An old canard that later was to be revived, reloaded… World War One Anti-German Propaganda – false atrocity stories of «bayoneting babies» and «making soap from corpses of their dead soldiers»

[This is a press, although the original source doesn’t feature the posters you will see featured here. I changed a link from the original article, the source number 2 went bust. I replaced it with a Wayback Machine link of it.]

 

In war «it is necessary to invent lies about the enemy»:

«During the First World War most countries publicized stories of enemy soldiers committing atrocities. It was believed that it would help persuade young men to join the armed forces. As one British general pointed out after the war: «to make armies go on killing one another it is necessary to invent lies about the enemy». These atrocity stories were then fed to newspapers who were quite willing to publish them. British newspapers accused German soldiers of a series of crimes including: gouging out the eyes of civilians, cutting off the hands of teenage boys, raping and sexually mutilating women, giving children hand grenades to play with, bayoneting babies and the crucifixion of captured soldiers.» [1]

With Executive Order 2594, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson established the «Committee on Public Information» to propagandize Americans into supporting U.S. entry into the war.

«Germans were referred to collectively as the “Hun” and the “Prussian Python.” Political cartoons and posters conveyed the image of a raging beast ready to devour innocent women and children. Earlier British propaganda was released accusing German soldiers of bayoneting Belgian babies as they marched through that neutral country.»[2]

 

«Demonization

A second propaganda technique used by the CPI was demonization of the enemy. «So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations,» wrote Lasswell «that every war must appear to be a war of defense against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about who the public is to hate.» American propaganda was not the only source of anti-German feeling, but most historians agree that the CPI pamphlets went too far in portraying Germans as depraved, brutal aggressors. For example, in one CPI publication, Professor Vernon Kellogg asked «will it be any wonder if, after the war, the people of the world, when they recognize any human being as a German, will shrink aside so that they may not touch him as he passes, or stoop for stones to drive him from their path?»

A particularly effective strategy for demonizing Germans was the use of atrocity stories. «A handy rule for arousing hate,» said Lasswell «is, if at first they do not enrage, use an atrocity. It has been employed with unvarying success in every conflict known to man.» Unlike the pacifist, who argues that all wars are brutal, the atrocity story implies that war is only brutal when practiced by the enemy. Certain members of the CPI were relatively cautious about repeating unsubstantiated allegations, but the committee’s publications often relied on dubious material. After the war, Edward Bernays, who directed CPI propaganda efforts in Latin America, openly admitted that his colleagues used alleged atrocities to provoke a public outcry against Germany. Some of the atrocity stories which were circulated during the war, such as the one about a tub full of eyeballs or the story of the seven-year old boy who confronted German soldiers with a wooden gun, were actually recycled from previous conflicts. In his seminal work on wartime propaganda, Lasswell speculated that atrocity stories will always be popular because the audience is able to feel self-righteous indignation toward the enemy, and, at some level, identify with the perpetrators of the crimes…»[3]

Some posters from World War One that demonized Germans (These are not in the original source)…

 

This poster attracted my attention since it is written in both Spanish and English. Now it’s customary to write things in both languages, but back then in 1917 it wasn’t that common, probably. And I can spot a grammatical mistake there, which shows they didn’t have so many people who could speak Spanish flawlessly (I’m not implying that the Mexicans that arrive nowadays at the US do it that well either), but that «á» (with acute accent) is unnecessary. And the «ayudarán a dar fin CON esto» would be better expressed as «ayudarán a dar fin A esto.» That’s an obvious Anglicism that I can spot since I’m a native speaker, and you probably can spot a bit of the Spanish writing/thinking through my own writing, I know.

 

Anti-Prussianism. Somehow, the Kaiser was responsible for all of the ills of the world. You will see more of this…

 

This one is a classic and you probably have seen it too many times, but it can’t hurt to post it.

 

The sinking of the Lusitania. Now we know things weren’t as they told us, but heck, people back then in 1917 didn’t have the Internet nor one hundred years of hindsight.

 

More German devils.

 

The Belgian babies… Horror stories that would inflame the American people so they would enter war.

 

Halt the Hun! Buy Liberty Bonds! There are lots of posters making reference to the Liberty Bonds.

 

A couple of posters for the British gents and ladies…

 

The Hun and the Home.

 

If it was like this, this is a very bizarre incident indeed. And a very bizarre punishment for the fishermen, too.

 

Obviously, there are more posters (and not all of them are dedicated to German-bashing). You can see some on this page…

http://www.rare-posters.com/ww1recruiting.html

You can even find an Android app (from which I saved all of these posters that I’m showing you now) that features these posters and more. Search World War I Posters on Jewgle Play and tap on the app made by Zeus Lab (I’m not affiliated in any shape, way, or form with them, BTW). Also, consider that it is a big application, it weighs over 90 MB. So, if you got lots of space on the internal memory, you may want to install it…

And, since it’s merely a press from somewhere else…

See more of it at: World War One Anti-German Propaganda – false atrocity stories of «bayoneting babies» and «making soap from corpses of their dead soldiers»