This book offers the first in-depth intellectual and cultural history of British subversive propaganda during the Second World War. Focussing on the Political Warfare Executive (PWE), it tells the story of British efforts to undermine German morale and promote resistance against Nazi hegemony. Staffed by civil servants, journalists, academics and anti-fascist European exiles, PWE oversaw the BBC European Service alongside more than forty unique clandestine radio stations; they maintained a prolific outpouring of subversive leaflets and other printed propaganda; and they trained secret agents in psychological warfare. British policy during the occupation of Germany stemmed in part from the wartime insights and experiences of these propagandists. Rather than analyse military strategy or tactics, British Subversive Propaganda during the Second World War draws on a wealth of archival material from collections in Germany and Britain to develop a critical genealogy of British ideas about Germany and National Socialism. British propagandists invoked discourses around history, morality, psychology, sexuality and religion in order to conceive of an audience susceptible to morale subversion. Revealing much about the contours of mid-century European thought and the origins of our own heavily propagandised world, this book provides unique insights for anyone researching British history, the Second World War, or the fight against fascism.

By 1939, Josef Goebbels had won the struggle for control of the propaganda process in Nazi Germany. In contrast, it took the arrival of Sefton Delmer in 1941 for anyone in Britain to understand how to use propaganda to subvert the German war effort. Through the shadowy Political Warfare Executive, the ‘black’ radio stations Delmer created lured German listeners with jazz and pornography (both banned), mixed with subversive rumours. Millions of ‘black’ leaflets – perfect forgeries of German documents, with subtly altered texts – were produced, their aim to encourage malingering, desertion and sabotage.Black Propaganda looks at the variety of propaganda used in the Second World War and explains how British and Polish intelligence worked together on a number of key security issues, including the ‘Enigma’ machine and the German V-weapons programme.

Om briternes psykologiske krigsførelse, specielt den sorte propaganda, som bevidst forsøgte at vildlede fjenden og nedbryde hans moral. F.eks. falske officielle dokumenter og breve, vejledninger i at simulere sygdomme, radioudsendelser, rygter og meget andet.

This book offers the first sustained analysis of the interactions between British writers, propaganda and culture from the Second World War to the Cold War. It traces the involvement of a series of major cultural figures in domestic and international propaganda campaigns and throws new light on the global deployment of British propaganda and cultural diplomacy in colonial and post-colonial theatres such as Cyprus, India and Sierra Leone. Chapters re-evaluate the propaganda work of prominent writers including Arthur Koestler and Dylan Thomas in the light of new archival research, study how organisations including the BBC, British Council and Ministry of Information engaged with new media forms, analyse cultural representations of propaganda service and investigate how British literature and culture was deployed and projected as a form of soft power across the globe. Featuring contributions from a variety of disciplines, including literary studies, visual culture, book history and radio history, this book brings together a constellation of established and emerging scholars to show the crucial role played in shaping and mediating the techniques and content of British information campaigns of the mid-twentieth century.

A bold new history showing that the fear of Communism was a major factor in the outbreak of World War II The Spectre of War looks at a subject we thought we knew—the roots of the Second World War—and upends our assumptions with a masterful new interpretation. Looking beyond traditional explanations based on diplomatic failures or military might, Jonathan Haslam explores the neglected thread connecting them all: the fear of Communism prevalent across continents during the interwar period. Marshalling an array of archival sources, including records from the Communist International, Haslam transforms our understanding of the deep-seated origins of World War II, its conflicts, and its legacy. Haslam offers a panoramic view of Europe and northeast Asia during the 1920s and 1930s, connecting fascism’s emergence with the impact of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. World War I had economically destabilized many nations, and the threat of Communist revolt loomed large in the ensuing social unrest. As Moscow supported Communist efforts in France, Spain, China, and beyond, opponents such as the British feared for the stability of their global empire, and viewed fascism as the only force standing between them and the Communist overthrow of the existing order. The appeasement and political misreading of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy that followed held back the spectre of rebellion—only to usher in the later advent of war. Illuminating ideological differences in the decades before World War II, and the continuous role of pre- and postwar Communism, The Spectre of War provides unprecedented context for one of the most momentous calamities of the twentieth century.

In 1942, with a black-market chicken tucked under his arm by his mother, Leo Marks left his father's famous bookshop, 84 Charing Cross Road, and went off to fight the war. He was twenty-two. Soon recognized as a cryptographer of genius, he became head of communications at the Special Operations Executive (SOE), where he revolutionized the codemaking techniques of the Allies and trained some of the most famous agents dropped into occupied Europe. As a top codemaker, Marks had a unique perspective on one of the most fascinating and, until now, little-known aspects of the Second World War. This stunning memoir, often funny, always gripping and acutely sensitive to the human cost of each operation, provides a unique inside picture of the extraordinary SOE organization at work and reveals for the first time many unknown truths about the conduct of the war. SOE was created in July 1940 with a mandate from Winston Churchill to "set Europe ablaze." Its main function was to infiltrate agents into enemy-occupied territory to perform acts of sabotage and form secret armies in preparation for D-Day. Marks's ingenious codemaking innovation was to devise and implement a system of random numeric codes printed on silk. Camouflaged as handkerchiefs, underwear, or coat linings, these codes could be destroyed message by message, and therefore could not possibly be remembered by the agents, even under torture. Between Silk and Cyanide chronicles Marks's obsessive quest to improve the security of agents' codes and how this crusade led to his involvement in some of the war's most dramatic and secret operations. Among the astonishing revelations is his account of the code war between SOE and the Germans in Holland. He also reveals for the first time how SOE fooled the Germans into thinking that a secret army was operating in the Fatherland itself, and how and why he broke the code that General de Gaulle insisted be available only to the Free French. By the end of this incredible tale, truly one of the last great World War II memoirs, it is clear why General Eisenhower credited the SOE, particularly its communications department, with shortening the war by three months. From the difficulties of safeguarding the messages that led to the destruction of the atomic weapons plant at Rjukan in Norway to the surveillance of Hitler's long-range missile base at Peenemünde to the true extent of Nazi infiltration of Allied agents, Between Silk and Cyanide sheds light on one of the least-known but most dramatic aspects of the war. Writing with the narrative flair and vivid characterization of his famous screenplays, Marks gives free rein to his keen sense of the absurd and wry wit without ever losing touch with the very human side of the story. His close relationship with "the White Rabbit" and Violette Szabo -- two of the greatest British agents of the war -- and his accounts of the many others he dealt with result in a thrilling and poignant memoir that celebrates individual courage and endeavor, without losing sight of the human cost and horror of war.

To discover how war can affect the status of women in industrial countries, Leila Rupp examines mobilization propaganda directed at women in Nazi Germany and the United States. Her book explores the relationship between ideology and policy, challenging the idea that wars improve the status of women by bringing them into new areas of activity. Using fresh sources for both Germany and the United States, Professor Rupp considers the images of women before and during the war, the role of propaganda in securing their support, and the ideal of feminine behavior in each country. Her analysis shows that propaganda was more intensive in the United States than in Germany, and that it figured in the success of American mobilization and the failure of the German campaign to enlist women's participation. The most important function of propaganda, however, consisted in adapting popular conceptions to economic need. The author finds that public images of women can adjust to wartime priorities without threatening traditional assumptions about social roles. The mode of adaptation, she suggests, helps to explain the lack of change in women's status in postwar society. Far-reaching in its implications for feminist studies, this book offers a new and fruitful approach to the social, economic, and political history of Germany and the United States. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.