Abstract
During World War II, a group of analysts in a now defunct unit of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) attempted to make inferences about Nazi propaganda strategy and underlying policy calculations from a close inspection of German radio and press communications.
This, article is based on a study prepared by the author for the RAND Corporation. This text was first published as: “Prediction of Political Action by Means of Propaganda Analysis,” Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 1 (Spring 1956): 335–345. The author retained the copyright that was transferred to Mrs. Juliette George and Mrs. Mary Lombard Douglass who granted permission to republish the text.
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Notes
- 1.
No adequate account of these early approaches has been published. The logic of these approaches is briefly indicated in H. D. Lasswell’s unpublished memorandum, “Specimen Hypotheses about the Focus of Attention in World Politics,” February 1942, The Experimental Division for the Study of Wartime Communications, Library of Congress, p. 4.
- 2.
For an authoritative description by a leading German propagandist of how some of the Nazi aggressions were prepared propagandistically, see Hans Fritzsche’s affidavit submitted to the Nuremberg Tribunal: document number 3469-PS in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol. VI, pp. 184–190 (translation); this is summarized in Vol. II, pp. 1041–1046.
- 3.
See Bernard Berelson, Content Analysis in Communication Research, The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1952, pp. 84, 85–86. Somewhat less sober in their assessment were Ernst Kris and Hans Speier, German Radio Propaganda, Oxford University Press, 1944, pp. 289–291, 292–325. There is implicit recognition in the latter work that some modification would be necessary in the early assumption that the ability to predict Nazi initiatives rested upon the discovery of a single, regularly recurring relationship of intended action with propaganda strategy.
- 4.
A brief account of the indirect method appears in the Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 15, (Winter, 1951–52), pp. 782–784; and in B. Berelson, op. cit., pp. 193–195.
- 5.
The term “logic of the situation” is taken over from Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, 2nd edition, revised. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., 1952, Vol. 2, pp. 96–97, 265.
- 6.
Thus, the mode of reasoning employed in the indirect method is a special application of the procedure of causal imputation in certain types of historical explanation. As in the latter, the propaganda analyst attempts to approximate the logic of experiment by means of a mental rehearsal of hypothetical outcomes. Changes in the value of one or more variables are postulated by the analyst in order to appraise the consequences, if any, for other variables. By means of such imaginative rehearsals, a hypothetical construction or inference of non-observable causal determinants takes place. On this procedure in historical explanation, see Talcott Parsons’ commentary on Max Weber, The Structure of Social Action, 2nd edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949, pp. 610 ff.
- 7.
For example, a declaration of war that shocks one’s own people; use against the enemy of an unconventional weapon that violates the moral values of the domestic audiences; arrest and trial of one’s own elite members for treason; announcement of severe measures against a segment of one’s own population, etc.
- 8.
For example, the announcement of one’s military or diplomatic offensive, the use of a new powerful weapon that does not violate the moral values of the domestic audience, a victorious battle, enemy diplomatic concessions, increase in food rations, etc.
- 9.
For example, when the elite has relatively low confidence in the successful outcome of its action, as in the case of a military offensive against the enemy or a program for improved welfare at home.
- 10.
Cases were selected for which some verification of the inferences was possible on the basis of historical materials.
- 11.
The British Air Ministry estimate was that the installations in Northern France were launching sites for a new type of weapon. “But the missiles were so long in coming,” writes Walter Bedell Smith, “that some of our officers–highly placed, too–advanced the theory that the platforms were a gigantic hoax, constructed by the Nazis with great cunning to divert our bombers from vital targets.” (“Eisenhower’s Six Great Decisions-I. The Invasion Gamble,” Saturday Evening Post, June 18, 1946, Vol. 218, No. 49, p. 106; cf. also Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1948, pp. 229–230, 259–260; H. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946, pp. 468, 492, 513; and R. V. Jones, “Scientific Intelligence: Some Aspects of Its Development from 1939–1945,” Journal of Royal United Services Institution.
- 12.
The details of the analysis are too complex for fuller presentation here. Partial verification for the inference appears in Goebbels’ account of information given to him personally by Hitler to the effect that English air raids on Peenemünde and on V-1 launching sites (August 17 and September 7–8, 1943) had thrown back preparations four to eight weeks. (L. Lochner, ed., The Goebbels Diary, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1948, entry for September 10, 1943, pp. 435–436.).
- 13.
Some verification of the inference can be found in Goebbels’ diary entry for May 10, 1943: “The Führer has no intention of following the Japanese procedure of court-martialing aviators shot down over German soil and having them executed…. I must see to it that, while we let our press mention the strong language employed by the Japanese and also more recently by the Italians, we do not suggest to the German public that we should indulge in similar practices.” (Op. cit., p. 367.).
- 14.
Operations Order No. 5, issued by Hitler on March 13, 1943, to German Armies in Russia, spoke only in terms of taking the initiative at certain sectors of the front, if possible before the Russians did, in order to dictate their actions at least at one sector. See also B. H. Liddell Hart, The German Generals Talk, New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1948, p. 212; J. F. C. Fuller, The Second World War, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1949, pp. 276–277. In his diary entry for May 7, 1943, Goebbels stated: “In the East the Fuehrer will soon start a limited offensive in the direction of Kursk. He may, however, delay it to see whether the Bolsheviks want to beat us to it. That might offer us an even more favorable chance than if we took the initiative….” (Op. cit., p. 352; see also pp. 391–392.) Hitler apparently tired of waiting for the Russians to start matters, for he launched the limited offensive on the Kursk salient on July 5. There was in 1943, however, no major German offensive in the East comparable to that of the preceding two summers. That this was not an easy matter for Allied intelligence to establish is suggested by Harry Butcher (My Three Years with Eisenhower, New York, 1946, p. 314), who reports that in late May 1943, Walter Bedell Smith returned to Eisenhower’s Headquarters, after attending joint British-American conferences in Washington, with the following ‘Washington’ appraisal: The Germans were prepared to attack shortly on the Russian front on a ‘monstrous’ scale in an effort to knock Russia out of the war or to paralyze the Red Army.
- 15.
The precise relation between the change in German broadcasts to Brazil, noted above, and German plans for action against Brazil has not been directly verified. However, there is some indirect evidence that the change in propaganda tone and content may have been coordinated with military plans. Thus, in a Fuehrer conference on May 14, 1942, a memorandum entitled “The Opening of Hostilities Against Brazil” and naval plans for a “powerful blow” were discussed, and Hitler authorized a strong U-boat attack in Brazilian waters for the beginning of August. The “powerful blow” planned in May was struck on August 15, 1942, when five Brazilian ships, including a troopship, were torpedoed off the Brazilian coast. Another Brazilian ship was sunk on August 19. Thereupon, on August 22, Brazil declared war on Germany and Italy. (For additional details on implementation of the decision to take action against Brazil, see Admiral Raeder’s testimony at Nuremberg in International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 14, pp. 122–125.).
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George, A.L. (2019). Prediction of Political Action by Means of Propaganda Analysis. In: Caldwell, D. (eds) Alexander L. George: A Pioneer in Political and Social Sciences. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90772-7_6
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