Propaganda during World War II

Propaganda. In layman's terms, it is a piece of media deploying persuasive techniques to convince the masses to side with the side of propagandists. It is extremely effective and can become the single most powerful weapon in times of stress. It is hard to effectively claim what propaganda is since you need to render both sides of a piece of information to properly acknowledge its presence but if you keep your eyes and mind open, you'll realise a lot of media, especially during the time of elections are a piece of propaganda. Today, we are taking a look at propaganda posters but we aren't taking the ones from the present. Today, we'll take a look at propaganda media from the past, specifically World War II, and its influence on the public during that time.

Germany

"The essence of propaganda consists of winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never escape from it again. " wrote Joseph Goebbels in his diary. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, their attempts to fully win the war against Axis Powers involved the sterilization of Jews from Europe. The attempts to carry it out were done slowly after coming to power but the Nazi message was slowly seeped through art, media, literature, and music. The motto was to fuel the anger, resentment and helplessness Germans felt after the defeat in World War I. Milking it thoroughly, the Nazis fueled the resentment against the Allies in World War II propaganda. 

Image taken from calvin.edu
Image text translates to "Into the dust with all enemies of greater Germany"

Image taken from history.navy.mil

Image text translates to "The Reich will never be destroyed if you are united and loyal"

Italy

Mussolini's propaganda efforts during World War II were similar to Germans and Nazi propaganda. A lot of it focused on showing Italy as great and the Allied powers as weak and cowards. Mousslini also highlighted the success of the Italian fascist state. 

Image taken from Alamy
Image text translates to "Here are the liberators"

UK

In the UK, propaganda was still present but things took a bit of a different turn as opposed to its enemy countries. For one, The UK government spent its money publishing propaganda posters about saving money, growing your own produce, keeping mum to discourage spilling important secrets to enemy spies in the country and painting Allied powers as victorious during the war. A lot of posters showed Winston Churchill, prime minister of the UK at the time appearing on pamphlets with words of encouragement to boost morale among the public. 

Image taken from bridgeman images

Image taken from The National Archives Beta

Image taken from The Business Insider

US

The US stayed mostly out of World War II but after 1941, President Roosevelt set up OWI which became the source of propaganda in America. Citizens like the one in the US were encouraged to save gas with posters like those shown below. Men were encouraged to join the army or navy and women, like in the UK, were encouraged to join factories to fix the empty seats of factory. People were alerted to be aware of the spies and keep mum in public. 

Image taken from "The National Archives"

Image taken from the archives. gov

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