Dr. Philip M. Taylor, author
of "Munitions of the Mind - A History of Propaganda from Ancient World to the
Present Day," Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 1995,
discusses the legal issue in more depth:
For most of 1918 , the principal method of distributing enemy propaganda was
leaflets not airplane. This was because at the end of the 1917, four captured British
airmen were tried by a German court martial for ‘having distributed pamphlets
containing insults against the German army and Government among German troops in the
Western Theatre of War.’ Although two of the accused were acquitted due to lack of
evidence, and although the court itself questioned the ruling about whether this act was a
violation of international law, two officers were sentenced to ten years imprisonment.
When news of this punishment reached the war office in January 1918, all leaflet dropping
by airplane was suspended. Reprisals were threatened, resulting in the pardoning of the
two British officers, who were returned to their camps and treated as normal prisoners of
war. But the Air Ministry remained reluctant to commit its men and machines to leaflet
raids and the suspension order remained in force until October 1918, barely a month before
the end of war.
The problem of the German threat is mentioned by Captain P. Chalmers Mitchell in a
23 February 1918 report entitled “The Aerial Distribution of Propaganda to the Enemy.
He says in part:
From the mechanical point of view, the use of aeroplanes is by far the most
satisfactory mode of distribution. Relatively large loads of printed matter can be carried
swiftly and distributed in bundles, packets, or single sheets with a high degree of
accuracy and in a great range of weather conditions. For some time this method was
employed and in the end of 1916 and the beginning of 1917 arrangements were made for a
great increase in the output and distribution of propaganda. Early in 1917, however, four
captured English airmen were court-martialed in Germany for the dissemination of
inflammatory literature, and although these were acquitted on a technical point of
evidence, German Headquarters intimated through diplomatic channels, that the
dissemination of inflammatory literature by airmen would be dealt with as an offence
against the laws of war…Moreover, it was ascertained in conference with G.H.Q.,
France that it was probable that the Germans in their efforts to suppress the distribution
of Allied propaganda would not be punctilious in bringing charges against captured airmen.
The correctness of this opinion was made clear in December 1917 when two captured British
airmen were sentenced to ten years penal servitude for the distribution of duplicates of
letters written by German prisoners of war or captured in their possession. It was
accordingly decided that the method of distribution by aeroplanes must be abandoned.
Neil Leybourne Smith’s History of 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, RAAF adds:
February through to March 1918 involved the Squadron in many photographic
missions around the Armentieres area where fighting was intense. Some flights were
assigned to drop propaganda leaflets over enemy rest camps well behind the front line.
Their purpose was to unsettle the enemy by letting them know that good food and warm
billets awaited them if they choose to surrender. However these missions were discontinued
after it became known throughout the Corps that pilots brought down in enemy territory
while dropping leaflets were treated brutally by the enemy.
German Leaflet balloon -1916
Mitchell goes on to discuss German dissemination and propaganda:
The Germans use paper balloons in large quantities. Samples of the balloons they
employ have been obtained by G.H.Q., France and submitted to the Munitions Inventions by
M.I.7.B. It cannot be said that there is any evidence as to the efficacy of German
propaganda amongst the British troops. Samples of it are sent over from G.H.Q., France and
examined by M.I.7.B. They consist of flysheets in bad English announcing German successes
on other fronts, pictures of the happy fate of prisoners of war in Germany, boasts of the
results of the U-boat campaign and copies of the Continental Times. Propaganda specially
destined for the French is more effective.
Gazette des Ardennes
This 25 July 1917 copy of the German newspaper was found “caught in barbed wire
along with many other copies...” according to a pinned note signed by a Captain C.S.
Hunt. These newspapers were usually written in French but for some unknown reason this one
is written in English. One can see that the revolution has started and instead of
fighting, the Russian troops are debating and walking away from the front. The commanders
have decided to shoot the deserters. The newspaper concludes that it is not the men who
are at fault, but their leaders who have sent them into battle to uselessly die.
The pinned note attached to the newspaper.
Mitchell continues:
The chief effort is the Gazette des Ardennes, a weekly newspaper written in French
and with occasionally an illustrated supplement. It is distributed both by aeroplane and
by balloon. It is cleverly conducted, containing much inflammatory political matter, ex
parte statements as to the progress of the war, attacks on the English, news of individual
French prisoners, lists of French and Belgians alleged to have been killed by the action
of Allied Airmen. From a propagandist point of view, it is much more unscrupulous and
probably more effective than our Courrier, but this is due to the fact that a special
effort has been made to exclude "inflammatory" matter from the Courrier.
A German propaganda balloon fell in Switzerland during WWI with some
copies of the Gazette des Ardennes still attached to it. The balloon and contents
will be a featured special exhibition of the Museum of the Old Arsenal in Solothurn,
Switzerland.
Jean Jacques Waitz, a French propagandist and Alsatian artist code-named
"Hansi,” talked about his time writing propaganda for the French in WWI in his
1922 book Through Enemy Lines. Here, he mentions the German Gazette des Ardennes:
The Germans, at the same time, were already powerfully equipped. They had at
Charleville a good printing press that published the Gazette des Ardennes; The Gazette of
the Ardennes was not only intended for the unfortunate inhabitants of the invaded regions.
The German Command intended to use it also to demoralize French soldiers and the
population of the interior. At the end of 1914, the newspaper was distributed by post,
balloons and aircraft.
On 1 March 1916, the French printed a forgery of the German Gazette des Ardennes.
It was fully illustrated, and had paper, format, and font that were so similar to the
German newspaper that it was difficult to identify as a French fake. Once again the German
newspapers were furious. One picture that really drew their ire was an illustration in
which a German soldier holds a French baby lovingly whom he feeds. The photographer says
to him that it is a touching scene, to which the German soldier replies “I killed the
mother.”
Bernard Wilkin and Maude Williams mention the Gazette in their article German
Wartime Anglophobic Propaganda in France, 1914–1945:
During the First World War a ban on all neutral and Allied newspapers ensured that
there was no alternative to the Gazette des Ardennes. This embargo forced French civilians
desiring to know the latest news about the war to read German propaganda. In November 1914
Intelligence and propaganda unit Abteilung IIIb launched a newspaper named La Gazette des
Ardennes. It was a well-planned initiative managed by German supervisors and an editorial
team composed of French and Alsatian journalists. For the whole war this widely
distributed newspaper (publication increased from 25,000 copies per issue in 1915 to
175,000 copies in 1917) would become the most prominent voice of Anglophobia in the
occupied territories. Despite being banned, the Gazette des Ardennes also found its way
into France through neutral countries or by post… From November 1914 to April 1915,
the newspaper published no fewer than 124 Anglophobic articles – 3 and a half per
issue. The newspaper was delivered by unmanned balloons and German agents posting the
forbidden newspapers to France from neutral countries… In 1914–18 the Germans
largely built their campaign of Anglophobia on the idea that Britain was a greedy empire
built on unrestricted capitalism.
The reader will find more on the Ardennes Gazette in the French section later in this
article.
In October 1946, The Propaganda Branch, Intelligence Division, based in the
Pentagon, Washington D.C., published a report entitled A Syllabus of Psychological
Warfare. It was prepared to give quick answers about Psywar to the press that wanted
to know what the United States had done during WWII. In the report there is a brief
mention of psychological warfare of the Central Powers in WWI. Curiously, there is no
mention of leaflets, just political operations:
The Central Powers used very old-fashioned political warfare. They were
reactionary monarchies, legitimist in outlook, and were unable to exploit the
revolutionary, democratic and autonomist sentiments of their time. Their chief political
warfare exploit consisted of inducing Turkey to proclaim a Jihad against the
Allies…The Germans gave Lenin transit from Switzerland to Finland in the expectation
that Lenin would enter Russia, commit high treason against the Czar, and take Russia out
of the war. He did so, but the engulfing wave of Communist revolution contributed to the
defeat of Germany as well.
Never Say Die
The New York Times mentions enemy propaganda several times in 1918. On 2
November 1918 they state that German leaflets were showered over American troops in Berne
on the French front. The leaflet was entitled “Never say Die!,” and advised the
American troops to return home and not die for foreign countries. Some of the text is:
Don’t die till you have to!
What business have you to die for France, for Alsace-Lorraine, or for England in
France?
Isn’t it better anyhow to live than to die, no matter for how
“glorious” a cause? Isn’t it better to live and to come back to the old
folks at home, than to rot in the shell holes and trenches in France?
A week later on 9 November the newspaper said:
General Pershing recently visited the American division headquarters and enjoyed
the experience of being bombarded by German propaganda printed in French. The Germans
obviously being ignorant of the fact that Americans held the sector. General Pershing made
the comment that he didn’t believe the Americans could be induced to stop fighting in
this manner.
One amusing phase of the propaganda battle which the Germans are waging is the
sending of copies of President Wilson’s official statements, accompanied by the
question to American soldiers, Why continue the fight.”
For the purposes of this article, we will mostly call the Central Powers
"Germany." Although it was the Austria-Hungarian Empire that started the war, it
was the more militant Germans that were the major military force within the Central
Powers.
We know very little about the organization of German PSYOP. We do know that for
a people who claimed to consider propaganda leaflets immoral and illegal, they printed and
dropped quite a few of them.
German postcard "We Teach You To Run!"
An example of patriotic propaganda at home.
George Bruntz tells us a little about the German organization in Allied
Propaganda and the Collapse of the German Empire in 1918, Hoover War Library
Publication number 13, Stanford University Press, California, 1938. He says that early in
the war, Germany conducted a campaign of patriotic propaganda at home to keep up the
morale of the German people and the troops. The Kriegspresseamt (War Press office) did
this work and also the task of issuing war news to the German press. There was no
concentrated effort to produce propaganda in the early years of the war and Germany fell
far behind the Allies.
When the allies started to seriously weaken German
morale with their leafleting, the Germans had no answer. By early 1917, the German War
Minister called a meeting of high government officials to discuss the problem. The
official report of that meeting concludes:
It is high time that this strong undermining work of the enemy be countered
with similar propaganda in an even more active manner.
The decision of the group was to set up a central agency for the collection of
propaganda in the Foreign Office. The government would adopt a stronger internal policy:
Strong opposition to all propagandists...is in order.
The Kaiser would make himself more available to visit workers and hospitals.
The Emperor would take credit for all measures aimed at alleviating the food situation.
General Ludendorff told the Army"
Everything which is likely to prejudice the morale of the troops, for
instance leaflets sent down from the air by the enemy or sent out from home must be kept
at a distance.
By 15 September 1917 the "Vaterlandischen Unterricht unter den
Truppen" ("National Instruction for the Troops") was formed. The Army High
Command would see that patriotic instruction took place among the troops. The officers
would assure that the troops did not read enemy leaflets and strengthen the will to win
among their men. The weakness in this plan was that officers were planning battles and had
little time or interest in patriotic instruction. On 20 March 1918, just eight months
before the Armistice, Ludendorff wrote to the Imperial Chancellor and suggested that the
loose propaganda organization be centralized and made stronger. He wanted an organization
similar to Lord Northcliffe's British "Propaganda for
Enemy Countries" unit. The government denied his request for such an agency. The
Germans simply never got the hang of it.
In 1918 the German Imperial Command began offering rewards for enemy leaflets.
In September 1918 the German government paid over 250,000 marks for about 800,000
leaflets. This plan was doomed to failure. In reality, the Germans were now subsidizing
the reading of enemy propaganda. Individuals who would have never touched enemy leaflets
now hunted for them to collect a reward. Naturally, while they had the leaflets in their
possession they read them. The result of the reward offer was exactly the opposite of what
was desired.
Narhrichtenblatt der 18 Armee
The Narhrichtenblatt der 18 Armee, (Message sheets of the 18th Army) number 21,
admitted defeat:
In the sphere of leaflet propaganda the enemy has defeated us. Shooting
poison darts from a secure hiding place was never a German art. We realized, however, that
this struggle is a life and death matter, and that one has to fight the enemy with his own
weapons. Yet the spirit of the enemy leaflets skulks around and refuses to be killed...The
enemy has defeated us not as man against man in the field of battle, bayonet against
bayonet. No, bad contents in poor printing on poor paper has made our arm lame.
German PSYOP
I want to make a brief comment here. This article was written about the
year 2000. The illustrations I used were found in old magazines and newspapers and
borrowed from friends in the now defunct Psywar Society. Many were rather poor and blurry,
but they were so rare that I used them in the story. In 2014, the German researcher Klaus
Kirchner published a book on this same subject. Being able to scour the museums and
Archives of Europe he had some better images. In several cases I have replaced my old
ripped and torn leaflets with his better images. I want to thank my old friend Klaus (now
deceased) and give him full credit for many of the images you will now find in this
article.
There is reason to believe that a German pilot dropped the first leaflet of the
war. R. G. Auckland mentions the leaflet in an article published in the summer 1970 Falling
Leaf magazine, the journal of the Psywar Society. Auckland states that in late August
1914 the German First Army was about to cross the River Marne on its way to Paris. The
Army has as one of its assets the 11th Military Group of Aeroplanes stationed at nearby
St. Quentin. Flight officer Lieutenant Hiddessen was apparently an ardent nationalist with
a strong belief in Germany's eventual victory. He was ordered to bomb Paris on 30 August.
Artist portrayal of Hiddessen's first leaflet drop
As the flight crew prepared his Taube reconnaissance aircraft, they placed a
rubber bag full of sand (to add weight) and printed leaflets in the cockpit. Hiddessen
dropped the first bomb to be dropped on Paris at exactly 12:45 p.m. He dropped four bombs,
and then threw the leaflet bag from his cockpit. It had a six-foot long forked banner in
the German national colors trailing behind. Pedestrians found the bag on the ground and
immediately took it to the local Prefecture of Police where it was labeled:
Corrupt information thrown on to the streets by strangers in an
aeroplane...
When opened, the pouch was found to contain a number of printed three-line
leaflets. The text was:
The German Army is at the gates of Paris; it only remains for you to
surrender. (Signed) Lieutenant von Hiddessen.
Auckland believes that Hiddessen misunderstood his mission.
He should have taken them from the pouch and thrown them overboard at
convenient intervals so that the German note was spread far and wide over Paris, and then
finally drop the bag overboard as a final gesture of German supremacy and arrogance.
Pilot List
Courtesy of Barry Hayter
[Author’s note] One of the wonderful things about placing these articles on the
Internet is the feedback that we get from the readers. After seeing the picture of the
pouch and streamer thrown from Hiddessen’s aircraft, Barry Haytor wrote in to say
that among his grandfather’s souvenirs from the Great War were some handwritten
sheets of paper in the German language entitled “To the British Flying Troop”
with vertical columns for Date, Name, Rank, Nationality and Fate. The sheets list the
Allied flyers and indicate that many were killed, others injured.
Along with the papers found in the estate of Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Langton
DSO, MSM, of the Royal Engineers and later the 4th Royal Welsh Fusiliers, is a small pouch
with a single snap, and a long colorful cotton streamer in red, white and blue (the colors
of Great Britain).
Pouch and streamer
Although we do not know for sure, we might assume that the documents were placed in
the pouch and dropped over Allied lines as a courtesy, with the streamer attached to make
the package more visible. This would seem to show that spirit of knighthood that has so
often been mentioned about the flyers in the First World War.
We now return to the story of German leaflets dropped on Paris.
The same story is mentioned in The History of the Great European War,
Volume 3, page 16.
After a few days, by 6 September, these visits of enemy aeroplanes became,
for a week or two, quite a matter of course, and although on several occasions not only
did they do damage to buildings, but even killed some unfortunate children and old men.
The people of Paris were determined not to be frightened. As a matter of fact, Parisians
gradually acquired the habit of regarding the visits of German aircraft as a form of
entertainment, and particularly amusing was the literature, which the tactless, foolish
Germans thought, would be good policy to drop upon Paris from their machines. It is
inconceivable to imagine that any sane people could have expected to seduce the patriotism
of the Parisian by dropping upon him, accompanied perhaps by a bomb, a printed appeal such
as the following: ‘The German Army is at the gates of Paris; it only remains for you
to surrender. (Signed) Lieutenant von Hiddessen.’ A paper with these words on it,
bound up with the German flag, was picked up on the street where a bomb had fallen and
just about the time and place that another bomb had mangled and killed a woman and two
little children.
Similar leaflets were reported in the German magazine Flugsport, issue
of 28 October 1914. In every case the leaflets were dropped over Paris. One leaflet has
the text, "Frenchmen: You are being deceived. The Germans are victorious. Beware of
the Englishmen and their insincerity."
Another leaflet dropped at the Parc Monceau (like the Hiddessen leaflet attached to a
long streamer) said:
We have conquered Antwerp. Soon it is your term.
In one case the Germans dropped an informational leaflet to apprise the French of the
fate of some of their captured officers:
Proclamation.
To the commander of Paris. From Lt. Hans Steffen, 35 Infantry Regiment.
I am happy to give you information about the following French officers.
(List of French names)
They are in captivity and have asked to send this letter in order to assure their
relatives.
And the bombs? I regret that we are at war.
Au Revoir, Parisians,
Hans Steffens,
Flight Lieutenant.
Life, Liberty and Happiness
A third 1918 leaflet is entitled "Life, Liberty and happiness." This
leaflet is for the American troops. Some of the text is:
Life, Liberty and happiness.
So long as the administration is determined to keep the war going there is
only one way for you to get out of this miserable fix and that is for you to stop
fighting. You can do this honorably. As a freeborn American citizen, you have the right to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The American Constitution guarantees you these
rights. Exercise them!..."
This leaflet was also depicted in U.S. Official Pictures of the World War, Pictorial
Bureau, Washington DC, 1920.
It is interesting to note that the Germans feel that the American soldier has the
Constitutional right to refuse to fight. There might have been such an argument made in
WWI but in 1950 that loophole was closed when the Congress of the United States
established the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The UCMJ was the first attempt to
turn the existing law into a comprehensive code. The code defines the German request as:
"Desertion with intent to avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service."
The penalty in time of war is "Death or such other punishment as a court-martial may
direct."
Germany’s Financial Strength
In a previous leaflet Germany attacks the economy of England and claims they will be
bled dry by the war. In this 4-page leaflet Germany goes on to brag about its own
strength, pointing out all the gold it has amassed and how it can pay for the cost of the
war with no strain to its economy. The Secretary of the Treasury, Dr. Karl Helfferich
points out that the last war loan raised four and one half billion marks. He says that the
total expenses of Germany’s enemies are about 900 million dollars a month. Meanwhile,
the Reichsbank increased its gold reserves from 1,250 million marks to 2,300 million, a
full billion, at the beginning of the war. Unlike England, German finances are built on a
firm foundation. The German nation “will stand vindicated before the world and the
future will be ours.”
THINK IT OVER
The final leaflet is entitled "THINK IT OVER!" This leaflet is
similar to WWII leaflets in that it uses a divide and conquer message to try and drive a
wedge between the American troops and their British allies. Some of the text is:
THINK IT OVER!
You have had music to march to, flags waving to cheer you on and words of
praise and you have left behind you all that is dear to you to come to France to fight the
Germans. Until the English wanted you for cannon food you never knew that the Germans were
your enemies, but no sooner did England realize that she couldn’t beat the Germans
even with the help of nearly all the rest of the savage and civilized world that she
persuaded you that the Germans were ‘Huns’ and your deadly foes…"
Certain words just jump at you in this message. For instance, any good
propagandist would have used the term "cannon fodder" instead of "cannon
food." It doesn’t matter in a white leaflet such as this one that is clearly
German in origin. It is disastrous in a black leaflet that attempts to hide its place of
origin. The Germans also conveniently forget to mention unrestricted submarine warfare,
the sinking of the Lusitania, or the Zimmerman telegram as partial cause for the American
war involvement.
What are we fighting for?
"Max, Prince of Baden", signed a second peace leaflet. It reprinted a
letter sent to President Wilson on 4 October 1918, and Wilson’s reply of 8 October
1918. Some of the text of this leaflet is:
What are we fighting for? The German note: The German Government requests
the President of the United States of America to take in hand the restoration of peace,
acquaint all belligerent States with this request, and invite them to send
plenipotentiaries for the purpose of opening negotiations. It accepts the programme set
forth by the President of the United States in his message to Congress on Jan 8,
1918……
Notice that the Germans are already wary of the French and British. They have
seen Wilson’s "Fourteen Points" and believe that they can make a fair peace
with the help of the American president. Unfortunately, the British and French will demand
their pound of flesh in repatriations, and this will lead to German anger, desire for
revenge, and World War Two just two decades later.
What are you still fighting for?
