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J. M. WINTER

half tliat of the British cinema industiy but with Danish and American imports, German film Mm booming on the eve of the war.

Initially, the film industiy was ignored by the high command as an annoy-ance, but with the accession of Erie Ludendorff to the post of quartermaster generał in 1916, film suddenly found manypowerful backers. When, in 1917, American newsreel imports were banned, into the breach stepped tlie domestic industiy, producing newsreels for tlie mass audience widi an insa-tiable appetite for images of the front. Alfred Hugenberg, director of the armaments firm of Krupp, took a leadingpait in tliis effort, wliidi in late 1917 gave birth to 'Ufa’ (Universum Film AG), a consortium of film companies, one-third owned by the German State bank, and under indirect military eon-troi. With such backing, Ufas viability was assured. But like so much of die German war effort, it emerged not from within popular culture, but from within the political and industrial elite.

The tie of the film industiy to the authorities restricted its freedom of action and its effectiveness. But the popular demand for film was recognized by the high command. Cinema houses were given priority for coal and elec-tricityin the hard months of 1917-18, producing consistently high atten-dancerthrougbout Germany and in occupied Belgium.

Th#army had its own cinema industiy. There were 900 field einemas in 1917, featuring the great stars of the German cinema, Henny Porten and , Asta Nielson. They specialized in comedies and melodrama, but were eon-^Łsdousief marrying profit and patriotism, thereby establishing a strong domestic film industiy by the end of die war. The German film industiy tlien dme into its own both as a viable economic enteiprise and as a vehicle for idaring experimentation. The legacy of film propaganda in tlie 1914-18 war was there for the Nazis to exploit en route to the Second World War.

Outcomes

Oid propaganda help shorten the war? Almost certainly not. Germany capit-ulated when its army was beaten in the field and for no other reason. Embit-tered nien tried to blame allied propaganda—seductive and misleading—for the defeat, but only those with the blinkers of Adolf Hitler and his entourage took this argument seriously. Historians of the First World War have dis-„missed this charge out of hand.

The same exaggerated claims have been madę about the effects of allied propaganda on the entry of the United States into the war in April 1917. There was indeed a massive and sophisticated British and French propaganda effort in the United States. German propagandists were there too, though their work borę the same marks of bunghng and cluinsiness evident elsewhere in the German war effort.

. The British approach to ‘publicity’ was indirect. Recognizing tlie strength of American isolationism, British propagandists, under Canadian-boni Sir Gilbert Parker, tried to reach influential people through direct niailing. Sir Gilberts card came along with the pamphlet or reprint, adding a personal fcouch. Tliey arranged interviews in the press with prominent Englishmen and always answered press ciiticism with polite letters to tlie editor. Film newsreels brought positive images of the ahies to a wider public, reached too through a host of public meetings. In January 1917 Sir Gilbert Parker retumed to Britain and handed over his post to his successor, Professor W. M. Dixon of Glasgow University,

From tliat point on, the German cause in the United States self-destructed. First came unrestricted submarine warfare: a direct threat to American ships bringing privately funded American seabome aid to the allies. Then came the February Revolution in Russia, eliminating one of tlie embarrassments of the campaign upholding ‘democracy’—tRat is, the allies—against ‘militarisrri—that is. Germany. Then came the mad approaeh of the German Foreign Ministry to Mexico, offering large parts of tlie Southwest of the United States as the potential fruits of joint aetion in the war. British intelligence intercepted this message, and saved it for just tlie right moment, when newly re-elected President Woodrow Wilson woulcl be forced to act. He did so ori 6 April 1917, as the United States entered the war.

The strength of allied propaganda was to control, neutralize, though never completely eliminate, isolationist and anti-British opinion. The United States went to war not because of propaganda but because of multiple direct German threats to American lives and American interests.

Witliin tlie European dieatre of operations, diere were sources much morę powerful dian propaganda wliich account for die capacity of the allies to widistand the pressures of war better dian the Central Powers. The allies had atdieir disposad die finance and the raw materials which came out of a century of imperial expansion. Germany had no such second, third, or fourth linę of reinforcements. Propaganda was a marginal source of defeat, when compared to diese massive imbalances of power.

In die war of words and images, Germany had another disadvantage. The state rested not on the consent of the govemed, but on the invincibility of die anny. That mydl sustained public opinion for four years. The men who had won die spectacular victory at Tannenberg in August 1914—Hindenburg and Ludendorff—were in charge of the war effort four years later. They stood for a proud and defiant mihtary tradition diat had held the world at bay forfifty mondis. When the German linę bent and moved back in die summer of 1918, when everyone in Germany came to see diat the war could not be won, dien die exaggerated notion that Germany was invincible madę the bit-temess of die defeat even worse.

Propaganda did not create the bitter pili Germany had to swallow in 1918. It hełped sustain allied civilians and soldiers through die dark periods of the war. It did so by stdcking to a simple message: the armies were in the field because Germany was a rnenace and had to be stopped. For die French army fighting on French soil, and for die Belgians, this was evident. But the same sentiment eństed among American, British, and imperial forces far from home, and among dieir families in the rear. Propaganda did not create diis belief; die German invasion of Belgium, and die ruthlessness and harshness

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