Political Warfare Executive
This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2013) |
PWE Shoulder Title | |
Predecessor | SO1 |
---|---|
Successor | Political Intelligence Department |
Established | 1941 |
Founded at | Great Britain |
Dissolved | 1945 |
During World War II, the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) was a British clandestine body created to produce and disseminate both white and black propaganda, with the aim of damaging enemy morale and sustaining the morale of countries occupied or allied with Nazi Germany.[1]
History
The Executive was formed in August 1941, reporting to the
PWE included staff from the Ministry of Information, the propaganda elements of the Special Operations Executive, and from the BBC. Its main headquarters was at Woburn Abbey with London offices at the BBC's Bush House. As the Political Warfare Executive was a secret department, when dealing with the outside world it used the cover name Political Intelligence Department (PID).
After
At the end of World War II PWE were tasked with the re-education of German
Activities
Activities of the PWE included distributing covert propaganda ranging from broadcasts to loudspeaker operations to lower morale and encourage desertion, leaflet drops, and underground publications in occupied countries, running rumour campaigns and creating forgeries, among others.[3]
The main forms of propaganda were in the form of radio broadcasts and printed postcards, leaflets and documents. PWE created a number of clandestine radio stations including Gustav Siegfried Eins, Soldatensender Calais and Kurzwellesender Atlantik.[4]
In order to deliver its
Some PWE's activities were controversial, such as impersonating deceased German soldiers and sending food parcels to their families with pacifist messages on their behalf. Later, Sefton Delmer, who ran a British black propaganda radio station during the war, quipped that although family hopes to see their loved ones were false, the ham was real.[6]
See also
References
- ^ "Could the BBC have done more to help Hungarian Jews?". BBC News. 13 November 2012. Retrieved 21 October 2016.
- Andrew Roberts. London: St. Ermin's, 2002
- ^ The Political Warfare Executive, covert propaganda, and British culture, University of Durham archived
- ^ Soley, Lawrence C. Radio Warfare: OSS And CIA Subversive Propaganda. New York: Praeger, 1989.
- ^ Richards, Lee. The day is coming: British aerial propaganda to Germany, 1940-44
- ^ Cull, Nicholas John, David Holbrook Culbert, and David Welch. Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present (2003).
Further reading
- Garnett, David (2002). The Secret History of PWE: The Political Warfare Executive 1939–1945. London: St Ermin's Press. OCLC 48486537.
- Cruickshank, Charles (1977). The Fourth Arm: Psychological Warfare 1938–45. London: Davis-Poynter. OCLC 3416725.
- Howe, Ellic (1982). The Black Game: British Subversive Operations Against the Germans During the Second World War. London: Michael Joseph. OCLC 8920524.
- Brooks, Tim (2007). British Propaganda to France, 1940–1944: Machinery, Method and Message. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. OCLC 77796312.
- OCLC 1389608653.
External links
- The PsyWar Society: Black Propaganda and propaganda leaflets database, a website with articles on psychological warfare and a library of propaganda leaflets from World War I to the present day.
- Political Warfare Executive
- Allied Propaganda in World War II and the British Political Warfare Executive, the files of the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) kept at the U.K. National Archives
- The Political Warfare Executive, Covert Propaganda, and British Culture, The Centre for Modern Conflicts and Cultures, Durham University