Are the days of ‘black PR’ re-emerging?
Are there signs today that ‘black PR’ is alive and kicking? Perhaps yes.
In the most recent US election, black PR, or propaganda, played a huge role. Both Trump and Clinton used negative stories on each other to unprecedented levels. The election was riddled with a wave of ‘fake news’ which hurt both sides. Indeed it could be argued that the election was won not on who came across as the most electable but which negative stories stuck the most.
In 2013, dozens of Chinese officials were put under investigation for employing ‘black’ PR firms to make sensitive stories disappear, fearing corruption stories could go viral.
While black PR appears to be only just hitting the headlines in recent times, in reality it is nothing new. Last month saw the death of Brunhilde Pomsel, aged 106, a former secretary to Joseph Goebbels and one of the last people alive to have had close contact with the Nazi black PR machine.
In her role she was required to systematically alter statistics, such as reducing the numbers of German soldiers who had been killed in the war and increasing the number of assaults said to have been perpetrated on German women by Red Army soldiers.
World War II saw the use of black PR as a weapon of war, both by Joseph Goebbels and the British Political Warfare Executive.
Black PR techniques were first used in a scientific manner even further back by journalist Walter Lippman and psychologist Edward Bernays in the early 20th century. During World War I, Lippman and Bernays were hired by the US to sway the population on the merits of entering the war on the side of the UK. Their campaign was so successful and anti-German that US businesses would increasingly adopt large-scale propaganda campaigns to control public opinion. Most crucially though, Adolf Hitler had admired its success and would set about creating a machine to sway his countrymen.
Joseph Goebbels was appointed head of this ministry shortly after Hitler took power in 1933. Most propaganda in Germany was produced by the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. All journalists, writers, and artists were required to register with one of the Ministry’s subordinate chambers for the press, fine arts, music, theatre, film, literature, or radio. Indeed broadcasters and journalists required prior approval before their works were disseminated.
The Nazis realised the potential of black PR as a vital tool. Hitler was impressed by the power of Allied propaganda during the First World War and saw it as one of the main causes of revolt and morale collapse amongst the German home front and Navy in 1918.
Black PR for the Nazis had several distinct audiences before the start of World War II. Germans were constantly reminded of their struggle against foreign and internal enemies, especially Jews. Ethnic Germans in countries such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union, and the Baltic states were exposed to black PR suggesting that blood ties to Germany were stronger that any other potential allegiance. All audiences were reminded of the greatness of German cultural, scientific, and military achievements.
Until the Battle of Stalingrad’s end in 1943, propaganda was used to emphasise the prowess of German arms and the humanity German soldiers had shown to the peoples of occupied territories. Conversely Allied pilots were portrayed as cowardly murderers and Americans, in particular, as Al Capone gangsters through black PR.
The Nazi black PR machine looked to alienate Americans and Brits from each other, and both from the Soviets. After Stalingrad, the main theme changed to Germany as the sole defender of Western European culture against the “Bolshevist hordes.” Towards the end of the War, the V weapons or the Vergeltungswaffens (weapons of revenge) were highlighted to convince Brits that defeating Germany was hopeless.
The Nazis used it on an industrial scale, Chinese officials have been caught using it and now we appear to be operating in a new era of alternative facts and even fake news. So are we heading towards a new era of black PR?
Written by Jamie Brownlee, Director