Most of the German photographs that appeared in print during World War II were taken by propaganda companies - specially created units of the Wehrmacht. Many photographs depict the German soldier as an impeccably well-mannered and disciplined fighter, bringing the light of culture to the "wild" east and resisting the invasion of barbarian hordes. Let's see who was involved in the production of such photographs, how much these pictures corresponded to reality and in what context they should be considered in our time.
Reporters or ideologues?
For many years, only the soldiers who served in them spoke about these troops, and there was no view from the outside. After the war, many employees of the propaganda company (RP), as well as the head of the Wehrmacht propaganda department, Hasso von Wedel, published memoirs and wrote articles in which they tried to justify the RP and separate them from the criminal National Socialist state and its ideology, presenting the companies as an independent objective source. showing the world the true reality. Founded in Hamburg in 1951, the Wildente (Wild Duck) organization united RP veterans in its ranks and sought to show them reporters free from ideological pressure. However, recent research by historians Daniel Uziel and Bernd Ball prove that RP officials were not at all apolitical journalists forced into military uniforms. The researcher Winfried Ranke noted that many photographers of the Republic of Poland shared National Socialist views and zealously followed orders from their superiors, wishing to advance in the service. They competed among themselves, trying to get their pictures on the covers of the German media.
"It was Stalin's Line." A collage of several photographs was featured on the centerfold of Ilustrowany Kurier Polski on July 27, 1941. The soldiers stand with their backs to the photographer, which was supposed to give the viewer the effect of being on the battlefield. Above added photos of bombers, and using smoke to cover the lines of installation. The collage demonstrated the valor of the German soldiers breaking through the Stalin Line and made them believe in the inevitable victory of the Wehrmacht.
After the war, Hasso von Wedel assured that the photographs taken by his companies in Poland were mostly objective, but historians Alrich Mayer and Oliver Sander proved that this was not the case. Von Wedel even wrote about "passive resistance" to the propaganda of racial ideology. However, according to Bernd Boll, the task of the company was not to objectively show the events of World War II - on the contrary, they were a weapon that helped the Wehrmacht to win the war. The photographs they took were not a work of art or a mirror of everyday life, but an ideological tool.
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Organization of propaganda troops
The beginning of cooperation between the NSDAP, the Ministry of Public Education and Propaganda and the Reich Ministry of Defense was laid in 1933. In the future, cooperation grew stronger and led to the creation of propaganda troops. In the spring of 1938, the chief of staff of the Wehrmacht High Command (VKV), Colonel-General Wilhelm Keitel, issued a memorandum in which he stated that in the future total war would be waged not only on the battlefields - economics and propaganda would play an important role. On August 19 of the same year, the headquarters issued a decree stating that the RP, being part of the signal troops, obey the command of their armies, however, instructions on the form and content of their reports will be received from the Ministry of Public Education and Propaganda. The responsibility of this department for the creation of propaganda materials was enshrined in the Rules of Propaganda in War, published by the GKV on September 27, 1938. To put these rules into practice, the VKV founded the Wehrmacht propaganda department on April 1, 1939, responsible for military censorship and reporting from the scene. It was headed by Colonel Hasso von Wedel.
Major Hasso von Wedel, November 1938.
When selecting personnel for the RP, the ministry focused not only on the professional level of photographers, but also on their political reliability, viewing journalism as a propaganda service for the benefit of the National Socialist regime. Each candidate underwent a thorough multi-level check: through the NSDAP, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Public Education and Propaganda, and, finally, at the headquarters of the Deputy Fuhrer. The candidacy of the commander of the Republic of Poland was personally approved by the Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. The ministry issued guidelines for the RP on a daily basis, in which it outlined current trends and named topics for required articles and photographs.
The beginning of the battle path
Photographers entered the service in 1936-1937 - they covered the course of military maneuvers. The VKV created the first five propaganda companies in August 1938 - shortly before the Wehrmacht troops entered the Sudetenland. Additional RPs were created before the attack on Poland in 1939. In the state, one such company numbered 150 people: 4-7 of them were photographers, and the rest were ordinary soldiers.
If the photographer had not previously served in the armed forces, he was awarded the title of Sonderführer. When his work appeared in the press, he "grew" to a non-commissioned officer. According to the German Federal Archives, if a photographer was a non-commissioned officer and his work gained prominence, he could advance to the rank of officer and receive the status of a special correspondent (Sonderberichter).
Ukrainian residents meet a German photographer from the Republic of Poland (propaganda company - Propagandakompanie, abbreviated as PK).
In 1939, each army had its own RP. Together with the German troops, five of the seven RP of the Wehrmacht and one RP of the fleet entered the territory of Poland. In the same year, a training RP was created in Potsdam, in which the propaganda units of the allied states of the Reich - Finland, Italy, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria were trained.
During the attack on the USSR in June 1941, the actions of the Wehrmacht were covered by 13 RP of the ground forces, four RP of the air force, two half-companies of the propaganda of the naval forces and three RP of the SS. In 1942, the contingent of propaganda units numbered approximately 15,000 people. The following year, the Wehrmacht's propaganda department had its own headquarters, and the RP turned into a separate branch of the military. Hasso von Wedel was promoted to major general and moved to the Fuhrer's headquarters.
RP tasks
The Wehrmacht propaganda department set the RP task to improve the reputation of the armed forces. Pictures of the RP were subject to strict censorship, which, on the one hand, did not allow showing anything superfluous, and on the other hand, it determined the topics to be covered. The photographs taken by the propaganda companies became for the Germans the most important sources of information about the events in the occupied regions. They had the impression that the Wehrmacht was bringing culture to the wild, liberating peoples suffering from tyranny, and helping local residents. The works of the RP photographers were supposed to show the superiority of the German nation over the peoples of the East.
Russian peasant women peel potatoes for the Wehrmacht soldiers.
The High Command of the Wehrmacht and the Ministry of Public Education and Propaganda controlled all the pictures published in the press in the occupied territories. Note that even photographs taken by civilian photographers could appear on the pages of newspapers, if they corresponded to the picture that the leaders of the propaganda wanted to paint. True, since 1941, private individuals have been prohibited from having a camera for personal use.
The photographs of the Republic of Poland not only informed the population - in the future they were supposed to serve as sources for writing history. All photographs were kept in the state photo archive (Reichsbildarchiv). Bernd Boll writes that the photographs seized from local residents were also sent there.
From camera click to publication
The Wehrmacht propaganda department discussed the topics of future photographs with the Ministry of Public Education and Propaganda. Then the ministry formulated orders for the RP and gave clear instructions: for example, you need a picture for the first page, which will show no more than two people. Sometimes specific photographers received orders.
The staged photo was taken at the Polish border. The photograph should give the impression that Poland was taken with little or no fighting. Photographer Hans Sönnke.
In an effort to beat the competition, some photographers boasted that their photos were not staged, although this was not at all the case. It happened, on the contrary, that photographs were discarded, as their staged character was too conspicuous. Some masters were famous for their ability to flawlessly arrange people and objects in the frame. For example, photographer Georg Schmidt-Scheeder took many pictures of British prisoners of war in Dunkirk. In fact, when he arrived there, he found very few Englishmen - the bulk of the captives were French. The photographer was not taken aback: he took several close-up shots of the British against the background of blurred figures of French soldiers.
The photographers used Leica III and Contax III cameras. The pictures were taken in 24 × 36 mm format, and then from negatives they turned into positives of a 13 × 18 cm format suitable for the press. However, the photographers themselves did not have the right to transfer their work to the media - the photographs had a long way to go. An accompanying label was attached to the back of the photograph with a description of what was captured on it. The color of the label indicated the access level: for example, yellow meant "for official use only" and white meant "for the press." Then the photo was sent to the Ministry of Education and Propaganda, where specially trained employees checked the photo for compliance with the tasks set and for political reliability. If the picture passed this frequent sieve, a seal was put on its back,and the photo was sent to the photo news bureau (Bildnachrichtenbüro), where it was again color coded.
Photo taken by RP and accompanying label on the back. The description reads: “A soldier's grave at Krone. One of the first victims during the German advance to Poland. A soldier's grave on the side of the road belongs to a sapper who gave his life on September 2 for the Fuhrer and for his people. Photographer Heinz Bösig.
Pictures were published in illustrated magazines and on the pages of about forty newspapers, on posters, postcards, leaflets and wall newspapers in the occupied regions. Photobooks were also published - one such, for example, was dedicated to the Polish campaign of the Wehrmacht.
An example of the use of photography in the interests of German propaganda can be seen in the Soviet film Destiny (1977). The wife of the regional committee secretary, a psychiatric hospital doctor, is not evacuated and is taken prisoner together with her patients. The RP takes pictures of her together with the Germans and transfers the picture to the wall newspaper in order to form the impression that she is collaborating with the occupiers, and thereby undermine the authority of the regional committee secretary - the partisan commander.
I do not believe
The photographs of the RP, according to Ball, cannot be called reliable for the most part. For example, as follows from the decree of the Wehrmacht propaganda department of November 24, 1939, images from the pre-war maneuvers were used to illustrate the battles in Poland. Often, the photographs underwent additional processing to add drama to them (for example, in the scenes of battles they could finish painting the flame) and to expose the Wehrmacht in a favorable light.
During the Polish campaign of 1939, the pictures of the Republic of Poland sought to convince the Poles of their final defeat and the invincibility of the Wehrmacht. According to some Polish researchers, German photographers created an image of the enemy in the public consciousness of the occupied population - they were Jews, British and Russians - and pumped Poles with National Socialist ideas. In the occupation press, the photographs broadcast anti-Semitic and anti-Soviet attitudes to the population, while the authors of the photographs were allegedly not servicemen of the Republic of Poland, but employees of other services, for example, the American news agency Associated Press.
Collage from Ilustrowany Kurier Polski magazine dated September 21, 1941. On the left is the composition "Hands Up": several photographs of surrendering Soviet soldiers next to a close-up shot of a man in dirty rags - the caption to the photo says that this is a captured Soviet Jew. On the right is the composition "Attack": German soldiers are firing at the enemy.
In the production of photographs, a technique based on opposition was often used. The photographers played on the contrast between "dirty" animal-like Soviet citizens and "clean" Germans, painting a picture of the racial superiority of the German nation. The origins of this iconography go back to 1937, when the Guidelines for Anti-Bolshevik Propaganda were issued. Later, they were consolidated by the decree of the Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels of July 5, 1941, which read:
In the press of Germany and occupied Poland, another technique was used: an emphasis on the features of the appearance that are inherent in a particular people, replicated by propaganda. Such photographs should have disgusted the reader. At the same time, it was important to use loud words - for example, "horde" - and endow Soviet soldiers with an Asian appearance, emphasizing the "racial inferiority" of the soldiers of the Red Army.
Cover of Ilustrowany Kurier Polski magazine dated June 12, 1942. The caption reads: "With the help of such hordes, Stalin wanted to take over Europe, and Roosevelt and Churchill found the plan" very inspiring."
The Wehrmacht offensive to the east was presented as a heroic act: the soldiers blocked the way for the wild eastern hordes who wanted to take over Europe, and acted as liberators of ethnic Germans persecuted in Poland: the RP regularly supplied the press with photographs that "testified" to the destruction of the Germans who lived here. During the 1940 French campaign, propaganda companies riveted pictures of dark-skinned French soldiers, portraying them as racially alien and inferior. In Poland, this role was assigned to Jews, and in the USSR - to Jews and Asians.
Terror against civilians rarely caught sight of the camera, and these images did not appear in the press.
The cover of Ilustrowany Kurier Polski featured Soviet soldiers of Asian origin surrendering.
A Jew from the Lodz ghetto got into the lens of two photographers of the Republic of Poland at once due to his characteristic appearance.
Outcome
When analyzing photographs taken by propaganda companies, it is important to understand that they served as an instrument of psychological warfare. The Wehrmacht advancing eastward was supposed to appear in the eyes of compatriots in the form of a brilliant liberator - this was the task of the RP. In the press, photographs were widely circulated in which the inhabitants of the USSR were happy to meet German soldiers, as well as photographs of Wehrmacht military doctors who carefully provided assistance to the civilian population.
Residents of Western Belarus are greeted by soldiers of the Wehrmacht.
A German doctor examines a child.
The works of photographers of the Republic of Poland continue to influence the minds in our time: no, no, it may suddenly seem that the soldiers of the Wehrmacht were not at all as cruel as the history books claim. Someone may even get the impression that National Socialism is not so bad at all, and its adherents carried culture and enlightenment to the "wild" lands: it was not for nothing that the common people welcomed German soldiers.
However, as we can see, specially selected and instructed people worked on this impression, creating and distributing the required images in accordance with the National Socialist directives. It is important to remember that these photographs are staged and do not correspond to reality, that the pictures were strictly censored, and the civilians of the occupied territories who died from cold and hunger, tortured by the SS men, did not get into the lens of a German camera and did not give an interview to a German journalist.
Author: Vasily Zaitsev