America’s use of propaganda in WWII
All nations during war tactically use propaganda to elicit support based on nationalistic feelings. During the Second World War, most of the nations involved spent tax payer funds to pay for these advertisements. Yet, the impact of America’s use of propaganda weighed differently from those opposing countries. America focused on three key points: dehumanization of the enemy, self portrayal of heroism, and calling upon the women of the nation to stand up and take action in the war.
The process of dehumanization was geared toward creating the “us” and the “them.” The modern day examples include the Rwandan genocide where the Hutu perpetrators called the Tutsis “cockroaches.” During the Armenian genocide, the Ottoman Turks called the Armenian’s “Dhimmi,” which classified them as non-Muslim infidels. This process made the victims feel inhumane and helped mold the public in believing that the enemy was actually not human.
This poster is the representation of a Japanese soldier hitting what seems to be a helpless American man. The Japanese officer has been drawn with a face of brutality and evil. The American looks hurt and in need of help along with the POW’s portrayed in the background, marching to their death. The Japanese is dehumanized in this ad in the written message. The Japanese soldier is not just called a Japanese man, but a “murdering Jap.” The creator of the ad has linked the man’s nationality, which is demoralized with the shortened term “Jap,” and the act of murder, as one and the same. Whoever laid eyes on this propaganda would have been touched by the image drawn yet outraged by the words depicted. Other dehumanizing images entail Japanese as huge gorillas linking them to the Japanese classic, King Kong. King Kong was no regular gorilla in that he is about one hundred times the size of a normal ape and terrorizes the people of Japan, which in turn relates it to the terrorization of Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces. This implies that the “Jap’s” were as good as apes to the American public. American ads of Germany depicted SS soldiers wearing the same two inch wide moustache that Hitler wore which heightened U.S. anger towards Nazi Germany. In dehumanizing the enemy, America was able to create strong standing support at home by implementing these views upon the public.
As previously outlined each country involved in the war had someone powerful in their nation who for them was a hero. For example, in Germany, a man who implemented mass programs of ethnic cleansing was seen as a national hero. Hitler, for the Germans, was the man who was leading them into a new Germany. After paying reparations for World War One, with the Treaty of Versailles, Germany needed the antidote of heroism, and Hitler was the medicine. Americans celebrated their heroes through the use of propaganda. Take the picture at Iwo Jima for example:
This picture has been the face of World War Two propaganda and as a landmark in our national victory. The six soldiers in this photo, Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, John Bradley Harlon Block, Michael Strank, and Rene Gagnon, have been placed at a level in our culture that few ever reach. The photographer, Joe Rosenthal has captured a moment in history that impressed the nation. In a time of crisis, a nation looks for a hero to give them the reassurance and confidence that victory is within reach, and this picture provides that. A soldier planting his nation’s flag on enemy soil is an emblem of triumph across most cultures, and America was no exception.
The image became a national symbol during the war through postal stamps, statues, and movies.
It was used effectively to boost our Americans’ approval of the war and enthusiasm for victory. The six soldiers, although three died shortly after, became celebrated war heroes. They may have not excelled heroically on the battle field, but by being in the right place at the right time, they stood above the rest.
Throughout human history women have been oppressed in most societies, including our own. It was not until 1920 that women were allowed to vote, and still after that, women were minimized into the classic “house wife.” The Second World War was the first instance where the world witnessed the uprising of women unparalleled to any other time. Second World War propaganda posters of women asked for them to help with the war in terms of working in the factories producing arms and clothes, or working as nurses on actual war grounds. Women were being asked to come out and take part in this war which was replicated in other countries involved in the war. This definitely escalated civilian attention and participation in war efforts. One poster that summarizes the main idea of all Second World War women propaganda features the character “Rosie the Riveter.”
To this very day, this image is hung on the walls of women in America or placed as a background on a girl’s Myspace. This image portrayed a woman dressed in a man’s working attire, rolling up her sleeve and showing her muscle. The act of flexing your muscle has always been a manly cliché. Having a woman portraying herself as good as a man, with the words, “We Can Do It,” above her head began a revolution around the country that is still felt today. This form of propaganda started an uproar that would soon allow thousands of women to join the war effort. What does that do? It molds the country into the concept of one. We are united through the cooperation of the war. Men and women alike were rising up and doing what they could to help bring victory home.
American propaganda, like other nations’ propaganda, was geared in dehumanizing the enemy and portraying themselves victoriously. Yet America effectively used real images of our soldiers, on enemy grounds or at home, to send out their message. American propaganda delivered our reason for war, which is consistently the same reason of all our wars: Protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our heroic propaganda highlighted that very line from our constitution.
In the final analysis, although propaganda was utilized to different degrees by all of the states involved, it should be understood that the role of propaganda is not quantifiable. It is not possible to say that any particular poster, song, painting or photograph caused a certain event to happen. Propaganda did not track down German U-Boats and destroy them; the capture of the enigma coding machine did that. It did not cause the Germans to lose the Battle of Britain or the Battle of Stalingrad. It did, however, help to produce a feeling in everyone connected with the war, and in many ways, it was a major catalyst of it. With that understanding, one must recognize that propaganda exists at all times and that it is heightened in times of conflict. Propaganda is the ultimate weapon in the war of ideas.
Appendix
1. Excerpt of Winston Churchill speech to the House of Commons, June 18th, 1940.
“What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
2. Winston Churchill to the House of Commons on August 20th, 1940, at the height of the Battle of Britain.
“The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day…”
Bibliography
1. Dower, John W. War without mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York:
Pantheon Books, 1986
2. Morris, Ivan I. The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975
3. Kotkin, Stephen. Magnetic Mountain, Stalinism as a Civilization. University of California Press. 1995
4. Brittain, Vera. England‘s Hour. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005
5. Churchill, Winston. The Second World War
6. Colman, Penny. Rosie the Riveter: Women Workers on the Home Front in World War II. Crown Publishers, Inc. New York. 1995.
7. Baird, Jay, W., To Die For Germany: Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon. Indiana
University Press: Bloomington, 1990.
[1] Winston Churchill. November 10th, 1942. The Lord Mayor’s Luncheon at Mansion House in London, England.
[2] Page 203. John W. Dower. War without mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War.
[3] Page 191. John W. Dower. War without mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War.
[4] Page 236. John W. Dower. War without mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War.
[5] Page 241. John W. Dower. War without mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War.
[6] Page 277. Ivan I. Morris. The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan.
[7] Page 293. John W. Dower. War without mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War.