Rumours of war
By Christy Campbell
How do you fight a war without weapons?
You use cunning, deceit and imagination. In fact, you fight dirty – just as the British were compelled to do in the summer of 1940 when faced with an imminent German invasion.
During World War II, black propaganda, subversive rumours and outright pornography were all used by a secret Whitehall department to undermine the morale of the seemingly invincible Nazis. As the war progressed so did this extraordinary unit's operations. Its techniques became more sophisticated, its reach longer, and it went on the offensive. And the same mix of disinformation, ridicule and smut would eventually be employed against the Japanese.
Feelings of outrage
Propaganda had been a major weapon in the First World War. Stories of Teutonic frightfulness kept feelings of outrage on the home front strong. But what if, in this new war against Germany, enemy morale itself could be attacked at long range – for example, by radio? After all, the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels had already shown himself to be a master of the technique.
To begin with, the British efforts were all pretty amateur. On the outbreak of war, old stalwarts from 1918 were hauled out of retirement. Bureaucratic infighting broke out on what was open and what was black propaganda – that is, propaganda purporting to come from resistance groups in occupied Europe and in Germany itself. Control hopped from ministry to ministry, politicians anxious to remain aloof from this potentially highly dangerous enterprise.
Not until the setting up, in early 1941, of the Political Warfare Executive (PWE), run by a roster of professional journalists and political intellectuals, did a new seriousness enter the proceedings.
Powerful new weapon
The amateurs had already stumbled on a powerful new weapon – rumour. While the British public were being exhorted to stay button-lipped – 'Careless talk costs lives' – the oddest stories had already found their way across the Channel.
The English had something that could set the sea on fire, it was being whispered in France. Sharks had been imported from Australia to prowl the Dover Strait. Boatloads of German soldiers had been pulled from the sea after a failed invasion, either horribly burned or mauled by the man-eaters.
It was hokum but it worked – even if such outlandish tales only brought comfort to those the Germans had already recently conquered.
A rumour mill – the Underground Rumour Committee – was set up within the PWE to continue manufacturing the so-called 'sibs' (from the Latin sibilare, to hiss or whistle). Each 'sib' was supposedly subtly targeted at a particular audience – it was no good spreading alarm among Italian troops in the Aegean with tales from occupied Norway. Rumours of a 'military nature' had to be first approved by the Joint Intelligence Committee. Anything else was a free-for-all.
Spreading gossip
The 'sibs' were spread by radio, by plants in neutral newspapers and by the agents of the Special Operations Executive (the PWE's sister body) literally spreading gossip in cinemas, bars and tram queues. When a rumour, suitably embellished, turned up hundreds of miles from the point of its planting, it was reported to London as a triumph.
The content of the rumours became more aggressive. With the first British commando raids of 1942, for example, came a campaign aimed at isolated German coastal garrisons. This time, the whispers claimed that 3,000 'ghost killers' armed with silent pistols were at large in France.
The key to success, however, was to make each 'sib' as believable as possible, with close-grained accuracy in time and place gleaned from exiles, agents and prisoner interrogations. Then the jittery recipients in a field canteen or air-raid shelter might feel that there really was an omniscient enemy observing their minutest doings.
Nastier and cruder
As the war got nastier so did the 'sibs'. The following, blandly listed in British official documents, are from 1943:
• 'Shortage of blood for transfusion is so great that SS medical units are draining blood from all Jews executed in Poland, which is bottled and sent to the Eastern Front.'
• 'About 200,000 amputations have been made in Vienna hospitals. The meat is very sensibly being rendered for its fat for soap.'
The area-bombing of German cities produced an ever cruder crop. 'There were unusually high casualties among women in the last Leipzig raid because so many of them refused to go to cellars that are infected with rats carrying bubonic plague,' it was being whispered in February 1944. It was reinforced a month later by this message: 'Nazi party member drug addicts have first call on supplies of morphine. This leaves none for bomb victims.' SS necrophiles, it was claimed, had assembled a 'perfect Aryan woman' from dismembered bomb victims.
Smutty satire and outright pornography
A major thrust of the PWE's efforts concerned sex. From 1941 onwards, the brilliant former Daily Express journalist Sefton Delmer was given free rein to bombard enemy troops and civilians with smutty satire and outright pornography. It was certainly a good way of building a radio audience – and a picture of naked lesbians was a sure-fire method of getting soldiers to pick up air-dropped propaganda leaflets.
Delmer's unit portrayed the Nazi leaders as perverts and the SS in particular as voracious deviants. 'German soldier! Who is screwing your wife or buggering your son at home while you shiver at the front?' was the basic message.
The 'sib' committee played its part by spreading bizarre rumours of an increasingly sexual nature. This, for example, was murmured in September 1943: 'The skyrocketing of syphilis among German soldiers on the Eastern Front has led the high command to introduce a "rubber woman" perfected by the Japanese.' And this was whispered a few months later: 'Following the mobilisation of German boys aged from 12 to 16 for factory work, there has been a considerable increase in the number of indictments for pederasty among SS home troops.'
Dirty stories in country houses
It's curious to think of this little band of temporary civil servants in sequestered country houses dreaming up sexual fantasies 60 years ago. Several of them went on to become distinguished academics and broadcasters after the war.
Did their efforts count for anything? Probably very little. If German civilian morale did not crack under massive air bombardment, it wouldn't crumble because of stories of inflatable rubber women – at least not until the very end. Goebbels noted a month before his suicide in Berlin: 'Enemy propaganda is beginning to have an uncomfortably noticeable effect on the German people. Anglo-American leaflets are now no longer carelessly thrown aside but are read attentively; British broadcasts have a grateful audience.'
Goebbels didn't mention rumours. The 'sib' offensive was not nearly as important as, for example, the deception campaign that preceded D-Day. As a glimpse into the secret history of the Second World War, however, the 'sib' story is fascinating.
You want to hear a dirty story? The British government was very good at inventing them …
Christy Campbell is the former defence correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph turned investigative historian. He has written on political conspiracy – including The Maharajah's Box and Fenian Fire: The British government plot to assassinate Queen Victoria. His latest books are Phylloxera: How wine was saved for the world (2004) and Band of Brigands: The first men in tanks (2007).
Find out more
Websites
Psywar.org
www.psywar.org/index.php
'Psychological warfare, PSYOP, Black Propaganda and Aerial Propaganda Leaflets'. Created by Lee Richards, this website has a section on the black propaganda propagated by the British during World War II, plus reproductions of some of the postcards created by the Political Warfare Executive and other fascinating artefacts.
Sefton Delmer
www.seftondelmer.co.uk/contents.htm
Delmer's son has created this website dedicated to the mastermind of the Political Warfare Executive. Contains the complete text of Delmer senior's book Black Propaganda: World War II – The top secret British psychological warfare operation against the Nazis.
The Psywar Society
www.psywarsoc.org
'An international association of collectors of aerial propaganda leaflets and psychological warfare historians'. The website has a concise history of air-dropped leaflet propaganda plus a timeline.
Propaganda leaflets of the Second World War
http://members.home.nl/ww2propaganda/
Everything you might want to know about propaganda leaflets, on both sides.
Books
The British at War: Cinema, state and propaganda, 1939-45 by James Chapman (I B Tauris, 2000)
This book paints a picture of popular consensus between the government and the film industry over the cinematic representation of Britain and the British at war. It examines the role of the cinema as a vehicle of propaganda, and reveals the relationship between the Ministry of Information and the film industry.
Get this book
Hollywood Goes to War: How politics, profits and propaganda shaped World War II movies by Clayton R Koppes and Gregory D Black (Tauris Parke, 2000)
The drama, imagery and fantasy of 1940s films was enlisted to inspire the US war effort during World War II. This book looks at the propaganda, politics and persuasion that conspired to produce such memorable movies as Casablanca, as well as the thankfully forgotten Hillbilly Blitzkreig.
Get this book
Radio Goes to War: The cultural politics of propaganda during World War II by Gerd Horten (University of California Press, 2003)
An in-depth look at the role of domestic radio in the US during World War II. By examining radio news programmes, government propaganda shows, advertising, soap opera and comedy programmes, it situates radio wartime propaganda in the shift from Depression-era resentment of big business to the consumer and corporate culture of the postwar period.
Get this book
You Can't Fight Tanks with Bayonets: Psychological warfare against the Japanese Army in the southwest Pacific by Allison B Gilmore (University of Nebraska Press, 1998)
In this analysis of Allied psychological operations, Gilmore makes a strong case for the importance of psychological warfare in this theatre, countering the usual view of fanatical resistance by Japanese units.
Get this book
Science of Coercion: Communication research and psychological warfare, 1945-60 by Christopher Simpson (Oxford University Press, 1996)
The first thorough examination of the role of the CIA, the Pentagon and other US security agencies in the evolution of modern communication research. These agencies saw mass communication as an instrument for persuading or dominating targeted groups in the US and abroad, as a tool for improving military operations and, perhaps most fundamentally, as a means to extend US influence more widely.
Get this book
The Hitler Myth: Image and reality in the Third Reich by Ian Kershaw (Oxford Paperbacks, 2001)
Kershaw places Hitler firmly within the context of modern German culture and explains how the Führer cult was the crucial integrating force in the Third Reich.
Get this book
The
Third Reich: Politics and propaganda by David Welch (Routledge,
2nd ed 2002)
Welch challenges previously held assumptions about the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda, summarises the major current debates and argues that, to be successful, propaganda must preach to the partially converted.
Get this book
Nazi Wireless Propaganda: Lord Haw-Haw and British public opinion in the Second World War by M R Doherty (Edinburgh University Press, 2000)
This study of Nazi wireless broadcasts to Britain during the war reveals a sophisticated and intelligent propaganda assault on the social and economic fabric of British society. Includes a free compact disc of 24 German wartime broadcasts to Britain.
Get this book
The following books are out of print but may be available in libraries or second-hand bookshops
The Fourth Arm: Psychological warfare 1938-1945 by Charles Cruickshank (Davis Poynter, 1977).
The Truthbenders: Psychological warfare in the Second World War by Ronald Seth (Leslie Frewin, 1969).
The Black Game: British subversive operations against the Germans during the Second World War by Ellic Howe (Michael Joseph Ltd, 1982).
'Licking Hitler' in David Hare's Plays I (Faber, 1996)
A BBC Play for Today in 1978, this work by David Hare is set in a fictional wartime establishment bearing a close resemblance to the Political Warfare Executive.
