Propaganda & Mass Persuasion: The german V1 rocket leaflet campaign.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

The german V1 rocket leaflet campaign.

"During WWII all the combatants fired leaflets at each other by
artillery. At the height of the Cold War period the air between
mainland China and the offshore island of Quemoy was filled with
propaganda shells. In 1962, The London Telegraph stated that 1,700 gun positions faced Quemoy, but all they fired was the occasional leaflet shell...
In the Diary of a German Soldier Wilhelm Pruller says, "We got a new gun today with a barrel made of cardboard. And it shoots too, as far as two kilometers. The bullets are propaganda bombs which comprise more that 100 leaflets.""
Sergeant Major Herbert A. Friedman


The following article is about the rocket leaflet campaign during WWII.
This incident occurred more than forty years ago, but it is one of the
most striking applications of propaganda techniques in recent history.
Herbert A. Friedman, a popular Sergeant Major on his way to the top,
clearly understood the power of propaganda. In his article he wrote
about three phases of the V-1 PSYOP campaign:
1. leaflets carried and disseminated by the V1 flying bomb.
2. leaflets and postcards that threaten the Allies with death and
destruction by the V1.
3. leaflets that tell the Germans that they have lost the war.
He also speak about preparation to this campaign, describe it step by
step and illustrate the article with copies of the leaflets.

1 Comments:

Blogger A. Mattson said...

A good post and an interesting link. Propaganda leaflets dropped from the air are still a mainstay of modern propaganda. The U.S. drops them in huge quantities in Afghanistan and Iraq.

2/10/2009 12:16 AM  

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