JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 202
In a quick follow-up to my propaganda post of 4 August I’d like to add a couple of images and also distinguish propaganda maps from anthropomorphic/humorous maps. Both of the former are Nazi-generated and depict the threat posed by the rest of the world to the German nation. Somehow, even in 1934, when the first map was published, the German propaganda machine evoked the Big Lie in this depiction of Czechoslovakia’s aerial threat to the Nazi state. (The Big Lie I’m sure lives in history for time immemorial, but in the 20th century its possession mainly lives in the hands of Adolf Hitler, who in the contemptible and contemptuous Mein Kampf writes openly and at great length on the importance of using the Big Lie as a propaganda technique. He also recognized and copied the lessons he learned of the plagarized Czarist hate-tool The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, copying the essential elements of its propagandistic techniques. (The Big Lie was called so because it was so huge and incredible that its created statement was thought to be true because "no one could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously".) This map then is one cartographic representation of the Big Lie.
The second map is a representational presentation of statistical data showing that tiny Germany could in no way be deemed the “Aggressor” nation in the beginning of the war given the colossally disproportionate amount of land masses between themselves and the British Empire. If you didn’t think about this for more than one second, or if you just needed to believe it, it would make sense.
On the other hand there is a class of maps (such as the following) which may well be very-lightly propagandistic. (For a wonderful display and description of these maps see the superb bibliodyssey site) These maps are far more intelligent and intellectual than any of the propaganda maps I’ve looked at, and are more satirical in their approach to propaganda and their intent to influence thought and opnion than the outright lies represented in de facto propaganda maps.
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