“The POW Will Safely Return!”: Second World War Allied and German Propoganda

During the Second World War, both the Allied and Axis governments expended significant resources in the production and dissemination of propoganda. Directed at their own people, the propoganda of these governments fostered correct thinking, feelings, attitudes, and behaviours. Directed at military personnel of enemy nations as part of psychological warfare operations, this propoganda was far more subversive. Its goal was to undermine the efficiency and coherence of enemy forces and, ultimately, to weaken their will to fight. Among the different media harnessed to achieve this end, aerial leaflets hold a unique place in the history of psychological warfare operations. Their efficacy was debated during and after the war yet these leaflets were disseminated in the millions and collected by soldiers of both sides. It is for this reason, among others, that although inherently ephemeral, Second World War leaflets have been preserved in archival collections, including the Goerge Metcalf rchives of the Canadian War Museum. In the following pages, we will highlight 12 leaflets from this collection, six produced by the Psychological Warfare Division, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditioanry Force (PWD) and six by the SS Standarte Kurt Eggers of the German Waffen SS (SKE), all of which encourage enemy combatants to surrender. But what arguments did the psychological warriors of the opposing sides think would convince their target audiences to take this step? What inducements did they offer? What justifications did they provide? And in what ways were the leaflets produced by the opposing sides different or the same

Applying to be ‘Industrial Soldiers’: The Letters of Young Women Wanting to Train as Chemistry Laboratory Technicians, 1942-1944

Abstract Between 1942 and 1944, just over 100 young women from southwestern Ontario applied to, and were accepted into, one of four female chemistry laboratory technician courses held at the University of Western Ontario under the aegis of the Dominion-Provincial War Emergency Training Program. This paper constitutes a social discourse analysis of the letters written by the young women. It explores the backgrounds of the participants in the communication, as well as its social and institutional context, seeking to understand how the young women presented themselves as they sought entry into this course. Did they duplicate the discourse provided to them? They did, but only to a degree. For example, they emphasized educational attainment but did not reference patriotism and a desire to help Canada’s war effort. This exercise suggests that Canada’s Total War did not touch every Canadian quite as profoundly as we might believe.RésuméEntre 1942 et 1944, un peu plus de 100 jeunes femmes venant du Sud-Ouest de l’Ontario posaient avec succès leur candidature à l’un des quatre cours de formation de techniciennes pour des laboratoires de chimie tenus à l’Université de Western Ontario sous l’égide du Programme de formation d’urgence en temps de guerre du Canada. Cet article présente une analyse sociale de la teneur des lettres de motivation écrites par ces jeunes femmes. L’auteure s’intéresse à la fois aux antécédents ainsi qu’à la situation sociale et académique des candidates afin de mieux comprendre comment ces jeunes femmes se sont présentées elles-mêmes en vue de leur admission à ce cours. Ont-elles reproduit le discours qui leur était suggéré? Oui, dans une certaine mesure. Par exemple, elles mettaient l’accent sur la réussite scolaire, mais elles ne faisaient aucune référence au patriotisme et au désir de contribuer à l’effort de guerre canadien. Cette étude suggère que l’effort de guerre n’affectait pas tous les Canadiens aussi profondément qu’on l’aurait cru

Reviews of Books

AZAR GAT. War in Human Civilization. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xv, 822. $45.00 (us). Reviewed by William R. Thompson ROBIN WATERFIELD. Xenopkon's Retreat: Greece, Persia, and the End of the Golden Age. Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp. xiii, 248.$27.95 (us). Reviewed by Noreen Humble VICTOR H. MAIR, ed. Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2006. Pp. ix, 310. $57.00 (us). Reviewed by Paul D. Buell SERHII PLOKHY. The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xix, 379.$90.00 (us). Reviewed by Paul Bushkovitch NAOMI STANDEN. Unbounded Loyalty: Frontier Crossing in Liao China. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2007. Pp. xiii, 279. $53.00 (us). Reviewed by Leo K. Shin CHRISTOPHER TYERMAN. God's War: A New History of the Crusades. Cambridge MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp. xvi, 1,023.$35.00 (us). Reviewed by John France BJÖRN K. U. WEILER. Henry HI of England and the Staufen Empire, 1216-1272. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press for The Royal Historical Society, 2006. Pp. xi, 247. $80.00 (us). Reviewed by William Chester Jordan SABINE MACCORMACK. On the Wings of Time: Rome, the Incas, Spain, and Peru. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xix, 320.$35.00 (us). Reviewed by Richard L. Kagan LEO K. SHIN. The Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming Borderlands. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xxi, 246. $93.95 (us). Reviewed by Geoff Wade JOHN G. DEMARAY. From Pilgrimage to History: The Renaissance and Global Historicism. New York, NY: AMS Press, 2006. Pp. xv, 250.$82.50 (us). Reviewed by Felipe Fernández-Armesto ANDRE THEVET. Histoire: D'André Thevet Angoumoisin, Cosmographe du Roy, de deux voyages par luyfaits aux Indes Australes, et Occidentals, ed. Jean-Claude La-borie and Frank Lestringant. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2006. Pp. 496. CHF. 153.60. Reviewed by Margaret Sankey JESSICA L. HARLAND-JACOBS. Builders oj Empire: Freemasons and British Imperialism, 1777-1927. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Pp. xiv, 384. $39.95 (us). Reviewed by Andrew S. Thompson RENÉ HANKE. Brühl und das Renversement des alliances: Die antipreuβische Auβenpolitik des Dresdener Hofes, 1744-1756. Münster: Lit Verlag, 2006. Pp. xii, 383. €39.90. Reviewed by Franz A. J. Szabo SIMON BURROWS. Blackmail, Scandal, and Revolution: London's French libellistes, 1758-92. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006; dist. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Pp. xiv, 256.$50.00 (us). Reviewed by Jennifer Mori CYNTHIA RADDING. Landscapes of Power and Identity: Comparative Histories in the Sonoran Desert and the Forests of Amazonia from Colony to Republic. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2005. Pp. xxiv, 431. $24.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Stuart McCook JEAN BARMAN and BRUCE MCINTYRE WATSON. Leaving Paradise: Indigenous Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest, 1787-1898. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2006. Pp. xiii, 512.$45.00 (us). Reviewed by James N. Nason JEREMY ADELMAN. Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006. Pp. x, 409. $39.95 (us). Reviewed by Timothy E. Anna VICTOR BULMER-THOMAS, JOHN H. COATSWORTH, and ROBERTO CORTÉS CONDE, eds. The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America: I: The Colonial Era and the Short Nineteenth Century. Pp. viii, 607; II: The Long Twentieth Century. Pp. viii, 755. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006.$300.00 (us), 2 vol. set. Reviewed by Eric Van Young MAN-HOUNG LIN. China Upside Down: Currency, Society, and Ideologies, 1808-1856. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp. xxvi, 362. $49-95 (us). Reviewed by Evelyn S. Rawski MATT D. CHILDS. The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle against Atlantic Slavery. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Pp. xi, 300.$21.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Christopher Schmidt-Nowara ALAIN LE PICHON, ed. China Trade and Empire: Jardine, Matheson & Co. and the Origins of British Rule in Hong Kong, 1827-1843. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xvii, 626. $125.00 (us). Reviewed by Kent G. Deng STEPHEN BROADBERRY. Market Services and the Productivity Race, 1850-2000: British Performance in International Perspective. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xix, 409.$95.00 (us). Reviewed by Alan Booth ERIC T.JENNINGS. Curing the Colonizers: Hydrotherapy, Climatology, and French Colonial Spas. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2006. Pp. xi, 271. $21.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Patricia M. E. Lorcin JACOB A. TROPP. Natures of Colonial Change: Environmental Relations in the Making of the Transkei. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2006. Pp. xiv, 268.$24.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Norman Etherington PING-HUI LIAO and DAVID DER-WEI WANG, eds. Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895-1945: History, Culture, Memory. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2006. Pp. xvi, 416. $45.00 (us). Reviewed by E. Patricia Tsurumi MAGNUS BRECHTKEN. Sckarnierzeit 1895-1907: Persönlichkeitsnetze und international pohtik in den deutsch-britisch-amerikanischen beziehungen vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2006. Pp. xvii, 454. €73.90. Reviewed by Matther Seligmann MÉLANIE MORIN-PELLETIER. Briser les ailes de l'ange: Les infirmières militaires canadiennes (1914-1918). Outrement, QC: Athéna éditions, 2006; dist. Boisbriand, QC: Prologue. Pp. 185.$19.95 (CDN)> paper. Reviewed by Amber Lloydlangston CLIFFORD ROSENBERG. Policing Paris: The Origins of Modern Immigration Control between the Wars. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2006. Pp. xviii, 241. $23.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Vicki Garon MRINALINI SINHA. Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring oj an Empire. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2006. Pp. xiii, 366.$23.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Sarah Ansari UZI RABI. The Emergence of States in a Tribal Society: Oman under Sa'id bin Taymur, 1932-1970. Brighton and Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2006. Pp. xii, 299. $75.00 (us). Reviewed by Joseph A. Kéchichian FRANK UEKOETTER. The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xv, 230.$23.99 (us), paper. Reviewed by Roger Chickering ROBERT B. BRYCE. Canada and the Cost of World War II: The International Operations of Canada's Department of Finance, 1939-1947, ed. Matthew J. Bellamy. Montreal, QC and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005. Pp. xvi, 392. $49.95 (CDN). Reviewed by Hector Mackenzie KENNETH SLEPYAN. Stalin's Guerrillas: Soviet Partisans in World War II. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2006. Pp. xi, 409.$34.95 (us). Reviewed by Evan Mawdsley H. JAMES BURGWYN. Empire on the Adriatic: Mussolini's Conquest of Yugoslavia 1941-1943. New York, NY: Enigma, 2005. Pp. xxi,385. $27.50 (CDN), paper. Reviewed by Brian R. Sullivan R. A. RATCLIFF. Delusions of Intelligence: Enigma, Ultra, and the End of Secure Ciphers. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xvii, 314.$30.00 (us). Reviewed by Calder Walton LUMANS, VALDIS O. Latvia in World War II. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2006. Pp. xi, 547. $65.00 (us). Reviewed by David J. Smith NIKOLAI LITVIN. 800 Days on the Eastern Front: A Russian Soldier Remembers World War II, trans, and ed. Stuart Britton. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007. Pp. xv, 159.$24.95 (us). Reviewed by James F. Gebhart JEFFREY HERF. The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust. Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. Pp. ix, 390. $29.95 (us). Reviewed by Susan L. Carruthers HEIDE FEHRENBACH. Race after Hitler: Black Occupation Children in Postwar Germany and America. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005. Pp. xiii, 263.$29.95(us). Reviewed by Donna Harsch FRANK CAIN. Economic Statecraft during the Cold War: European Responses to the US Trade Embargo. London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. Pp. xii, 211. $120.00 (us). Reviewed by Alan P. Dobson BRUNELLO VIGEZZI. The British Committee on the Theory of International Politics (1954-1985): The Rediscovery of History, trans. Ian Harvey. Milan: Edizioni Unicopli, 2005. Pp. xxviii, 440. €30.00, paper. Reviewed by Tim Dunne JAGAT S. MEHTA. Negotiating for India: Resolving Problems through Diplomacy (Seven Case Studies, 1958-1978). New Delhi: Manohar, 2006. Pp. 296. Rs 750. Reviewed by Walter K. Andersen PATRICKJ. HANEY and WALT VANDERBUSH. The Cuban Embargo: The Domestic Politics of an American Foreign Policy. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. Pp. xi, 222.$24.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Joaquín Roy NICHOLAS TARLING. Regionalism in Southeast Asia: To Foster the Political Will. London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2006. Pp. 276. $125.00 (us). Reviewed by Nicholas J. White ROBERT D. SCHULZINGER. A Time for Peace: The Legacy of the Vietnam War. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. xix, 252.$30.00 (us). Reviewed by Kenton Clymer MARTHA BRILL OLCOTT. Central Asia's Second Chance. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005. Pp. xiii, 389. $24.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by Shahram Akbarzadeh RYANC HENDRICKSON. Diplomacy and War atNATO: The Secretary Generaland Military Action after the Cold War. Columbia, MO and London: University of Missouri Press, 2006. Pp. viii, 172.$16.95 (us), paper. Reviewed by James Sperling SCOTT STRAUS. The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2006. Pp. xiv, 273. $27.95 (us). Reviewed by Howard Adelman BILL ONG HING. Deporting Our So