Propaganda and Photography During World War II

World War II is thought of as a time that changed the idea of propaganda as we know it today. There were many new military technologies that were useful in the war but propaganda was one of, if not the most, important. The Nationalsozialist (“National Socialist”) Party used propaganda to put out hatred toward the Jewish community, among others, but the United States uses the same photos to get the message out to Americans that the Nazi Party was up to a type of brainwashing. Not only was the Second World War the pinnacle of propaganda and war photography, but it laid the groundwork for modern day propaganda in terms of social media, news, and the internet. 

Since its creation, photography has always been a huge part of how people view and have opinions about war. People back home needed proof to be swayed to support the fight. During the Crimean War, photographer Roger Fenton was hired by Thomas Agnew, who had the assistance of England’s Secretary of State for War, who provided funds but also had an interest in bumping up the public approval rating for the war [1]. This expedition by Fenton did not include any of the atrocities of war; he only pictured mild injuries and clean generals. It was an early example of how war photography was used as propaganda because what people took as fact was what they saw with their eyes. David Welch explains what the four purposes of propaganda are in his chapter "The Culture of War: Ideas, Arts, and Propaganda, in which he states: “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 co-operation of neutral countries; (4) strengthen the support of one’s allies” [2]. 

The Nazi Propaganda Ministry under Joseph Goebbels utilized staged photographs to idolize Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime while also portraying Jewish people and others in a false light. The Allied powers used war photography to create a sense of unity and call to action while also breaking down the propaganda that the Nazis used. Susan Sontag said famously, “To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. To photograph someone is a subliminal murder” [3]. The Nazi party exercised this description of photography with their portrayal of Jewish people in the 1930s and throughout the war. It was a despicable act because the ruling party had the power of technology on their side when their subjects had no way of dismissing this portrayal. 

As strong as the propaganda was, it was used by the United States to work against them. In late September of 1940, New York’s newest daily newspaper, the PM, had on its front cover a Nazi propaganda photograph of Adolf Hitler standing and holding hands with innocent young children. This was a shock to the regular American reader because at first glance it seemed like for whatever reason, this paper was advocating for the enemy. Except this was not the case. At a closer look, one can see that the headline reads “How Hitler Deceived his People- A Picture Analysis.” Carol Payne argues that the PM used such images:

As part of an innovative campaign of counter-propaganda. In effect, they attempted to inoculate their US readership against the effects of National Socialist and Italian Fascist propaganda by reproducing the very images at the heart of their protest, but with their original intent defused by captions and accompanying texts that draw attention to photographic artifice and contextual manipulation [4].

Payne explains how these newspaper articles addressed who Hitler was and what he was up to instead of letting it be out there. By showing these photos and describing the tools used to produce them in PM, readers could begin chipping away at the power of propaganda.

Endnotes

1. Lisa Robinson, "History of Photography: Photos as Propaganda," Photofocus, August 17, 2017, photofocus.com/photography/history-of-photography-photos-as-propaganda/.

2. David Welch, “The Culture of War: Ideas, Arts, and Propaganda," The Oxford Illustrated History of World War II, Oxford University Press, 2015, 373–401.

3. Susan Sontag, On Photography (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001),

   14-15.

4. Carol Payne, “War, Lies, and the News Photo: Second World War Photographic Propaganda in ‘PM’s Weekly’ (1940-1941),' RACAR: Revue d’art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review 39, no. 2 (January 2014): 29–42.