THE PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING BRITISH WAR-TIME PROPAGANDA
1. Propaganda must not be content to be negative and defensive: to be successful it must be positive and creative. It must be capable of rousing the whole nation and inspiring them with devotion to the national cause. It must be able to represent that cause as a crusade, for which no sacrifice is too great.
2. Our purpose is to defeat Germany in war. Propaganda is needed to show why this is necessary.
3. Propaganda should emphasise clearly:-
(a) What we are seeking to defeat.
(b) What we are seeking to preserve and create.
4. These objects can best be attained by concentration upon the themes:-
I. What Britain is fighting for.
II. How Britain fights.
III. The need for sacrifice if the fight is to be won
5. I.
What Britain is fighting for.
The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, and other members of H.M. Government have repeatedly made it plain that the objects for which we and our Allies are fighting are to destroy the rule of the Nazis, to safeguard Europe from the recurring fear of German aggression, and thereby to promote a better order in Europe and in the world generally. But essential as it is that these should be constantly emphasised, something more is required for the propagandist. British propaganda should therefore work upon two basic themes:-
(a) Britain is in danger: other countries in the Empire and elsewhere are also in danger.
(b) What Britain stands for is in danger.
6. (a) The main objects of the theme
Britain in danger
are:-
(i) To counter the false sense of security which our immunity from attack during the first four months of the war has engendered.
(ii) To rally British morale and effort and to induce a truer and more sober estimate of what the war means directly to this country in, e.g. the military, social and economic spheres.
(iii) To convince foreign opinion that Great Britain is fighting the war in earnest.
7. (b)
What Britain stands for is in danger
(i) The immediate object of propaganda for this purpose should he to make clear in a concrete form the way of life and the human values to which Nazi theory and practice are inimical. This should be illustrated not only or chiefly from our own country but from the life and institutions of the Empire, of France, the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and the U.S.A.
(ii) Propaganda can well he used as an instrument to create and not merely to destroy mutual esteem and understanding between nations. In order to achieve this wider object propaganda must he raised to a higher level.
8. As in the material, so in the spiritual, sphere Britain is in danger. She is joint trustee of Western civilisation. She is at one with all nations of good faith in the defence of the common heritage. Her cause is their cause.
To transform these conceptions into vivid realities in the minds of the peoples of Great Britain, of the Empire, of Europe, and of the world at large is the supreme task of British war-time propaganda.
9. Any attempt to define what we want to preserve either in terms of “civilisation” or in terms of “Christianity” must face the difficulty that a major social change is evidently in progress of which both Nazi and Communist revolutions are morbid symptoms. The question is not whether the old order shall prevail over the new, but whether the new order shall be based on the Christian Ethic, the scientific spirit, and the rule of law, upon which Western Civilisation has been chiefly built. Propaganda should therefore be directed towards representing every social and economic upheaval which the war involves not as an inconvenience but as an opportunity.
10. In order to ensure that transition from the old order does not involve the destruction of Civilisation, propaganda should be concentrated upon:-
(a) The sanctity of absolute values
(b) The sanctity of the individual and of the family.
(c) The comity of nations.
11. (a)
The sanctity of absolute values
Western Civilisation has been built upon the sanctity of absolute values. It has been generally accepted that certain abstract conceptions are the absolute standards of human life. Such concepts as good, right, truth, and beauty are the ultimate values that give life meaning. The Nazis, logically developing a school of German thought, have denied this basis of civilisation. For them right is folk-right, truth is German truth, good is party-good. Ends become means.
(b)
The sanctity of the individual and of the family
The sanctity of the individual and of the family is a cardinal principle of Western Civilisation and outlook on life. This is the source from which flow the rights of liberty of conscience, freedom from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, free expression of opinion, impartial law and the other great instruments whereby individual freedom is reconciled with social order. These things the Nazis genuinely despise. They have erected the folk-state as an absolute. According to this heresy man exists for the State, not the State for man.
(c)
The comity of nations
Just as the sanctity of the individual is completed in that of the family, so are the security and independence of states realised in the comity of nations. Each civilised nation seeks the good life for itself. And as the good life is expressed in the common good, so does the nation find its highest expression in the comity of nations. But the totalitarian folk-state is absolute externally as well as internally. The doctrine of the dominant German race is fundamentally inconsistent with the doctrine of international rights, no less than with the sanctity of the individual. All nations are therefore potential victims. All aggression is justified. This is the proclamation of the law of the jungle. No treaty and no guarantee given by the Nazi Government can be relied upon if it should be thought that it will suit German interests to break their word. So long as Nazism remains undefeated, the rest of Europe will be compelled to live in constant fear of German aggression.
“Humane and pacifist ideas may perhaps be quite good when the man of highest value has so completely conquered and subjected the world that he is sole lord of the earth. Therefore first battle, and then possibly pacifism”.
(Adolf Hitler.
Mein Kampf.
)
12. With the German who accepts the essential principles set out in this Memorandum we have no quarrel, but the German nation under its existing rulers does not accept them and until it does so there can be no peace or security for the world.
13. II.
How Britain fights
British propaganda should, and does, describe how Britain fights, and with what success, not less than it proclaims what she is fighting for. The continuous service of news, topical comment, films, broadcasts, photographs, articles, etc., should be maintained and extended. It is the question of treatment and showmanship that is here of cardinal importance - here and everywhere else, for the ideas suggested above are valueless as propaganda unless they are presented and advocated by experts who know how to make the heart beat faster.
Great Britain must be represented as fighting Germany on land, in the air, and at sea, ceaselessly, without remorse, with all her armed might, with financial resources, industrial manpower, and commercial assets, with all her idealism and determination. If periods of inactivity are strategically necessary, these very periods should be represented as fraught with particular and purposeful significance.
14. III.
The Need for Sacrifice if the fight is to be won
.
There is still too much anxiety lest the war should impair our present standards of living. Propaganda should seek to bring home the magnitude of the issues at stake in comparison with the sacrifices called for. It should be represented that Britain will win by her great strength, but that the maintenance of this strength calls for correspondingly great sacrifice. The temporary lowering of the general standard of living should be regarded not as something which the Government should be afraid to ask and the public expected to resent, but as something to be accepted willingly and proudly, as an essential contribution to the success of the allied cause. A ringing call to self- discipline and sacrifice would be the logical complement to propaganda based upon fundamental issues. (M. Reynaud's recent speech in the Chamber of Deputies is a striking example of an appeal of this kind).
It would seem that only by means of an imaginative propaganda campaign on the lines suggested in this note can Great Britain and the Empire convince the world that their participation in the war is but one element of the Allied design to secure the foundation of a new and better world-order.
