ABSTRACT
Germany began to be presented in the newsreels, the press and in official publications in terms of a defeated nation only from the end of September 1944. Home propaganda’s task thus shifted to preparing the public for post-VE policies, the war against Japan and the post-occupation policies in Germany — a classic example of carrying into practice Ludendorff’s dictum that ‘propaganda must act as the pacemaker to policy’. As the present rulers of Germany emerge from the monument, the ex-Crown-Prince Wilhelm steps forward and salutes the successor to the Hohenzollern. The presentation of Germany as a guilty nation and people receiving their just deserts, and the complete identification of Germans with what Hitler and his men have done, remained thereafter the sum of the presentation until the autumn of 1945. The newsreels’, and other media’s, presentation of Germany in total desolation therefore have an evidentiary significance not only for understanding British policy and attitudes during the Stunde Null period.
