Black Propaganda

What is Black Propaganda?

Black propaganda is any kind of material that is not obiously propaganda and whose origin is completely concealed. The item is accepted for something other than what it really is.

Real Examples

One of the few sources of examples of actual black propaganda materials can be found in two books describing British efforts in this area in World War II. The Howe book "The Black Game" may be easier to find and gives a very good picture. Delmer's "Black Boomerang" is harder to find and is expensive when you find it. The Friedman interviews with Ellic Howe are available on-line are informative. Black operations were (and still are) deep secrets, so finding modern examples will not be easy. The area can get a bit sensitive.

How Does it work?

Black propaganda is similar deception (like "The Man Who Never Was" hoax) in that it is sneaky and subversive in nature but differs in being aimed at soldiers, sailors, and civilians in the enemy territory. Deceptions are aimed at the leadership and attempt to deceive them into a seriously wrong view of what you are actually doing. Subversive black materials cause problems for the enemy inside his own structure while deception tries to get him to do something that will be self-damaging. Black propaganda operations might also be called the "Dirty Tricks Department." Howe and Delmer, particularly Delmer, recount the cleverness and diabolical nature of the "dirty tricks" that British black operations teams played on the Germans. Hollywood writers might not think of tricks like these, but these tricks were real and worked.

Production of this kind of material requires great skill and perfection. A single grammar error in a printed item can result in detection of it. Flawed use of the language in a broadcast will reveal that the speaker is not a native speaker of the language. Black propaganda is not easy to do.

Forms of Black Materials

During the war British black materials were either broadcast (radio) or printed. Radio broadcasting was done on medium or short wavelengths and could be targeted to specific areas. Printed items could be air-dropped by the RAF, smuggled into Germany, or, in some cases, mailed into Germany (with counterfeit stamps!).

Broadcast (Radio)

Black broadcasting requires the utmost knowledge and skill. The operators must have deep knowledge of the target's language, culture, and current events. The broadcast must pass as being produced by members of the target's population. British efforts in this area were obviously brilliant. In one area, British black radio was so successful with its subversion that Goebbels was forced to stop using radio for transmitting instructions to the people of Germany.

Denis Sefton Delmer, who headed the black operations, had managed to obtain a hellschreiber, or radio teleprinter, with which he could monitor the output of the German news agency and get up-to-the-minute news bulletins from inside Germany. These reports could be quickly used on the black radio stations, giving them a real flavor of legitimacy.

These clandestine stations could be quite successful. One, Soldatensender Calais, had a larger audience than Goebbels' German stations and was considered to be a reliable source of news items.

How is this propaganda? The stations were broadcasting real German news. Think about it this way: you hear four or five news stories on Calais. You accept them as real news, but what you don't know (and cannot easily find out) is which one of them is fake, misleading and subversive. Delmer wrote that their little motto was "cover, dirt, cover, cover, dirt, cover, dirt."

Howe describes a good example: A Luftwaffe sergeant has been reported in having no confidence in his airplane after returning from a mission. The Luftwaffe was known to be having problems at the time. The sergeant then took off on a mission but returned to base after five minutes because his engine was running very badly. He complained about improperly serviced aircraft and was punished for it. He flew another mission from which he did not return. All of this was in a German news item and sounded quite genuine. It conveyed a picture of a Luftwaffe having problems servicing its aircraft and sending pilots on missions in aircraft that were not properly maintained. This was, however, one of the fake news items. Howe relates that it is essentially true that the sergeant did fly a mission over England, was shot down and his body identified. The story about what preceded this was made up.

A genuine-sounding news item could warn of a bombing raid on a German city and advise evacuation. This would clog the roads with fleeing citizens and cause chaos all aorund.

Print

Howe's small group produced millions of counterfeit German civilian food ration cards, which were delivered by the RAF in air drops. They were very good forgeries and could be easily used by Germans to get extra food rations. The purpose was to cause trouble for German authorities at home; if loads of them were used it would stress the food supplies, while collecting them all was infeasible.

Another print product that remained in demand was an adhesive sticker (size not stated) large enoung to be conspicuous and intended to be stuck on official German posters within Germany. The sticker was one word - "scheisse" - which is the German word for shit. It was provocative in that the "ss" in scheisse was made up of the two runic symbols that were the symbol of the German SS.

Another very interesting (and subversive!) product was a little booklet which described how to simulate (fake) physical conditions that would keep young Germans from being taken into the armed forces. They were enclosed in various deceptive covers, printed in large numbers, and air-dropped into Germany. They caused a lot of problems for German authorities.



References