Figure 58: Civilian Personal Mail. A common stunt in black or grey morale propaganda is the printing of facsimile personal letters. The letter shown at left is given in the original German form, along with its English twin which was—as usual—prepared for administrative clearance, records, and information. (Europe, Allied, 1944-45.)
Figure 59: Basic Types: Newspapers. Newspapers were prepared by almost every belligerent for almost every other. The examples shown above are Luftpost (SHAEF for Germans) and Rakkasan News (USAFPA for Japanese). Each newspaper copies the form of enemy civilian newspapers. The gross circulation of these airborne papers reached in some cases up into the millions.
A curious point developed. German morale in the higher grades was worse than in the lower. In the very last year of the war, despite the terrible air raids on their homeland behind them, the German troops on the Western front underwent only slight morale deterioration—in comparison with what they should have undergone had their morale borne a direct relationship to the strategic position of Germany as a whole. On the other hand, the morale among general officers and staff officers became wretched. The putsch of the generals the previous summer was merely a foretaste of the demoralization of the German higher command.
This unusual situation arose from the fact that the National Socialist propaganda machinery was still working on the masses of the troops. The political officers still made speeches. The troops were given pep talks, information about the war (hopelessly distorted information, but information none the less), and promises of privileges and comforts which—while they rarely materialized—were cheering. Simultaneously, German army discipline in the Prussian tradition, never known to be wishy-washy or weak, was sharply stiffened. Furthermore, the plain soldiers carried over to the months of defeat those propaganda attitudes which they had been taught in the prewar and war years by Hitler's incessant domestic propaganda.
Figure 60: Basic Types: Spot News Leaflets. Spot news often makes better propaganda if handled while still fresh than if carried in newspapers or morale leaflets later on. The examples above were used against the Germans. News is given on one side of the leaflet, and is dropped while the news is still news; the other side has a propaganda appeal reading, in effect, "You must choose for yourself. Die for the Party or live for yourself!"
In contrast with common troops, the officers had the professional skill to understand the advantages possessed by the Allied armies. The officers knew enough about global and continental strategy, about the immediate strategy of the Western front, about economic factors and so on, to see that the situation was genuinely bad. Furthermore, the officer class had been less indoctrinated in the first place—many of them having personally despised the Nazis while welcoming Naziism as a means of getting the "cattle," the common people, into line behind the Wehrmacht—and those of them concerned with propaganda naturally became critical of all propaganda, including their own government's, and communicated their criticisms to their brother officers.