Propaganda
I watched a fascinating documentary a couple of days ago about the so called ‘black propaganda’ units operating in the Second World War. These used dirty tactics to try to demoralise the German troops, including dropping pornographic leaflets and spreading rumours about soap being rendered from all the amputated limbs in Austrian hospitals. Some of the stories were very funny, while others were rather horrifying. One of the funniest moments was an interview with a woman (now in her late 60s) whoâas an innocent young girl of 22âwas asked to doctor a photograph of Hitler to show him holding his penis, underneath which would be the legend ‘What we have we hold’ in German. As she put it, she would “laugh like a drain” about it now, but at the time it was deeply shocking. Hilariously, the instructions she received were to make the penis realistic, “but not too large”. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that quite a number of the pornographic propaganda leaflets have survived to this day; soldiers tended to throw away the usual kind, but hung on to the porn.
