User:Mr pand/Atrocity propaganda

Atrocity propaganda is a form of propaganda normally employed during a conflict in which details of an enemy's atrocities, whether real, exaggerated or fabricated, are disseminated in order to present a negative view of them and thus mobilise hatred against them.

Purpose
Atrocity stories are used in overcoming people's objections to killing or resistance to war, by placing guilt on the other side in a form that dehumanises the enemy and presents them as the 'Other'.

Techniques
Various techniques are used in the construction of wartime atrocity propaganda, in order to present a negative view of the enemy and mobilise hatred against them. The events, actions or traits described can be genuine or fabricated, but normally will be exaggerated, distorted or selectively described. Rumour will often be presented as fact before they have been verified. Images can also be presented in such a way as to give them connotations that do not accurately reflect the events portrayed.

The three main foci of wartime atrocity propaganda are the enemy's population, their leaders and their methods of warfare. These are described in a way that demonises or dehumanises the opposition. Violence against children and women is a common theme of atrocity stories.

War also creates a natural environment in which atrocity propaganda can flourish, as shown by the repetition of certain common stories. Atrocity stories are less likely to be accepted by those in active military service, where propaganda could be disproved by observation, as suggested by army memoirs such as those of Robert Graves or C.E. Montague.

Crusades
Atrocity stories were used in the eleventh century Crusades as a justification for the war against Islam. Pope Urban II aroused support for the Crusade in a sermon at Clermont in 1095 by detailing alleged atrocities committed by Muslims against Christians, namely circumcision, rape and torture.

The Reformation
Atrocity propaganda was used by Protestants during the Reformation, as part of their anti-Catholic rhetoric. John Foxe's Book of Martyrs (1556), for example, contains many engravings depicting Catholic atrocities. These images were disseminated as the Convocation of Canterbury decreed in 1571 that the book was to be owned by all bishops, deacons and archdeacons.

World War I
Atrocity propaganda was first used on a significant scale in World War I, as it was the first 'total war' in which civilians needed to be mobilised alongside the military in hatred of the enemy and conviction that the war was a just cause. All the belligerents employed atrocity propaganda in some form, with various stereotypes being developed.

Britain was the country which produced the largest quantity of atrocity propaganda. The Kaiser was the focus of many propaganda attacks. One Daily Mail article, for example, descibed him successively as a 'lunatic', a 'madman', a 'monster', a 'modern Judas' and a 'criminal monarch'. The German people were presented as sharing traits with their leader.

Atrocity propaganda in Britain was at its peak in 1915, due to the wartime context. Most of Britain's atrocity propaganda was related to Germany's invasion of Belgium. The Parliamentary Recruiting Committee also occasionally used atrocity stories on recruiting posters, using slogans such as "You have read what the Germans have done in Belgium. Have you thought what they would do if they invaded this Country?".

Bryce Report

Other publications referring to the violation of Belgian neutrality also appeared in neutral countries. For example, Wellington House disseminated a pamphlet entitled Belgium and Germany: Texts and Documents in 1915, which was written by the Belgian Foreign Minister Davignon and featured details of alleged atrocities.

Two of the most effective uses of atrocity propaganda were the publication of the Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages or Bryce Report, and the dissemination of the story of Edith Cavell. The Bryce Report, based on 1200 witness depositions, depicted the systematic murder and violation of Belgians, including details of rape, the slaughter of children and the mutilation of breasts. Published by a committee of lawyers and historians, headed by the respected former ambassador Lord Bryce, the Report had an impact both in Britain and in America and made front-page headlines in major newspapers. It was also translated into 30 languages and cost 1d. In response to the Bryce Report, Germany published its own atrocity counterpropaganda, in the form of the 'White Book' (Die völkerrechtswidrige Führung des belgischen Volkskriegs) which detailed atrocities committed by Belgian civilians against German soldiers. However, its impact was limited outside of a few German-language publications; indeed, some interpreted it as an admission of guilt.

Edith Cavell was a nurse in Brussels who was involved in a network helping allied prisoners to escape. This was in violation of war conventions, and as a result she was executed. The story was reported, however, in a way that presented the event as the execution of an innocent houser of refugees.

Corpse-Conversion factory story, which was essentially a confusion over the meaning of the word 'Kadaver'. The story appeared in The Times, despite a lack of evidence, and Masterman published a four-page pamphlet about the incident.

Other events that made Germany seem barbaric were their use of poison gas, Zeppelin raids and the sinking of the Lusitania.

Themes of sexual violation were also strongly represented in British atrocity propaganda.

Atrocity stories were frequently cited in the press in Britain, even in local papers. The Birmingham Daily Mail, for example, had a regular feature in which it printed atrocity stories.

Spanish Civil War
During the Spanish civil war, General Queipo de Llano's propaganda broadcasts emphasised the brutality of Franco's colonial soldiers.
 * see Bombing of Guernica

World War II
Democratic nations were more hesitant in employing atrocity propaganda in World War II, after interwar investigations had revealed many of the wartime allegations to be false or exaggerated. Particularly vituperative attacks had come from Arthur Ponsonby, in his book Falsehood in Wartime. Other critics of atrocity propaganda came from Georges Demartiel. The negative side of this was that the British and American public were disinclined to believe details of Nazi atrocities when they surfaced during World War II.

Nazi Germany, however, used atrocity propaganda extensively, believing that Britain's use of it in World War I had been very effective. Indeed, Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf referred to it as "an inspired work of genius". Atrocity propaganda was especially used in Nazi anti-Bolshevik campaigns. The most notable example of this was the Katyn massacre incident of 1943, when German radio announced the discovery of a mass grave of Polish officers in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, claiming that Jewish officers of the Red Army were responsible for this atrocity. Various newspapers and newsreels repeated this story, and a documentary film entitled Im Wald von Katyn (In the Forest of Katyn) was shown in Germany and its occupied territories. The Nazis also employed atrocity propaganda against other groups, such as Poles (in the film Menschen in Sturm).

America's atomic attack on Japan was used as an occasion for atrocity propaganda directed against the United States. Susumi Hani's documentary Prophecy, which used footage from Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

Post-1945 conflicts
Atrocity propaganda has continued to be used in conflicts since 1945.

In 1990, George Bush made several uses of a story reported by a fiteen-year-old girl named Nayirah of how she had seen Iraqi soldiers abduct fifteen children from Al-Adan hospital in Kuwait and then left them to die. The story was repeated in the media, Congress and the UN Security Council and was influential in mobilising public opinion for the war. After the conflict, it was revealed that Nayirah was actually the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to America and that her testimony was largely the invention of PR film Hill and Knowlton, who were employed by Kuwait's exiled government. The story was repeated in a 2002 HBO documentary, Live from Baghdad, which included actual footage of Nayirah giving her testimony.

In the Gulf War, Western journalists repeatedly referred to the Iraqi ethnic cleansing of Kurds. Similar atrocities were also reported in the Kosovo conflict.