The Propaganda Warriors

It has been generally assumed that the driving force behind German propaganda in World War Two was the Propaganda Ministry headed by Josef Goebbels, or the initiatives of various Nazi party organizations. There has been little research on the specific role of the Wehrmacht propaganda machine in this connection, even though it was the source for the bulk of German wartime propaganda material. This book deals with the history of the propaganda troops of the Wehrmacht, created shortly before WWII as a result of lessons learned concerning the importance of psychological warfare during WWI. This unique branch of service proved to be indispensable to the German propaganda effort during WWII. The products of its Propaganda Companies - better known as «PK», a term that became synonymous with high-quality war reporting in Germany - formed a crucial and popular part of wartime propaganda. The military propaganda organization worked closely with Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry and their cooperation contributed to the success of this young service. The veterans of the propaganda troops and their wartime and postwar products continued to influence the image of the Wehrmacht and WWII long after the war.

"A fascinating story....Essential to an understanding of America's use of propaganda". -- Warren F. Kimball, author of The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman. "Lively and revealing. There is much that is new and important in this book. All students of the war, as well as of intelligence, will benefit from it". -- Robin W. Winks, author of Cloak and Gown. "A 'must' acquisition for anyone with any interest in espionage, intelligence, and propaganda". -- Dennis Showalter, author of Tannenburg: Clash of Empires.

Have you ever thought about what really goes on behind the walls of the White House or the Pentagon? Particularly in times of political upheaval, it often seems that the government and the media work together to keep the voting public confused and distracted. In Warriors of Disinformation, Alvin A. Snyder, a former director of USIA’s Television and Film Service, reveals the various propaganda campaigns sent out by the United States during the Cold War, one of the most strained, uncertain times in American political history. Snyder examines the “shady” billion-dollar dealings dedicated to “an exaggerated version of the truth,” and how President Reagan deceived the Soviets with well-plotted plans of fabrication. Readers will be shocked by the lengths that our government went to in order to hide the truth, and to consistently lie to not only the Soviets, but also to the American people about what was going on in the “land of the free.” Warriors of Disinformation is an incredible look inside the government from someone who was on the front line. Hear stories that were never supposed to leave confidential meeting rooms and find out firsthand what went on behind closed doors. Snyder has a story to tell you, and you’d be crazy not to listen.

Learn how the perception of truth has been weaponized in modern politics with this "insightful" account of propaganda in Russia and beyond during the age of disinformation (New York Times). When information is a weapon, every opinion is an act of war. We live in a world of influence operations run amok, where dark ads, psyops, hacks, bots, soft facts, ISIS, Putin, trolls, and Trump seek to shape our very reality. In this surreal atmosphere created to disorient us and undermine our sense of truth, we've lost not only our grip on peace and democracy -- but our very notion of what those words even mean. Peter Pomerantsev takes us to the front lines of the disinformation age, where he meets Twitter revolutionaries and pop-up populists, "behavioral change" salesmen, Jihadi fanboys, Identitarians, truth cops, and many others. Forty years after his dissident parents were pursued by the KGB, Pomerantsev finds the Kremlin re-emerging as a great propaganda power. His research takes him back to Russia -- but the answers he finds there are not what he expected. Blending reportage, family history, and intellectual adventure, This Is Not Propaganda explores how we can reimagine our politics and ourselves when reality seems to be coming apart.

In this brilliant account of the literary war within the Cold War, novelists and poets become embroiled in a dangerous game of betrayal, espionage, and conspiracy at the heart of the vicious conflict fought between the Soviet Union and the West During the Cold War, literature was both sword and noose. Novels, essays, and poems could win the hearts and minds of those caught between the competing creeds of capitalism and communism. They could also lead to blacklisting, exile, imprisonment, or execution for their authors if they offended those in power. The clandestine intelligence services of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union recruited secret agents and established vast propaganda networks devoted to literary warfare. But the battles were personal, too: friends turned on one another, lovers were split by political fissures, artists were undermined by inadvertent complicities. And while literary battles were fought in print, sometimes the pen was exchanged for a gun, the bookstore for the battlefield. In Cold Warriors, Duncan White vividly chronicles how this ferocious intellectual struggle was waged on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Among those involved were George Orwell, Stephen Spender, Mary McCarthy, Graham Greene, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, John le Carré, Anna Akhmatova, Richard Wright, Ernest Hemingway, Boris Pasternak, Gioconda Belli, and Václav Havel. Here, too, are the spies, government officials, military officers, publishers, politicians, and critics who helped turn words into weapons at a time when the stakes could not have been higher. Drawing upon years of archival research and the latest declassified intelligence, Cold Warriors is both a gripping saga of prose and politics, and a welcome reminder that--at a moment when ignorance is all too frequently celebrated and reading is seen as increasingly irrelevant--writers and books can change the world.

From an internationally renowned expert, here is an accessible and utterly fascinating one-volume history of the Crusades, thrillingly told through the experiences of its many players—knights and sultans, kings and poets, Christians and Muslims. Jonathan Phillips traces the origins, expansion, decline, and conclusion of the Crusades and comments on their contemporary echoes—from the mysteries of the Templars to the grim reality of al-Qaeda. Holy Warriors puts the past in a new perspective and brilliantly sheds light on the origins of today’s wars. Starting with Pope Urban II’s emotive, groundbreaking speech in November 1095, in which he called for the recovery of Jerusalem from Islam by the First Crusade, Phillips traces the centuries-long conflict between two of the world’s great faiths. Using songs, sermons, narratives, and letters of the period, he reveals how the success of the First Crusade inspired generations of kings to campaign for their own vainglory and set down a marker for the knights of Europe, men who increasingly blurred the boundaries between chivalry and crusading. In the Muslim world, early attempts to call a jihad fell upon deaf ears until the charisma of the Sultan Saladin brought the struggle to a climax. Yet the story that emerges has other dimensions—as never before, Phillips incorporates the holy wars within the story of medieval Christendom and Islam and shines new light on many truces, alliances, and diplomatic efforts that have been forgotten over the centuries. Holy Warriors also discusses how the term “crusade” survived into the modern era and how its redefinition through romantic literature and the drive for colonial empires during the nineteenth century gave it an energy and a resonance that persisted down to the alliance between Franco and the Church during the Spanish Civil War and right up to George W. Bush’s pious “war on terror.” Elegantly written, compulsively readable, and full of stunning new portraits of unforgettable real-life figures—from Richard the Lionhearted to Melisende, the formidable crusader queen of Jerusalem—Holy Warriors is a must-read for anyone interested in medieval Europe, as well as for those seeking to understand the history of religious conflict.

This fascinating compilation of reference entries documents the unique relationship between mass media, propaganda, and the U.S. military, a relationship that began in the period before the American Revolution and continues to this day—sometimes cooperative, sometimes combative, and always complex. The Encyclopedia of Media and Propaganda in Wartime America brings together a group of distinguished scholars to explore how war has been reported and interpreted by the media in the United States and what effects those reports and interpretations have had on the people at home and on the battlefield. Covering press–U.S. military relationships from the early North American colonial wars to the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this two-volume encyclopedia focuses on the ways in which government and military leaders have used the media to support their actions and the ways in which the media has been used by other forces with different views and agendas. The volumes highlight major events and important military, political, and cultural players, offering fresh perspectives on all of America's conflicts. Bringing these wars together in one source allows readers to see how media affected the conflicts individually, but also understand how the use of the various forms of media (print, radio, television, film, and electronic) have developed and changed over the years.

When President Dwight Eisenhower spoke of waging "total cold war," he was proposing nothing less than a global, all-embracing battle for hearts and minds. His wide-ranging propaganda campaign challenged world communism at every turn and left a lasting mark on the American psyche. Kenneth Osgood now chronicles the secret psychological warfare programs America developed at the height of the Cold War. These programs-which were often indistinguishable from CIA covert operations-went well beyond campaigns to foment unrest behind the Iron Curtain. The effort was global: U.S. propaganda campaigns targeted virtually every country in the free world. Total Cold War also shows that Eisenhower waged his propaganda war not just abroad, but also at home. U.S. psychological warfare programs blurred the lines between foreign and domestic propaganda with campaigns that both targeted the American people and enlisted them as active participants in global contest for public opinion. Osgood focuses on major campaigns such as Atoms for Peace, People-to-People, and cultural exchange programs. Drawing on recently declassified documents that record U.S. psychological operations in some three dozen countries, he tells how U.S. propaganda agencies presented everyday life in America to the world: its citizens living full, happy lives in a classless society where economic bounty was shared by all. Osgood further investigates the ways in which superpower disarmament negotiations were used as propaganda maneuvers in the battle for international public opinion. He also reexamines the early years of the space race, focusing especially on the challenge to American propagandists posed by the Soviet launch of Sputnik. Perhaps most telling, Osgood takes a new look at President Eisenhower's leadership. Believing that psychological warfare was a potent weapon in America's arsenal, Ike appears in these pages not as a disinterested figurehead, as he's often been portrayed, but as an activist president who left a profound mark on national security affairs. Osgood's distinctive interpretation places Cold War propaganda campaigns in the context of an international arena drastically changed by the communications revolution and the age of mass politics and total war. It provides a new perspective on the conduct of public diplomacy, even as Americans today continue to grapple with the challenges of winning other hearts and minds in another global struggle.