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It is always interesting, and if the term can be used about war, amusing, to read the ideas and propaganda put out in wartime. One ripe area is the use of submarines. Prior to US entry into the war, we put out so much propaganda about the evil German submarines sinking passenger liners and slaughtering innocent children that the Navy actually had a problem getting volunteers for our own submarines; the sailors were afraid of being pariahs at home if it were known they served in submarines. In the event, US subs sank many times more Japanese ships than they did ours. (Of course by the time US subs got into action, there were no Japanese passenger ships sailing.)
But the US was not the only nation to be told, and believe, nonsense about the enemy. It was hard for the Germans to demonize Americans because so many Americans were of German descent, but all Americans were described as Chicago gangsters, wanton killers who sprayed cities with their notorious "Tommy guns." (It apparently never occurred to Goebbels that if that were true, Americans might be the wrong people to mess with.) Roosevelt ("Rosenfeld") was portrayed either as a Jew or under the control of the evil Jewish clique on Wall Street.
The Japanese Navy told its sailors that their night time gunnery was superior to that of the Americans because the dark eyes of the Japanese could see better in the dark than the Americans' blue eyes.
And so it goes. But we have progressed. Now Americans don't hurl stupid lies and insults at wartime enemies; we hurl stupid lies and insults at each other in Washington press conferences.
Jim
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