Nazi "book review"--The Rules of Atrocity Propaganda". Printed ca. 1938/1039. 2pp, 11x8 inches. These are original negative photographs of the front and back of the original two-page publication. This was part of a large collection from the Library of Congress, sent to the library in 1946, "source unknown". This is in fine condition, and rare. $195.
ref: JF Ptak Science Books Post 1490
As a small cog in the machinery of the Nazi Big Lie, this short sheet (supposedly written by a " Theodore Kesselmeier"1), outlines a campaign of British anti-Nazi psychological warfare, and was written around 1938/9. It is written in a book review format whose aim was the 1938 publication by Sidney Rogerson2, Propaganda in the Next War, which was an alert (described as "brilliant" by John A. Pollard in The Public Opinion Quarterly for Autumn 1945) to the British government to establish central coordinating offices for information and communication for what the author felt to be the impending war with Germany. In many ways Rogerson was responding to an enormous flood of information coming out of Germany about its own impending future, from the election and seizure-of-power by Adolf Hitler, to books like Ewald Barnse Raum und Volk im Welkriege (translated into Germany Prepares for War) of 1933, and on and on, a growing high tide that was without end. (Even from the most base popular study of Germany's desires, for example, looking at every issue of the Illustriete Zeitung (Leipzig) from 1933 to 1939 as I have done, it is overwhelmingly obvious that Germany was preparing for the next war. The case is made constantly and boldly in the magazine, which served in a way as Germany's version of LIFE magazine.)
But the "reviewer" finds the Rogerson work insulting and militaristic, hateful; an attack upon Germany. He/they write(s) that the book is an offense, and part of an effort of "the cold-blooded and unrestricted manner in which Britain has prepared this latest war against Germany". This part is odd because even at this late date, and given what the knew about the German war aims, Great Britain had done very little about preparing for war even until Munich.
I have a number of these propagandistic pieces that came out of Germany at this time, some of which have been written about on this blog, and it seems no surprise now to see how many of them paint Germany as a victim of the war aims of the countries nearby: Poland and Czechoslovakia were both presented as late as 1938 as having designs on Germany. This is just one of many examples of Nazi propaganda on propaganda, issues of lies within lies to the secret house of even-more-inner lies.
[page 2 is in the "continued reading" section, below.]
Notes:
1. I suspect that "Kesselmeier" was the nom de plume of a section of writers laboring away in the dream factory of the psych-ops part of the Nazi war machinery. It is much easier to produce reports when you have an entire group of people working on the project without need for the benefit of proof--or, for that matter--of truth.
2. Rogerson's entry in Who's Who: “Publicity and Public Relations Consultant and author. Born 22nd of October 1894. Son of the Reverend S. Rogerson. B.A. in Modern History 1916; Served in the European War;
Commissioned in the West Yorkshire Regiment 1916-1919. Demobilised in 1919. 1923-30 was Publicity Manager for the F.B.I (Federation of British Industry); Joined I.C.I (Imperial Chemical Industries) in 1930; Publicity Controller I.C.I Ltd., 1932-1952. Publicity and Public Relations Advisor to the Army Council, War Office, 1952-3-4. Hon. Col. 44th (Home Counties) Infantry Division. Signals Regiment T.A., 1955. Publications: Twelve Days, 1933: Last of the Ebb, 1937: Propaganda in the Next War,1938: Old Enchantment, 1938: Our Bird Book, 1946: Both Sides Of The Road, 1949."
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