. Sian Nicholas’s research on Dominion and colonial propaganda on the BBC Home Service suggests that such programming had little or no impact on listeners.67 Focusing on the British World, Simon Potter claims that the BBC “largely failed in its domestic imperial mission of making audiences at home more aware of the empire and of the British nation overseas.”68 Thomas Hajkowski is more positive and contends that surveys of empire programming as a whole suggest selective and moderate success in terms of listening figures in Britain.69 With regard to the BBC and India, it has not been within the remit of this chapter to engage with the wider cultural debate. Nevertheless, it is possible to point to limited, indirect evidence of a positive reception provided by, for example, cross media impact in Fleet Street. Further, official apprehension of the deleterious transnational influence of critical BBC broadcasts, especially on Indian nationalists, elites, and the press, is revealed by the assiduity with which they tried to curtail news distribution as well as influence creative programming. The periodic attacks by the GoI on the BBC’s Indian service can be viewed as a tacit admission of the effectiveness of its impact—real and perceived—on opposition sensibilities. Finally, there does exist one major BBC Listener Research Report on India, commissioned in the aftermath of the Cripps round table series during April–May 1942, as discussed above, and relayed on the Home Service (9:20–9:40 p.m.). The participants included Sir Frederick Whyte in the chair, Dr. Sudhir Ghose, D. V. Tahmankar, Sirdar Iqbal Ali Shah, Carl Heath, and Edwin Haward. Hilton Brown, who had played a key role in organizing the talks, analyzed the 371 completed questionnaires that revealed that the “Extent of Listening” averaged audience share of between 11.3 percent and 12.7 percent.70 The BBC felt that although these figures did not equal those of more mainstream programs like the War Commentary, “they are not unsatisfactory and their

“The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?”

217

consistency is significant of a loyal public.” The “Appreciation Index” for the series was 86, rising to 92 from those who had heard all five of the programs. “Both these figures are very high indeed.” Among the “Reactions of Informed Listeners,” the majority said that they listened because “they were very interested in the Indian Question” and felt that these programs had covered Indian issues “adequately and fairly,” with only 10 percent thinking they had not. Among the “Less Informed Listeners,” 40 percent of the listeners reported that they were only “fairly interested” in the Indian question and 80 percent said that the effect of hearing the discussions had been to increase their interest in the subject. Many praised the treatment of the subject: “It was judged to be a very useful and constructive series. . . . A number of listeners felt that they would like to hear more talks and discussions on India.” “Some felt that ‘there was a lot of talk but little in the way of solution.’” However, Brown also noted that there was a small group “who had been made very pessimistic by the discussions.” One listener wrote, “One is left with the feeling that perhaps a Japanese invasion might be the surest way of uniting the peoples of India.” On the theme of “Speakers and Method of Discussion,” “nearly 80%” reported that they “were able to follow the trend of the discussion easily,” with three quarters saying that “they did not find any of the speakers’ voices difficult to listen to” but the remaining quarter found the voices of Ghose and Tahmankar “difficult.” Overall, Brown concluded that the series attracted and retained a loyal, and not unsubstantial, body of listeners. Judged by the Appreciation Index, the whole series was considered excellent. Those who had heard the whole series thought that the discussions covered the present Indian question adequately and fairly. The majority of listeners reporting were already interested in the subject, and those with little previous interest found their interest increased by the discussions. Nearly all the listeners were able to follow the trends of the discussion easily, and did not find the speakers’ voices difficult to listen to. The series was praised for the live and genuine atmosphere of debate in the discussions.71

Conclusion It is possible to suggest several conclusions about the historic role of imperial broadcasting and the BBC within the context of the Second World War. The BBC in its coverage of India asserted an editorial autonomy, demonstrated a commitment to impartiality, and an even-handed panache when it came to

218

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

representing adversarial views. This chapter also reveals the functioning of imperial soft power via the ongoing preoccupation of the Raj to manage and, where possible, manipulate BBC coverage and policy. Nevertheless, the BBC often successfully resisted official demands and the mediating efforts of even those sympathetic to its cause like Rushbrook Williams. While on paper, the Corporation functioned independently of government, the pressures of war and the need for imperial unity, the difficulties of recruitment and the niche market of qualified experts in London, meant that it had, in practice, to collaborate with the “official mind” in a systematic manner. Within India, its staffers had to negotiate red tape and an elaborate system of bureaucratic control. To an extent, this may have helped to streamline the process in favor of the proempire line. Yet a subtle and nuanced approach to propaganda would appear to have dictated the BBC’s myriad Indian output. Staffing or censorship hurdles did not deter minds like Orwell from shaping programming or prominent Indians like the leftwing Anand from successfully broadcasting to the empire. Indeed, the very fact that someone holding such pronounced anti-establishment views as Orwell was employed by the BBC is itself a testimony to its independence of spirit and evidence of the relative freedom of maneuver it enjoyed. The BBC chose to feature book reviews critical of the Raj as well as commission round table debates on sensitive issues of constitutional policy. Its discussions on the abortive Cripps Offer succeeded in impacting on domestic politics with Brendan Bracken being subjected to repeated questioning in the Commons. When retransmitted to the subcontinent, such debates may well have contributed toward the British being judged more harshly in the court of public opinion. Government mishandling of catastrophes like the Bengal Famine was covered in BBC Home news bulletins with sufficient repetitive detail to rattle the composure of imperial mandarins. Both these examples also demonstrate how broadcasting could help reveal the divisions at the heart of the British approach to India between New Delhi and London. What is also creditable is the BBC’s attempts to feature a range of voices from across the Indian political scene despite official opprobrium, with its Delhi office giving regular airtime to prominent nationalists, a facility denied them by AIR. This aspect of the BBC’s commitment to cover a story, however controversial, set the scene for what was to follow soon after the end of the war and reflected in its reportage of Indian independence and the post-Partition mayhem.72 Acknowledgement: BBC copyright content reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.

“The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?”

219

Notes 1 C. Kaul, “‘Invisible Empire Tie’: Broadcasting and the British Raj in the Interwar Years,” in C. Kaul, Communications, Media and the Imperial Experience, Britain and India in the Twentieth Century (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017; Ist ed., 2014), pp. 123–71. 2 A. Briggs, The Golden Age of Wireless: The History of Broadcasting in the UK, Vol. II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 357. 3 Frost Memo as cited in I. Stephens to J. MacGregor, September 20, 1933, L/I/1/445, India Office Library and Records, British Library London, hereafter IOLR. 4 Briggs, Golden Age, p. 360. 5 J. C. W. Reith, Into the Wind (London, 1949), p. 207. See Willingdon to Reith, September 7, 1934, L/PJ/8/118, IOLR. 6 For details, see Kaul, “Invisible Empire Tie,” pp. 123–71. 7 The Listener, June 21, 1933, p. 974. 8 The Listener, “Jadu,” July 1, 1936, p. 9. 9 G. Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest (London: Faber and Faber, 1990; Ist ed., 1989). 10 A. Crisell, An Introductory History of British Broadcasting (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 60–61. 11 A. Briggs, The War of Words: The History of Broadcasting in the UK, Vol. III (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 443. 12 S. Fry to A. H. Joyce, February 27, 1941, L/I/1/962, IOLR. 13 MoI to Captain J. J. W. Herbertson, Dept. of Civil Aviation, London, January 25, 1944, L/I/1/433, IOLR. 14 Ibid., BBC Memo for the IO, January 28, 1944. 15 L. Brander interview with C. Allen, June 23, 1976, MSS Eur R 83, C5/17-19, Sound Archives, British Library. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid. 18 D. Stephenson to J. B. Clark, March 29, 1944, E1/908/1, BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham, hereafter WAC. 19 Ibid. 20 See Kaul, “Invisible Empire Tie,” pp. 151–65. 21 Stephenson to Clark, March 29, 1944, E1/908/1, WAC. 22 Briggs, The War of Words; see The Listener, September 28 and November 23, 1939; April 11, June 13, October 17, November 28, 1940. 23 The Listener, September 21, December 28, 1939, p. 601, p. 577, respectively. 24 The Listener, September 28, 1939. 25 The Listener, December 28, 1939, p. 1260. 26 Orwell, Tribune, March 19, 1943, as cited in P. Davison (ed.), Two Wasted Years, The Complete Works of George Orwell, Vol. 15 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1998), p. 34.

220

Allied Communication to the Public During the Second World War

27 Davison, Two Wasted Years, p. xxiii. 28 Anand to Orwell, May 11, 1942, Talks, M.R. Anand, File 1, 1942–62, RCONT1, WAC. 29 Contracts in Talks, M. R. Anand, File 1, 1942–62, RCONT1, WAC. 30 Orwell to Anand, February 27, 1942, Talks, M. R. Anand, File 1, 1942–62, RCONT1, WAC. 31 Contract 5.3.42, in Talks, M. R. Anand, File 1, 1942–62, RCONT1, WAC. 32 Contract 6.5.42, in Talks, M. R. Anand, File 1, 1942–62, RCONT1, WAC. 33 The Listener, August 27, 1942, p. 266. 34 Ibid. 35 E1/890/1, File 1-2, 1941–46, ES Memo, undated, WAC. 36 A. Briggs, The BBC: The First Fifty Years (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). 37 See Blair to R. R. Desai, March 3, 1943, in Davison, Two Wasted Years, p. 10. 38 Broadcasting Policy, Parliamentary Command Paper, July 1946, HMSO London, p. 16, L/I/1/437, IOLR. 39 Puckle, Home Dept., GoI, to Darling (S/S), September 23, 1940, L/I/1/1309, IOLR. 40 GoI (Puckle) to S/S (Joyce) January 4, 1940, L/I/1/1309, IOLR. 41 See Kaul, Communications, Media and the Imperial Experience. “Soft power” as Joseph Nye conceptualized it, refers to co-option, rather than coercion, as a tool in diplomacy, see J. Nye, Soft Power (New York, 2004). Also see C. Kaul, Reporting the Raj, the British Press and India (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003/ Delhi: Viva Books, 2017). 42 A. H. Joyce to Mr. Patrick, US/S, IO, July 3, 1942, L/I/1/967, IOLR. 43 For Rushbrook Williams, see Kaul, Reporting the Raj, pp. 83–85, 148, 152, 206, 215–17, 233–34, 265. 44 E1/890/1, File 1-2, 1941–46, ES, 12.4.44, extract, WAC. 45 DG Information, Delhi to A. H. Joyce, April 4, 1940, 1337/40, L/1/445, IOLR. 46 Ibid. 47 V to S/S, private letter, June 13, 1940, extract included in 462/26, I/1/445, IOLR. 48 Ibid. 49 A. H. Joyce to Mr. Patrick, US/S, IO, July 3, 1942, L/1/433, IOLR. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 W. J. West (ed.), Orwell The War Commentaries (London: BBC/Duckworth, 1985), p. 19. 54 Broadcast published in The Listener, August 13, 1942, p. 201. 55 Ibid. 56 R. Maconachie to M. J. Clauson, IO, April 21, 1942, L/I/1/433, IOLR. 57 V to S/S, telegram May 9, 1942, L/I/1/433, IOLR.

“The Meek Ass between Two Burdens?”

221

58 S/S/ to V, May 11, 1942 telegram, L/I/1/433, IOLR. 59 Private letter S/S to V, May 27–29, 1942, Ibid. 60 Spectator, May 8, 1942. 61 V to S/S, telegram, June 27, 1942, L/I/1/433, IOLR. 62 L-F Rushbrook Williams Memo, September 28, 1943, L/I/1/433, IOLR. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Kaul, “Invisible Empire Tie,” p. 169. 66 L. Brander, Report on Indian Programmes, January 11, 1943, as cited in Davison, Two Wasted Years, Appendix I, pp. 343–56. 67 S. Nicholas, “‘Brushing up your Empire’: Dominion and Colonial Propaganda on the BBC’s Home Services, 1939–45,” in The British World, eds. C. Bridge and K. Fedorowich (London, 2003). See also her The Echo of War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996). 68 S. J. Potter, Broadcasting Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 15. 69 T. Hajkowski, “The BBC, the Empire, and the Second World War, 1939–1945,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 22:2 (2002), 135–55. 70 Hilton Brown, BBC Listener Research Report, May 26, 1942, L/I/1/433, IOLR. 71 Ibid. 72 See C. Kaul, “‘Operation Seduction’: Mountbatten, the Media and Decolonisation in 1947,” in Communications, Media and the Imperial Experience, pp. 172–218.

222

Contributors

Chris Bannister is Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Manchester. His research focuses on propaganda in the first half of the twentieth century in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America. Between 2016 and 2017 he was Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the “Communication History of the Ministry of Information 1939–46” project at the School of Advanced Study, University of London. His research on this project led to him being named a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker in 2017. He has held previous academic positions at the University of Newcastle and Maastricht University. Alice Byrne lectures in British Studies at Aix-Marseille University. Her research explores different facets of British cultural diplomacy in the twentieth century, ranging from cultural propaganda during the Second World War and the early Cold War to the development of cultural exchanges within the Commonwealth. Her most recent publications include a chapter entitled “The Commonwealth University Interchange Scheme: Promoting Exchanges in a Changing World (1948–1960)”, in Global Exchanges: Scholarships and Transnational Circulations in the Modern World, ed. Ludovic Tournès and Giles Scott-Smith (Berghahn Books, 2018). She is currently developing a project on British cultural diplomacy in India. Victoria Carolan is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, Politics and Social Sciences at the University of Greenwich in London, having previously worked in the museum and archives sector. She held a two-year research fellowship at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht funded by the Dutch Government, during which she studied maritime identities through history, philosophy, and photography. She is a cultural historian with expertise in film history and with research interests in national identity, maritime history, and the Second World War. She is currently working on a project on the representation of Russian history on film. Joseph Clark is Lecturer in Film Studies in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University. His book, News Parade: The American

224

Contributors

Newsreel and the Mediation of the Public Sphere, 1927–1946 is forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press. His writing on the newsreel as well as educational film, documentary, and the history of non-fiction film exhibition appears in The Moving Image, Useful Cinema: Expanding Film Contexts (Duke), Getting the Picture: The History & Visual Culture of the News (Bloomsbury) and Rediscovering U.S. Newsfilm: Cinema, Television, and the Archive (Routledge). Simon Eliot is Professor Emeritus of the History of the Book at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. He was involved in founding the Reading Experience Database (RED); the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP); and London Rare Books School. He has published on quantitative book history, publishing history, history of lighting, library history, and the history of reading. He was General Editor of the four-volume History of Oxford University Press (2013–17), and recently directed a large-scale project on the communication history of the Ministry of Information 1939–46. Richard Fine is Professor of English and Coordinator of the American Studies Program at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. His articles on media-military relations during the Second World War have appeared in American Journalism, Journalism History, and Media History. The author of two monographs on the profession of authorship, he has recently completed a book on the career of Associated Press journalist Edward Kennedy’s controversial scoop of the news of Germany’s surrender in 1945. Dr Henry Irving is Senior Lecturer in Public History at Leeds Beckett University and Associate Fellow of the Institute of English Studies. His research centres on the social and cultural history of the Second World War, with a particular focus on the public’s response to emergency legislation and official propaganda. His chapter on the Ministry of Information’s activities on the British Home Front is based on research undertaken alongside Professor Simon Eliot as part of the AHRC-funded project “The Communication History of the Ministry of Information 1939–46”. Dr Chandrika Kaul is Reader in Modern History, University of St Andrews, Scotland. She is Founding Co-editor of the book series “Palgrave Studies in the History of the Media”. Her monographs include Reporting the Raj, the British Press and India and Communications, Media and the Imperial Experience:

Contributors

225

Britain and India in the Twentieth Century. She has also edited or co-edited several volumes including Media and the British Empire; Explorations in Modern Indian History and the Media; International Communications and Global News Networks; News of the World and the British Press 1843–2011; and Media and the Portuguese Empire. Emily Oliver is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Warwick leading the research project “Broadcasting Nations: A History of the BBC German Service (1938–1999)”. Her research focuses on Anglo-German cultural relations in the twentieth century. After gaining a PhD at the University of Birmingham, she worked as Postdoctoral Research Associate at King’s College London on the European Research Council project “Beyond Enemy Lines: Literature and Film in the British and American Zones of Occupied Germany”. Her monograph Shakespeare and German Reunification is published by Peter Lang (2017). Stephanie Seul is a tenured researcher at Deutsche Presseforschung, Department of Cultural Studies, University of Bremen. She studied at LMU Munich, the University of Cambridge, and the European University Institute in Florence. Her research focuses on British propaganda 1938–45, on the German and international press 1914–45, and on media representations of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. Her writing has appeared in numerous edited volumes and peer reviewed journals, including the Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, Jewish Historical Studies, Politics, Religion & Ideology, Media History, and Journal of Modern Italian Studies. Stephen Thompson has a master’s in the History of the Book from the Institute of English Studies, University of London. His interests include English private presses and British book history in the twentieth century, and he has written about the private press publications of Cyril W. Beaumont between 1917 and 1931. He is currently a doctoral student at IES researching the provision and use of books, pamphlets, newspapers, and periodicals by the British army in the Second World War. James Wald teaches modern European history at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and is Chair of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress. Research and teaching interests include the history of the book and literary life in Germany,

226

Contributors

Enlightenment and Revolution, the era of the world wars, and anti-Semitism and fascist ideologies. His chapter on periodicals is forthcoming in the second edition of Wiley’s New Companion to the History of the Book. His current research project involves anti-Semitism in the Polish Army in the UK during the Second World War. David Welch is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Kent. In 2013, he co-curated the exhibition on propaganda and persuasion at the British Library and authored the book that accompanied the exhibition, Propaganda: Power and Persuasion (2013). Recent publications include Germany and Propaganda in World War I: Pacificism, Mobilization and Total War (2014), Persuading the People: British Propaganda in World War II (2016), World War II Propaganda: Analysing the Art of Persuasion during Wartime (2017), and Protecting the People: The Central Office of Information and the Nanny State 1946–2011 (2019). Stefanie Wichhart is Associate Professor of History at Niagara University near Buffalo, NY. A historian of the British Empire in the Middle East, she is completing a book manuscript on Britain, Egypt, and Iraq during the Second World War. She has published articles on Britain’s Kurdish policy and Allied propaganda campaigns in Iraq during the Second World War in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History and Journal of Contemporary History. Marc Wiggam is the author of  The  Blackout in Britain and Germany, 1939– 1945  (2018).  His research focuses on British wartime propaganda, the British press during the Second World War, and discourses of legitimization. He was a postdoctoral fellow on “The Communication History of the Ministry of Information 1939–46” project, where he led its programme to digitize the MoI’s Reports and Surveys. He is a contributing author to a forthcoming history of the British press in the Second World War. He teaches at the University of Oslo and the School of Oriental and African Studies. He lives in Oslo. 

Index ABCA. See Army Bureau of Current Affairs (ABCA) A.B.C.A. Handbook, The  57 ABCA Play Unit  59, 60 ABC newspaper  174 Abercrombie, Patrick  70 Abrams, Mark  34 Abu’l-Huda, Lulie  194 Adam, Ronald Forbes  54, 63 Addison, Paul  23 Aden  185, 187–8, 193 Adler, Bruno  154, 156 advertising  3, 13, 18, 22–3, 30–3, 40, 42, 44 AEC. See Army Education Corps (AEC) African Americans  7 audiences  83, 90 combat units  86 in Hollywood films  83–6 leaders  81–2 memory  83–6 military service  82–3 morale  82 sacrifices  82 soldiers  7, 16, 81–91 war service  82–91 agenda setting, theory of  133 AHRC. See Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) AIR. See All India Radio (AIR) Aitkinson, Harriet  34 Akhawat (sisterhood)  11, 193–4 Albert’s Savings (Edgar)  47 Algeria  97–100 Ali, Ahmed  208 Ali, Rashid  189 Aliança Luso-Britânica, A  170 All-American Newsreel (film series)  81 Allen, Frank  102, 104 allied communication  1–18. See also individual entries Allied Conscription Act  115

Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ)  98 Allied Non-theatrical Film Association  89 Allied unity  107–8, 119 Allies  1–3, 5, 8–11, 16–18, 96–8, 100, 105, 107, 133, 138, 140, 167–8, 189–91, 194 All India Radio (AIR)  203, 204 Amery, Leo  212–13 Anand, Mulk Raj  208 Anderson, John  29 Anglo-Portuguese alliance  168, 170 anti-Jewish policy  133–5, 137, 142 anti-Semitism  6, 8, 113–24, 138–9 activists  120–1 denouement  123 Jewish community  114–17, 121–3 in Poland  117–19 in Polish forces  113–24 and soldiers  114–17 in UK  119–20 Appadurai, Arjun  204 Appreciation Index  217 Arab  11, 185–8, 190, 192, 194–6, 198 Arabic-speaking countries  11, 16, 18 Army Bureau of Current Affairs (ABCA)  13–14, 53–64 bulletins  54–9, 61 Information Room  57–8 military education  53, 54–9 Play Unit  59, 60 posters  59 RAF and  61–2 Royal Navy and  61–2 theater of war  59–63 wall newspapers  57–8 well-annotated brief  54 Army Education Corps (AEC)  54 Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)  1 Ashley, Maurice  69 Atlanta Daily World, The  81, 86

228

Index

ATS. See Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) audiences  8, 14, 55, 58, 60, 88–90, 160, 172, 208–13, 215–16 African American  83 Arab  186, 198 BBC German Service  152–4 black  81, 84, 90 Britain  75–6 Britain To-day  71 captive  3, 84 domestic  4, 95, 113 German  131–42 groups  44 imagined  152–4 participation  60–1 reception/resistance  14 size  22 Spanish  179 UK  10–11 white  81, 83–5, 90 Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS)  61 Axis  2, 9, 97, 100, 167–9, 171, 174, 177, 185, 186, 188–90, 193, 195, 196, 211 Azores islands  167 Bannister, Christopher  9, 167–79 Barker, Ernest  70 Barlow, Alan  32–3 Barnett, Lincoln  99 BBC. See British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) BBC Year Book of 1943  135 Bentley, Phyllis  75 Berkhoff, Karel C.  131 Berlin  136–7, 155–6 Beveridge, William  56 Binyon, Laurence  70 BIS. See British Information Services (BIS) Black, Misha  34 Blair, Eric  207 BLI. See British Library of Information (BLI) Blue Division  169, 177 Bokhari, Zulfikar A.  209 Boland, Bridget  59 Bolshevism  9, 169, 177 bombing war, BBC German Service and  154–61

Bose, Subhas  210 Bracken, Brendan  28, 29–30, 122, 213, 218 Bragg, William  70 Brailsford, Henry  212 Brander, Laurence  205 Briggs, Asa  203–4 Brinitzer, Carl  151 Britain magazine  67–73, 75–7 Britain To-day magazine  67–78 British Jews  7 military presence in Iraq  189 newspapers  170 radio broadcasts  132 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) editorial stance  214–15 Empire Service  203–4 employment policy  211 European Service of  135 foreign language broadcasts  209 German Service  7–9, 11, 12, 131–42, 149–52 and bombing war  154–61 in British foreign policy  133–5 imagined audiences  152–4 from Kristallnacht to outbreak of war (November 1938–August 1939)  135–7 objectives  151–2 from outbreak of war to German attack on Soviet Union (September 1939–June 1941)  137–9 voice of Britain  149–52 from war against Soviet Union to defeat of Germany (June 1941–May 1945)  139–42 in war on Germany  133–5 Hindustani service  209, 211 home service  136, 137, 212, 216 Indian Overseas service  209 Indian service  12, 16–17, 203–18 Listener, The magazine  151 as national institution  204 news  212 North American Service  69 Overseas Intelligence Department  137 security  151

Index status and repute  206 transmissions jamming  151, 152 war output  207 and Whitehall  135 British Council  67–9, 77–8 British Expeditionary Force  24 British Information Services (BIS)  18 n.1, 67, 74, 75 British Library of Information (BLI)  10, 18 n.1, 67–74, 77 British Press Service  72, 74, 212 Brodetsky, Selig  122 Brotherhood of Freedom (in Middle East)  11, 185–98 after war  196–8 in Egypt  197–8 expansion (1941–43)  189–94 leaders  193 meetings  193 from oral propaganda to education for citizenship (1943–45)  194–6, 202 n.71 origins (1940–41)  186–9 Brown, Cecil  100 Brown, Hilton  216–17 Brown, Ivor  70 Burns, Tom  174, 179 Burstyn, Joseph  89 Butler, Harold  76 Butler Education Act of 1944  16 Byrne, Alice  10 Cairo  106, 185–90, 196 Campaigns Division, MoI  30–2 Capra, Frank  83 “Careless Talk Costs Lives,” campaign  9 Carolan, Victoria  12, 39–48 carpet-bombing  156 Catholics  9–10 Caudillo  168 censorship  2, 5–9, 14, 18, 21, 23–7, 29–30 Civil War and  174 military vs. political  105 newspapers  2, 21 in North Africa  96–101 in open societies  5–9 political  95–108, 110 n.32 for security  95–6 wartime  105, 174

229

Chamberlain, Neville  69, 133–4, 136, 139, 149 Chand, Prem  208 Chapman, Guy  55 Childe, Gordon  208 Churchill, Winston  14, 16, 26–7, 29, 33, 44, 56, 62, 64, 69, 98, 102, 134, 158 cinema  14, 22, 46, 57, 60, 73, 188 civilian morale  23 Civil War  168, 169, 174 Clark, Joseph  7, 16, 81–91 Clark, Mark  97–9 Clayton, Iltyd  187 Cleveland Call and Post, The  89 communication  1–3, 5, 18, 22–4, 30 gatekeeping in  132–3 means  3, 188 networks  117–18 organizations  9 wartime  30 whispering campaigns  11, 193, 196 Communications, Media and the Imperial Experience  203 Congress Party  12 Coolie  208 Cooper, Duff  26–8, 29, 115 Cooper, Kent  103, 106 Cotterell, Anthony  55 Courier magazine  73 Crewe House. See Department for Enemy Propaganda Cripps, Stafford  207 Cripps, Thomas  83 Crisis magazine  81 Culbert, David  83 Curran, James  135 Current Affairs bulletin  54–9, 61 Daily Express  179 Daily Herald  118 Daily Telegraph  179 Darlan, Jean  5, 18, 97–100, 97–101 Darling, Malcolm  209, 212 Davis, Benjamin  86 Daye, A. N.  171 Debate Continues, The  208 Defence Regulation No. 3, Britain  95 de Gaulle, Charles  97 de la Chapelle, Bonnier  99

230

Index

de la Mare, Walter  76 democracy  17–18, 189–90 democratic societies  2 Department for Enemy Propaganda  24, 134 Derrick, Michael  170–1 desertions  116–23 Dig for Victory campaign  39 domestic publicity campaigns, MoI  30–1 Dörner, Bernward  142 “Double Victory” campaign  7, 82–3, 86–91 Dover, Cedric  208 Driberg, Tom  6, 116, 118, 120, 121 East is West  188–9 Edgar, Marriott  47 education  4, 53–4, 57, 73 campaign for  13–14 of children  193 English  71 expansion of  76 military  53 education for citizenship (1943–45)  185, 194–6, 202 n.71 Egypt  11, 185, 189–98 Eisenhower, Dwight  5, 6, 96–108 Eliot, T. S.  208 Empire Service, BBC  203–4 employment policy, BBC  211 Engel, David  114, 117, 124 Esslin, Martin  151, 155–6 Estado Novo  168 Europe  5, 6, 8, 18, 26, 86, 103–7, 133–40 Allied invasion of  87 AP communications in  103–4 BBC service in  135, 150, 153 Britain To-day in  69 censorship in  96 Jews of  124 Nazi anti-Jewish policy in  133–4 Nazis in  101 resistance movements in  1 explanation  28, 44 explicit censorship  5 Fábricas da Liberdade  173 fascism  82, 95, 107, 195 Fay, Ronald  189, 195 Federal Theater Project, Harlem  82

Festival of Britain  34 Fielden, Lionel  204, 206, 212 Fielding, Henry  170 films  3, 7, 13, 16, 18, 22, 30, 31, 33, 40, 42, 44, 81–91, 188. See also specific films Fine, Richard  5, 6, 95–108 First World War  23–4, 39–40 Fleming, Michael  124 Fletcher, Angus  72 Foreign Agents Registration Act  74 formal censorship  5, 6 Forster, E. M.  208 Frau Wernicke, Kurt und Willi  9, 156 freedom  189–90 free expression, fighting for  2–3 French North Africa  96–101 Fry, Stephen  205 Games, Abram  34, 59, 62 Gandhi, M. K.  212 gatekeeping (communication research), theory of  132, 133 Gathorne-Hardy, E.  198 Germany  113 Allied bombing of cities  154–61 BBC Service  7–9, 11, 12, 131–42 and bombing war  154–61 in British foreign policy  133–5 imagined audiences  152–4 from Kristallnacht to outbreak of war (November 1938–August 1939)  135–7 objectives  151–2 from outbreak of war to German attack on Soviet Union (September 1939–June 1941)  137–9 in war  133–5 from war against Soviet Union to defeat of Germany (June 1941–May 1945)  139–42 Nazi anti-Jewish policy in  133–5, 137, 142 Nazis vs. ordinary Germans  161 postwar era  161 source of wolfram  167 surrender  101–7 as threat to civilization  171 Gibson, W. I.  89

Index Giraud, Henri  97, 100 Goring, Marius  157 “Go to it” poster  26–8 Grafftey-Smith, Laurence  185 Grant, Mariel  33 Gray, Milner  34 Great Bengal Famine  214–15 Greene, Graham  150 Greene, Hugh Carleton  150, 151, 153 Grubb, Kenneth  172, 176, 196 Haase, Annemarie  156 Hajkowski, Thomas  216 Hancock, W. K.  21, 34 Handley, Tommy  44 Heath, Carl  214 Heineman, Elizabeth  161 Heisler, Stuart  84 Hello Punjab  208 Henrion, F. H. K.  34 Hess, Rudolf  2, 28 Hindustani service  209, 211 Hirnschal, Adolf  159–60 HIRs. See Home Intelligence Reports (HIRs) Hoare, Samuel  173 Holloway, Stanley  47 Hollywood films, African Americans in  81, 83–6 Holocaust (1938–1945)  131–42 BBC’s German-language broadcasts of  132–3 international media’s response to  132–3 Home Intelligence Division, MoI  4, 26–7, 32 Home Intelligence Reports (HIRs)  4, 14–15 Home Morale Emergency Committee  26, 27 Hore-Belisha, Leslie  139 Houseman, John  82 Hughes, Langston  83 humanism  76 Iberia, diverging neutrality in  167–79 Iberian Peninsula  11, 167–9 Ikhwan al-Huriyya. See Brotherhood of Freedom (in Middle East)

231

Ikhwan al-Huriyya  11 Ikhwan al Hurriyah  195 INC. See Indian National Congress (INC) Indian Independence Army  211 Indian National Congress (INC)  207, 213 Indian subcontinent, BBC service for  11–12, 16–17, 203–18 English language press in  207–8 impact  215–17 imperial soft power  210–15 war programming  206–10 India Office (IO)  210 informal censorship  7 information for German public  8 power of  24 in war  1–2, 7 Information Room, ABCA  57–8 Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London  1 institutional racism  7 IO. See India Office (IO) Iraq  11, 185, 189–97 Irving, Henry  1, 2, 3, 12, 18, 21–35 Jameson, Storm  76 Jestem Polakiem affair  118 Jews community  121–3 genocide  131, 140–1 Nazis crimes against  138–41 persecution  136–9 Jodl, Alfred  102 Johnson, Ernest E.  83 journalism  3, 10, 18, 57, 104, 105, 121, 206 Joyce, A. H.  212 Kark, Norman  72–3, 75 Katznelson, Ira  90 Kaul, Chandrika  11–12, 16, 203–18 Kennedy, Edward  6, 102–7 Kirkpatrick, Ivone  135 Klotman, Phyllis  84–5 Kluckhohn, Frank  100 Kristallnacht  136 Kukiel, Marian  116, 118

232

Index

Kurt und Willi, Frau Wernicke (comedy series)  154, 157 Labour Party  208 Law, Richard  141 Leeper, Rex  136, 138, 187 Leff, Laurel  131 Letters of Corporal Hirnschal, The  9, 154, 159 Liebling, A. J.  99, 100, 107 Life magazine  99 Lincoln, Abraham  74 Lindsay, Jack  59–60 Lisbon  170 Listener, The magazine  151, 204, 207–8 Lockhart, Bruce  95 London Calling  76 London Mercury  69, 73 Lucas, Robert  151, 154, 159 Maartens, Brendan  33 McAlpin, Harry  86 Macaulay, Rose  76 McClure, Robert  101 MacDonald, Malcolm  207 McKelway, Ben  105 McLaine, Ian  22, 24, 32 McLean, Robert  104–5 MacLeish, Archibald  5, 95 Maconachie, Richard  213 MacOwan, Michael  59 MacVane, John  98, 99 magazines  3, 10, 13–14, 55, 57, 67, 69, 70, 72–3, 75, 77–8, 81, 84, 99, 101, 151, 170, 178, 179, 192. See also specific magazines Make do and Mend campaign  39 Malta Ataca (Malta Attack)  172 Mann, Thomas  140 Map Review  58–9 Marshall, George C.  101, 104 Masefield, John  76 Mass Observation (MO)  4, 25, 39 Meet My Friend, series  208 Menon, Krishna  213 Menon, Narayana  208 Middle East Brotherhood of Freedom in  185–98 after war  196–8

expansion (1941–43)  189–94 from oral propaganda to education for citizenship (1943–45)  194–6, 202 n.71 origins (1940–41)  186–9 MoI, print and broadcast campaigns in  186–7 wartime oral propaganda campaigns in  185 military education  53, 54–9 Ministry of Food  12, 30 Ministry of Information (MoI), UK  1–18, 95, 113 Campaigns Division  30–2 challenges  24–5 domestic roles  29 efficiency over power  28–30 “Go to it” poster  26–8 on home front  21–35 Home Intelligence Division  4, 26–7, 32 legacies  32–4 Middle East Section  186–9, 192–7 overview  21–3 in Portugal during Second World War  167–79 prewar planning  23–4 print and broadcast campaigns in Middle East  186–7 process  25–8 reputation  22 in Spain during Second World War  167–79 “white” propaganda  174 Ministry of Morale  22 Ministry of Works  31 MO. See Mass Observation (MO) Monroe, Elizabeth  192, 196, 197–8 Monterey Peninsula Herald  106 morale  1–2 African Americans  82 campaigns  4 civilian  23 during war  4 Moro, Peter  34 Morocco  99 Morrison, Herbert  41 Moss, Carlton  7, 16, 82–7, 90–1 Murphy, Robert D.  97, 100, 101

Index Murray, Gilbert  76 Muslim League  12 Myth of the Twentieth Century, The  175 NAACP. See National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Nash, Paul  70 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)  81 National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL)  6, 116, 120–1 National Savings Committee (NSC)  12, 30, 48 n.3 campaigns  13, 39–41, 44–7 competition  45–8 Local Savings Committee  40 in London  40 posters  44 Regional Advisory Committee  40 in Scotland  40 during Second World War  39–48 themed weeks  40–5 National Savings (NS) groups  39–40 National Savings Week  40 National War Aims Committee  24 Nazis  9, 85–6, 97, 101, 118, 122, 131, 136–41, 151–7 as anti-Catholic  176 anti-Jewish policy  133–5, 137–42 BBC broadcast jamming  151, 152 carpet-bombing  156 crimes against Jews  138–41 vs. ordinary Germans  161 propaganda  9, 90, 139 Spain and  174–9 NCCL. See National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) Negro Soldier, The (film)  7, 82, 83–6 Negro Soldier in the European Theater of Operations, The (film)  86 Newbould, Frank  59 news, BBC  212 News Chronicle  124 Newsome, Noel  142 newspapers  25, 27–8, 30, 47, 57, 101, 104, 115, 131 advertisements  3, 22, 30–1, 42 British  170

233

censorship  2, 21 Daily Worker  15 editorial freedom of  27 impact of  215–16 Spanish  174, 179 wall  14, 57–8 New Weapons of War  208 New York Amsterdam News  81 New York Times  84, 100, 131 Nicholas, Sian  216 Nicolson, Harold  26, 28, 55 North Africa, political censorship in  96–101 NSC. See National Savings Committee (NSC) Office of War Information (OWI)  5, 9, 81, 95 Official Press Bureau  24 Oliver, Emily  8–9, 149–61 open societies  2–3, 5–6, 30 oral propaganda  186–9 Orwell, George  13, 121, 207–8 Os Portugueses perante a Aliança Inglêsa (The Portuguese before the English Alliance)  170 OWI. See Office of War Information (OWI) Palestine  11, 136, 185, 190, 194, 197 Palmrose, Richard D.  89 Pax Britannica  211 Pêlo à mocidade (Call to Youth)  172 PEP. See Political and Economic Planning (PEP) Pereszlenyi, Julius  151 Perowne, Stewart  187, 190 persuasion  11, 185 Pétain, Henri Philippe  97 photojournalism  3 Picture Post  3, 10 Pittsburgh Courier  82 Poland  9–10, 18, 113, 137 anti-Semitism in  114–16, 117–19 Germany as threat to  171 Nazi crimes against  138–41 Polish-Jewish relations  118, 137–9 policy censorship  95–6 Polish-Jewish Soldier  116 Polish National Council  115

234 Political and Economic Planning (PEP)  22 political censorship, in Second World War  95–108, 110 n.32 German surrender  101–7 North Africa  96–101 Political Warfare Executive (PWE)  134 Por Avión  178–9 Portugal  18 authoritarianism  168 and Great Britain relationship  168, 170–3 importance to British war  167 MoI in  167–79 source of wolfram  167 Post-Gazette  105 Potter, Simon  216 Powell, Dilys  70 Press and Publicity Committee  47 Preston Guardian  47 print  11, 13, 40, 186 Pritt, D. N.  114–15 propaganda  2, 10, 11, 23–4, 26 BBC  135 black  186, 187 British  67, 71–2, 135, 139–42, 155 campaign  134 Congress  212 cultural vs. political  70, 75, 77 domestic  95 nation-specific  172 Nazi  9, 90, 139 news selection for  142 oral  185, 186–9 in religious terms  189–90 war  71, 205 white  174, 186 public opinion  4, 5, 17, 26–8, 30–1, 43, 69, 74, 98, 121, 124, 169, 196–7, 207, 216 PWE. See Political Warfare Executive (PWE) Pyle, Ernie  5, 100–1 racism institutional  7 movies on  83–6 in United States  82 Raczyński, Edward  113, 114, 117, 118

Index Radcliffe, Cyril  21, 22, 30, 32, 34 radio  133–4, 203. See also British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) RAF. See Royal Air Force (RAF) Reader’s Digest magazine  75 “red poster” campaign  24 Reich, Elizabeth  85 Reith, John  68, 134, 203, 204 Reuters  212 Roberts, Homer  86 Rogers, John  172 Roosevelt, Franklin D.  95, 96 Rosenberg, Alfred  175 Royal Air Force (RAF)  61–2 Royal Navy  61–2 Ruhr  155–6, 159 rumors campaigns  186, 187 Russia  9, 18, 131, 137–9, 169, 176, 177, 179 Sahni, Balraj  209 Salazar, Antonio  168 Salute the Soldier  41 salvage campaign  32 Santa Barbara News-Press  106 Save and Lend for Victory (film)  44 Sayers, Dorothy L.  76 Scaife, Christopher  194–7 Schwarzbart, Ignacy  115, 116 Scotsman, The  136 Scott, Anthony  33 Scott-James, Rolfe Arnold  69, 73, 74 SEAC. See South East Asia Command (SEAC) Seaton, Jean  135 Second World War  1, 33, 149 African American soldiers during  81–91 BBC and India during  203–18 BBC service during  132–42, 149–61 black visibility during  82–3 British periodicals in United States during  67–78 Brotherhood of Freedom in Middle East during  185–98 cultural memory of  34 Jews mass murder in Nazi regime  131, 139–41

Index Ministry of Information (MoI), UK during  1–18, 21–35 in Portugal  167–79 in Spain  167–79 National Savings Committee during  12, 30, 39–48 political censorship in  95–108 self-censorship  2, 5–7 Seul, Stephanie  7–8, 131–42 SHAEF. See Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) Shah, Iqbal Ali  213 Shapiro, Robert Moses  131 Shaw, Bernard  208 Shebbeare, William  57–8 Sikorski, Władisław  115 Sinclair, Ray  62, 63 SOE. See Special Operations Executive (SOE) South East Asia Command (SEAC)  205 Soviet Union  9, 113–14, 137–9, 176 and Great Britain, alliance between  9, 169 radio broadcasts  132 religious freedom in  177 Spain  9, 18 Francoists and the Axis, relationship between  168–9 and Great Britain relationship  168–9, 173–9 importance to British war  167 MoI in  167–79 Nazis and  174–9 newspapers of  174 supplier of pyrites  167 Special Operations Executive (SOE)  11 Spender, Stephen  208 Stark, Freya  11, 16, 185–98 Steed, Wickham  208 Stephenson, Donald  206 Subject India  212 Súñer, Ramón Serrano  168–9 Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF)  101–4 Szerer, Emanuel  115 Tablet, The  174, 175 Tambimuttu, J. M.  208

235

Teamwork (film)  7, 16, 81, 82, 83, 86–91 These Names Will Live  208 Thompson, Stephen  13, 53–64 Thomson, George  95, 96 Through Eastern Eyes  208 Time magazine  84 Treaty of Windsor (1899)  168 United Kingdom  5, 7 anti-Semitism in  114, 119–20 BIS  18 n.1, 67, 74, 75 Canadian forces in  61 image of  68 Jews in Polish forces in  114 Ministry of Information  1–18, 95, 113 United States black press in  81 BLI in  67–78 Britain To-day magazine in  67–78 British Council in  67–9, 77–8 British periodicals during Second World War  67–78 British publicity in  67, 74 Bulletins from Britain magazine in  67–73, 75, 77 OWI  81, 95 racism in  82 Untouchable  208 Vichy  97–101 Victory Song (film)  44 Vishwanathan, Gauri  204 Voice of America  131 voice of Britain, BBC German Service  149–52 Wald, James  5, 6, 8, 113–24 wall newspapers, ABCA  57–8 War bulletin  54–9 War Cabinet  27, 29–30, 33 War in Pictures magazine  179 War Savings Campaign  40 War Savings journal  40, 44, 46–7 Warship Weeks  40–1, 43, 45, 47 wartime censorship  105, 174 Wartime Social Surveys  4 War Weapons Weeks  40–1, 42–3 Washington Star  105

236 Wasserstein, Bernard  114 Waste Paper Recovery Association  31 Watkins, Ernest  55 Welch, David  2, 22 Welles, Orson  82 Wells, H. G.  208 Wernicke, Frau  156–8 West, Rebecca  208 West, W. J.  212 Western Europe  26 What’s Wrong With The Germans? (play)  59, 60 Wheeler-Bennett, John  67, 70 Where Do We Go From Here?  59, 60

Index whispering campaigns  11, 186, 193, 196 Why Didn’t the Press Shout? (Shapiro)  131–42 Why We Fight series  83 Wichhart, Stefanie  11, 16, 185–98 Williams, Rushbrook  186, 187, 210–11, 214 Williams, W. E.  13, 54, 55–6, 59 Willis, Ted  60 Wilson, Horace  24 Wings for Victory  41, 42 Woodruff, Douglas  174 żydokomuna (Judeo-communism)  114