Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis - Volume 135, Issue 2/3, 2022

Propaganda battle for Europe. Interactions between the Dutch pro-Nazi and pro-Allied press after Operation Barbarossa

During the German occupation of the Netherlands the occupying authorities, Dutch collaborators, and journalists writing under censorship frequently invoked the notion of ‘Europe’ in order to legitimize Nazi-Germany’s occupation and war aims. Hitler’s invasion of Russia was justified as a crusade in defence of European civilization which justified the involvement of Dutch volunteers. While in Dutch language media the propaganda initiative lay with nazified newspapers and radio, resistance newspapers and in particular Radio Orange – the mouthpiece of the Dutch government-in-exile in London – waged a vigorous counter-campaign. This article analyzes the various ways in which Radio Orange and the Dutch underground press strove to combat Nazi narratives on Europe. They rejected any associations between National-Socialist Europe and ‘Christianity’, ‘civilization’ and ‘preservation of Dutch national sovereignty’ and exposed the methods, motives, and inefficacy of Nazi propaganda.

VOC mentalities during the Second World War. Colonial propaganda in Dutch-language media, 1940-1945

This article analyses the role which colonial issues, particularly in the Netherlands Indies, played in the propaganda war between supporters and opponents of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In 1940 and 1941 the main lines of communication between the European and overseas parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands were cut, and consequently propagandists used pre-existing colonial tropes to inform their narratives. In this early phase there was a polarization between national-socialist thinkers, who propagated a conservative and authoritarian view of the colonies, and Radio Oranje, which broadcast a more progressive and idealistic view. This propaganda battle over the colonies reached its peak between December 1941 and March 1942 during the Japanese conquest of the Indonesian archipelago. After a fierce exchange Radio Oranje gained the upper hand and its views on colonial issues dominated the later phase of the Second World War.

Journalists on the frontlines. Dutch war reporting during the Second World War

News from the battlefields reached the Dutch public in the Second World War from various sources: official statements by the military, rumours, and dispatches by correspondents. While sometimes based on eyewitness accounts, difficulty getting close to the frontline as well as censorship meant these reports were often unreliable. Journalists reporting on the German side were conscripted into the PK (Propaganda Kompagnie) and had to fight alongside other troops. Authorities on both sides were keen to ensure that war reporting did not undermine the morale of ‘their boys’ or of those back home, so successes were exaggerated and setbacks downplayed. Both sides wanted ‘issue ownership’ of ‘brave’ Dutch soldiers. This research investigates instances when nazified and anti-nazi publications reacted to each other’s reporting, in particular in September 1944 when allied forces moved ever closer to liberating the Netherlands but then got stuck at Arnhem, with the frontline running down the middle of the country.

Reporting the Holocaust. The media wars around Jews, 1940-1945

This article focuses on the ways in which Dutch media presented the persecution of Jews during the Second World War. Considering both allied and German propaganda, it offers a combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of newspapers and radio. It shows that the Holocaust was presented in the traditional, detached, and unemotional manner common to journalistic discourse on the aims and causes of the war. The German-controlled media repeated national socialist stereotypes of Jews as war mongers, bolshevists, and a threat to civilization. Allied narratives stressed the need to destroy national socialism and restore peace in Europe. Where in the German narrative till 1942 Jews got a special position, in the allied narrative especially after 1942 Jews were denied a special position. In allied media the genocide was modestly described in a mostly factual and unemotional manner. The phenomenon that in current historiography is called ‘the Holocaust’ was ‘buried in time’ and can be seen as an example of the mediatisation of reality.