Similar methods were used against Austria-Hungary, writes Mr. Creel, and did much to shatter their feelings of allegiance to Germany. A proof of the effectiveness of the propaganda came when an order from the German General Staff was found, "establishing death as a penalty for all those seen picking up our matter or found with it in their possession. Austria-Hungary had earlier given orders to shoot or imprison all soldiers or citizens guilty of the abominable crime of reading 'printed lies' against the government."
Indirectly, too, the Germans were subjected to Allied propaganda throughout the war. In one matter the German Government's attitude was more democratic and ethically defensible than the attitude of its enemies. It is discouraging to the abstract moralist to find that this worked out to the detriment of those adopting the more admirable course. Of all belligerent countries, Germany was the only one that permitted the free circulation and sale within its borders of the enemy press. Leading French and English editors were able with much difficulty to secure copies of some German papers, and occasionally the large press associations and some of the leading newspapers in America were permitted to see a few ancient copies, but nowhere could they be had by the private citizen, nor even read with safety in public places by those entitled to have them. There was never a time in Berlin, from the first declaration of war to the armistice, when the leading American, French, English, Italian and Russian papers could not be bought openly at a dozen newsstands or hotels, and the same was true generally throughout Germany.
The well-disciplined Germans at first rejected as lies all reports in these papers differing from the official German versions of the same happenings. Many kept this attitude to the last, but even these began after a while, in common with the less sturdy believers, to be morally shaken by the cumulative evidence of the worldwide unpopularity of the Germans and to be dismayed by the tone of the enemy toward everything that they had heretofore held holy. The average German stoically endured for a long time to be called "Hun," but, in homely phrase, it got on his nerves after a while. The wild atrocity stories also played their part. All intelligent readers of history know that tremendous exaggerations of such reports have always accompanied all wars. Before the present war the Associated Press, the world's greatest newsgathering agency, barred war-atrocity stories from its reports because experience had demonstrated that these were often—perhaps generally—untrue and almost always exaggerated. When the enemy press converted the German army's Kadaververwertungs-Anstalt (Carcass Utilization Factory) into a Corpse Utilization Factory (Leichenverwertungs-Anstalt) and declared that bodies of fallen German soldiers were being rendered out for the fat, the Germans were at first indignant and angry. This feeling changed to one of consternation and eventual depression when they learned from the enemy newspapers that the story was universally believed. In the course of the long war, the constant repetition of atrocity reports, both true and false, had a cumulative depressive effect which seriously shook the morale of all but the sturdiest of the people and was one of the factors inducing the general feeling of hopelessness that made the final débâcle so complete. That everybody knew some of the reports to be true was an aggravation of their effect. A great part, perhaps, indeed, the greater part of all Germans condemned bitterly the Belgian deportations, just as the best minds of the nation condemned the new Schrecklichkeit of the U-boat warfare, but they were helpless so long as their government was under the iron thumb of the military caste, and their helplessness increased their despair when they saw the opinion of the world embittered against their nation.
There is plenty of German testimony to show how effective this enemy propaganda was. Siegfried Heckscher, Reichstag member and chief of the publicity department of the Hamburg-America Line, writing at the end of September, pointed out the need of a German propaganda ministry to counteract the attacks being made on Germany by the propaganda work under the direction of Lord Northcliffe.
"The German practice of silence in the face of all the pronouncements of enemy statesmen cannot be borne any longer," said Herr Heckscher. "Anybody who watches the effect of the Northcliffe propaganda in foreign countries and in Germany can have only one opinion—that this silence is equivalent to a failure of German statesmanship.
"With masterly skill every single speech of the English leaders is adapted not only to its effect in England, but also to its influence on public opinion among the neutrals and also, and especially, in Germany. * * * * Hundreds of thousands of Germans, reading a pronouncement by the President of the United States, ask themselves bitterly what the German Government will say. Thus there is formed a cloud of discontent and dark doubt, which, thanks to this Northcliffe propaganda, spreads itself more and more over the German people. * * * *
"We try to protect our country from enemy espionage and from the work of agents and scoundrels, but with open eyes we leave it defenseless while a stream of poisonous speeches is poured over its people.
"It will not, of course, do for enemy pronouncements of importance to be withheld from our people, but it is as necessary for our people as their daily bread that the Anglo-Franco-American influence should be met by the German view, and that the justice and greatness of the German cause and of the German idea should be brought into the clear, full light of day. Nor is defense sufficient. We must also aggressively champion our cause in the forum of the civilized world.
"I repeat what I have said for years, that Reuter and the English news propaganda are mightier than the English fleet and more dangerous than the English army."
The Kölnische Volkszeitung echoed the demand for a propaganda ministry. It wrote: