"In this nation of ours, the final political decisions rest with the people. And the people, so that they may make up their minds, must be given the facts, even in time of war, or perhaps especially in time of war."
- Paul Scott Mowrer, Editor, Chicago Daily News
EPISODE FOUR:
The Certainty of Evil
World War II
When Hitler came to power in 1933, his 36-year-old Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, swiftly brought all media -- including writers, actors, filmmakers and publishers -- under his control.
One star to emerge from this Nazi structure was Leni Riefenstahl, a favorite of Hitler because of her German mountain films, a genre equivalent to the American western.
Riefenstahl was selected to direct Hitler's pet project, a film of the gigantic 1934 Nazi Rally. She was given a staff of 120 people and 30 cameras. Special elevators were built to whisk a cameraman up 120 feet for panoramic sweeps of the torch-lit parade.
The result was the epic and chilling propaganda film "Triumph of the Will."
In 1936, two years after "Triumph of the Will," Spain erupted into civil war. Franco's nationalists, with the assistance of Hitler and Mussolini, turned the conflict into a testing ground for German and Italian hardware and doctrine.
Spain became the siren from which the press sounded warnings about the emerging fascists.
Among those covering the Spanish Civil War were Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, Andre Malraux and John Dos Passos -- some of the world's finest writers.
What the correspondents saw in Spain, followed by Germany's lightening strikes across Europe, showed what a brutal and determined enemy it would be.
Some reporters rode along with the Germans. William Shirer of CBS Radio broadcast a live report back to the States as Hitler and Goering dictated the terms of the Armistice to the French.
By 1940, Great Britain was facing Germany alone as Roosevelt raced to build a suitable arsenal and bring the U.S. into the war in 1941.
Meanwhile, war correspondents like Edward R. Murrow reported from London's rooftops as the German Luftwaffe set the city ablaze.
The overwhelming odds against Britain and the unquestioned evidence of Hitler's evil created an incubator for a mutual alliance between the press and governments. News copy was submitted to censors without much fuss. While Churchill privately described the British evacuation at Dunkirk as a "colossal military disaster," compliant reporters turned it into triumph under headlines that screamed, "Bloody Marvelous."
The US. entered World War II, which became what Studs Turkel called "The Good War." Good triumphed over evil, and the press willingly played its part.
No comments:
Post a Comment