It being the primary mission of this blog to cover the intersection of comic books and foreign policy, I can't avoid linking to this issue of All-Star Comics from the 1940s in which the Justice Society of America explains the truth about Germany to one confused young American. The full issue comes to me via the comment thread to thsi post from John Holbo. It's interesting that this is so much less plausible than the propaganda mounted on behalf of the Iraq War even though intervention into World War II seems eminently justifiable on grounds that don't involve this sort of craziness.
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Classic Propaganda
15 Apr 2007 11:32 am
Comments (24)
thsi
Well, there were two streams of propaganda about Germany during World War II. One strain, which was rooted in the older literature of the first world war about the Huns, argued that Germany was an inherently dangerous nation, always at war with England and France. The other (and much more sophisticated) steam made a distinction between the German peoples and Nazism – arguing that the Allied powers were at war with an ideology rather than a people. Of course, the Justice Society of America represented the more vulgar form of propaganda – although there were comic books and comic strips that were sophisticated enough to make the distinction between Germans and Nazis – Little Orphan Annie was an example. In that strip, Annie fought “the nasties” (as she called them) while befriending German-Americans.
Interestingly, I think that the two steams are replicated in the current war. The cruder conservatives argue that the war is against Islam, supposedly an inherently evil religion. More sophisticated folks argue that the war is against a radical stream of Islam.
This might be covered in the John Holbo post, which I haven't read most of, but if anyone's wondering how to get the whole comic book, just edit the 2-digit number at the end of the URL in the post above: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v602/bensanaz/All-Star%2024/AllStarComics24-01.jpg
to read from '02' for page 2: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v602/bensanaz/All-Star%2024/AllStarComics24-02.jpg
... all the way through '27'.
Apologies if this seems too obvious, but since there wasn't a link from page 1 to page 2, etc., some might be a bit flummoxed.
Well if we could find Neocon League comic book from 2002 then I think we'd have an apples to apples comparison.
I thought the reason the old JSA comics trucked in simple-minded and bombastic war propaganda was because they were written for kids, who couldn't handle the subtle and bombastic war propaganda.
I think Tony L is on to something. Not that there wasn't other crude propaganda, but there is a reason we mock people who have "comic-book notions of good and evil". Some of it has sophistication (eg. the Watchmen) but it tends to be a simplistic medium.
Also, if there were neo-con comics today don't you think they'd be idealizing the warrior spirit the Germans had in those comics. Will to win and so on.
Not only were the early superhero comics made FOR kids, they were also often made BY kids. Siegel and Shuster were teenagers when they came up with superman, and many of the early cartoonists (Kirby, Kubert, Eisner, etc), started working in their teens. In this particular case, one of the early artists for the Justice Society of America was Joe Kubert, who would have been 16 when he started working (in 1942). That's actually something that makes the early superhero comics interesting -- you get to see how World War II was refracted through the imagination of kids.
I should add that it wasn't only comic book writers who argued that Germans were inherently blood-thirsty expanionists. A.J.P. Taylor (in books like The Course of German History) basically argued that Hitler was a typical German statesman, working as all Germans do to expand the Reich. In the U.S.A., the Morgenthau plan(to turn Germany into a permanently divided agricultural country) was predicated on the idea that an industrial Germany would always be a threat to its neighbours. So the Justice Society weren't alone in thiking that Germans (rather than Nazis) were the problem.
Jeet Heer is also correct. The Soviets had keeping Germany down and establishing a buffer among their high priorities. France was scarred by two world wars and wanted Germany kept weak. America only changed its mind due to the course of the early cold war.
I also find it interesting that despite the propaganda, that comic was familar with historial events such as the first battle of tannenberg. Not bad for kid authors. American kids at that, before the age of Google.
Jeet Heer is correct that comics at the time were mostly written by kids - the adults were off at war and 15-16 year old kids were often hired to write and draw comics at the time. Even the simplistic superhero comics weren't just read by kids, though. Books like these were targeted as much at young adults as they were to teens - much like modern action movies today that aim for the 16-34 year old male demographic. This propaganda was being aimed as much at the young men in the trenches as the slightly younger men being drafted/recruited into the war effort.
It would be much harder (and much less acceptable) to have this type of overtly racist propaganda today in the US. We're much more aware of our multicultural heritage today than we were then. There's a current of the racist "all Arabs are subhuman animals" that flows around - especially on the Internets - but its not acceptable to, for example, show the types of racist caricatures of Arabs on the editorial pages that would be equivalent to the racist Japanese caricatures that folks drew back in the day during WWII.
Jeet Heer is also correct. The Soviets had keeping Germany down and establishing a buffer among their high priorities. France was scarred by two world wars and wanted Germany kept weak. America only changed its mind due to the course of the early cold war.
There was a saying about what the purpose of NATO was, attributed to Lord Ismay: "To keep France in, Germany down, and Russia out"
Alternately, I've also heard "America in, Germany down, and Russia out."
I think the latter is the proper version. The prime goal of Canadian and most european foreign policy as regards NATO was to keep America from reverting into isolationism. Keep you all committed to world affairs, etc. France was much less essential compared to America. Now, I'm sure most of us would prefer that you be less committed of course.
Holy Terror Batman & Frank Miller are as close as we can get to it nowadays.
Hey guys,
Since we are discussing comics, I just thought that I would pass this along. There is a new (well, new being 2006) "conservative" themed comic called "Liberality."
Yes everyone, our story is set 20 years from now. Under the Democrats (of course), the U.S.A. has merged with the U.N. U.N. Secretary General Jacques Chirac introduces Ambassator Osama Bin Laden, where he is given a full tour of the White House by President Chelsea Clinton and Vice-President Michael Moore. And from here, Osama plans to bomb the U.S.
How insidious!!! But which few "freedom loving" Americans are fighting to stop all of this? Led by Ollie North, G. Gordon Liddy, and a bionic Sean Hannity (he has a bionic right arm that has all the sense of a regular right arm...I guess this is so he can jerk off quicker), a group of patriots fight to bring America back to the glory that it once had.
Anyway, I thought that I would just share this with you for a laugh, considering how brave and heroic Sean Hannity is. Frank Miller is a lefty compared to this.
Has anyone on here read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon? The protagonists of the novel are two Jewish cousins, who are comic book creators in the late 1930's. After World War II starts, they steer their comic book into a similar direction as the Justice Society of America, while they wait anxiously for America to get into the war. A movie version is apparently on the way.
The comic book propaganda raises an important point: Anyone in the media who makes invidious comparisons between public support of any recent American war and World War II is being disingenuous if they don't acknowledge the vast differences between the American media then and today.
For every criticism that has been leveled against the rationale and conduct of the Iraq War, a similar one could have been leveled against World War II. For example: invading an Arab country that didn't attack us (Western Sahara); gross military incompetence (e.g., the Kasserine Pass); the inhumane treatment of prisoners (e.g., the tens of thousands of German POWs left to die of starvation and exposure at the end of the war); domestic abuses of police power (internment camps for Japanese-Americans); the contrast between idealistic talk (FDR's Four Freedoms) and partnering with despots (Stalin).
That World War II remains mythologized as a uniquely "good" war isn't because it didn't have the ugliness and moral complexities common to all wars, but because WWII-era media considered it their patriotic duty to align themselves with the war effort.
Yeah Kavalier and Clay! I'm stoked that they're making a movie. It's a great book.
That World War II remains mythologized as a uniquely "good" war isn't because it didn't have the ugliness and moral complexities common to all wars, but because WWII-era media considered it their patriotic duty to align themselves with the war effort.
Posted by: Dave on April 15, 2007 11:54 PM
First of all, it's not a bad thing to have a media who strive to present the truth instead of being patriotic. Donahue was fired from MSNBC despite having the network's highest ratings because he was against the war. WWII was also a conventional war in that another collection of states had to be defeated: Germany, Italy and Japan. No such state exists for us to defeat in Iraq. A counter-insurgency campaign is an orange to a conventional war's apple. I don't know enough about Kasserine Pass and American troops in Western Sahara to comment, but it should be noted that former German POW's after the war had a reputation for being pro-American because they tended to be treated relatively well in general. For instance, during Dresden prisoners were let out to seek shelter rather than just die. For there to be a parallel to "the tens of thousands of German POWs left to die of starvation and exposure at the end of the war," there would have to be an end to the Iraq War. Leaving someone behind is morally wrong, but it is different than torturing someone who is in your control, such as at Gitmo. When you talk of "the contrast between idealistic talk (FDR's Four Freedoms) and partnering with despots (Stalin)," which despot are you referring to? Saudi Arabia? I have to agree with you on Japanese internment though.
In WWII, you had a collection of genocidal, totalitarian regimes conquering people left and right and massacring them from Auschwitz to Harbin. It was clear who our enemies were. In Iraq, we really don't seem to have clear enemies nor allies. That does make a big difference. Parallels can exist between any two wars (think hard enough and you can figure out how the War of the Spanish Succession was similar to the breakup of the Balkans), but that doesn't mean the parallels are particularly illuminating.
On the European front, American behavior in WWII really does come as close as wars come to a "good war". The war against the Japanese before their surrender was darker and more vicious. But in neither case did we torture prisoners, certainly not the sick sexual torture seen at Abu Ghraib. And we faced a much more genuine threat; the astonishing thing in Iraq is that no one has ever advanced a good reason why we are even involved in the place. It's war for the sake of war.
Dave: Simply as a factual point, you're wrong to suggest that the media during World War II was more compliant than it is now. The fact is that many of the leading press lords of the 1930s and 1940s (William Randolph Hearst, Colonel McCormack, Captain Patterson, the Annenberg family) hated Franklin Roosevelt. In the very early days after Pearl Harbor they muted their criticism of the president. But the summer of 1942, they resumed their editorial policies of opposition. Papers like the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News (two of the biggest dailies) repeatedly ran stories criticizing how Roosevelt was conducting the war, so much so that these papers were accused of being defeatist. Fun fact: Roosevelt thought about sending in the army to shut down the Chicago Tribune when it revealed some naval secrets. The idea that the United States was completely united during World War II is a function of post-war propaganda (along the lines of The Greatest Generation) and selective memories, not history.
Also, the German-American community was large and politically numerious, so they were very critical of any perceived atrocities against their homeland. Another fun fact: Joseph McCarthy, whose home state was thick with German-Americans, launched his political career by claiming that American G.I.'s had mistreated German P.O.W.s (memembers of the S.S., in fact). The fact that you could win political points by defending German P.O.W.s in the years right after World War II indicates the degree to which the country was divided about the war.
MQ:
"On the European front, American behavior in WWII really does come as close as wars come to a "good war"."
Including the firebombing of Dresden and other cities? Even as we couldn't spare a single bomb to blow up the tracks to Auschwitz?
Jeet Heer,
Thanks for pointing out those press counter-examples. It's also true that there was a small, if vocal, opposition to World War II early on, including some of those on the right and some pacifists. By "media" though, I was really thinking of the equivalent of our TV news in those days: newsreels and radio news broadcasts. To my knowledge, these were overwhelmingly pro-war and even jingoistic.
Notice how Dave phrases the idea:"because WWII-era media considered it their patriotic duty to align themselves with the war effort.
Then, as now, it seems, criticizing how a war is being conducted or reporting on, you know, how it's going is somehow not being patriotic.
Dave's analogy is flawed in two spots
a) The Allies didn't invade Western Sahara, they invaded Vichy France, technically an ally of Germany.
b) Ten of thousands of German prisoners did NOT die of starvation following WW2. This is a myth, and has never been substantiated. The root cause of the myth is that the 'books' showing the number of German POW's suddenly dropped, and the reason is that Allied authorities let a lot of old men and boys go home. The myth posits that the drop was due to a starvation that nobody saw.
But, yes, WW2 wasn't the 'good war' we all 'remember'.
Comments closed April 29, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Wait, seriously? The Justice Society made Wonder Woman their "secretary"? I guess it was the 1940s and all, but still.
Posted by Brad Plumer | April 15, 2007 12:06 PM