Soviet propaganda during the war: Ehrenburg's articles, songs, leaflets
In previous articles about the work of the Kukryniksy, the press, the Soviet Information Bureau and Levitan, we began to consider Soviet propaganda during the Great Patriotic War. Now let's move on to new topics - Ehrenburg's articles, songs and leaflets, which were also peculiar weapons during the course of the war.
Articles by Ehrenburg
During the Great Patriotic War, thousands of publicists worked in Soviet publications. Of course, a story about each of them would take more than one volume, so we will limit ourselves to one of the most talented and respected publicists among the soldiers - Ilya Ehrenburg.
The fact that Soviet soldiers really treated Ehrenburg and his articles especially was once well said by another famous writer, Konstantin Simonov:
"Newspapers after reading to use at the heat, with the exception of articles by Ilya Ehrenburg."
This is truly the shortest and most joyful for the writer's heart review that I have ever heard of.
Ilya Erenburg (right) with tankers at the front, 1942
And here is how Ehrenburg's other colleague, writer Pavel Antokolsky, assessed the significance of Ehrenburg's work during the war years:
Before the war, Ehrenburg lived in exile for many years and returned to the USSR only in 1940. Nevertheless, the Soviet press published it back in the 1930s, when the writer lived in France. With the beginning of the war, Ehrenburg, like Levitan, who fought the enemy with his voice, or the Kukryniks, who fought with posters and cartoons, began to fight with his weapon - the printed word.
During the war years, Ehrenburg wrote about 1 articles and notes, which he would later publish in three volumes. It was Ehrenburg who first used the term "Victory Day" in one of his articles back in December 500. Looking ahead, I’ll say that in 1941 Ehrenburg wrote the story “The Thaw”, and since then this name has been firmly established as a designation for the entire Khrushchev era.
During the war years, his articles had a tremendous impact on the soldiers. In July 1942, the day after the start of the Battle of Stalingrad, Konstantin Simonov published the poem “Kill him!” in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. It was this poem that inspired Ehrenburg to write a short but very powerful propaganda article “Kill!”.
Simonov's poem published in Krasnaya Zvezda the day after the start of the Battle of Stalingrad.
The entire article consisted of only five paragraphs, with the first three paragraphs citing excerpts from letters found on the bodies of dead German soldiers, testifying to their cruel treatment of Soviet prisoners of war. For example, one of the passages read:
And then there were lines calling on Soviet soldiers to take revenge for all the crimes of the Germans. Many fighters memorized them by heart:
We know everything. We remember everything. We understood that the Germans are not people. From now on, the word "German" is the worst curse for us. From now on, the word "German" unloads a gun. Let's not talk. Let's not get angry. We will kill. If you haven't killed at least one German in a day, your day is gone. If you think that your neighbor will kill a German for you, you have not understood the threat. If you don't kill the German, the German will kill you. He will take yours and torture them in his accursed Germany. If you can't kill a German with a bullet, kill a German with a bayonet. If there is a lull in your area, if you are waiting for a fight, kill the German before the fight. If you let a German live, the German will hang a Russian man and dishonor a Russian woman. If you killed one German, kill another - nothing is more fun for us than German corpses. Don't count the days. Don't count miles. Count one thing: the Germans you killed. Kill the German! - this is asked by the old woman-mother. Kill the German! - this is a child begging you. Kill the German! - it screams native land. Don't miss. Do not miss. Kill!"
Undoubtedly, the above lines cause a storm of emotions. If they had been written in peaceful days, they would have been immediately recognized as extremism, but at that harsh time, when the Germans were already breaking through to the Volga, and the fate of millions of people depended only on who would win the battle of Stalingrad that had begun, such words were quite logical and even expected.
They instilled in the fighters the rage necessary in the conditions of the most difficult battles, the desire to avenge all the atrocities of the invaders, the desire to expel the enemy from their native land as soon as possible. And there is no doubt that these lines achieved their goal: they enjoyed unprecedented popularity. Soon there was even a slogan that sounded like this: kill the German! And in some newspapers there was a heading called "Did you kill a German today?".
Ehrenburg's articles soon became so famous that they reached Hitler himself. The enraged Fuhrer ordered Ehrenburg to be hanged on the spot when caught. However, as in the case of Levitan and the Kukryniksy, this order remained on paper, and Ehrenburg will raise the morale of the soldiers with his articles until the very end of the war.
Songs
Songs were also aimed at raising the morale of the soldiers. During the war years, they were given no less importance than the reports of the Information Bureau, lyrics and notes were regularly published in many newspapers and magazines.
One of the most famous songs of the war years is “Holy War”, often also called by the first line “Get up, the country is huge!”, the words of which everyone heard at least once in their life. It was sung at the front before the decisive battles, millions of soldiers went into battle with it, and in the rear it was broadcast daily on the radio immediately after the Kremlin chimes.
The words of the song "Holy War" were written by the poet Vasily Lebedev-Kumach on June 22, 1941, and already on June 24 it was published in the newspapers Izvestia and Krasnaya Zvezda. Inspired by these verses, composer Alexander Alexandrov wrote music for them on the same day, and two days later, The Holy War was first publicly performed at the Belorussky railway station in Moscow before sending soldiers to the front. Thus was born a song that even now sometimes gives goosebumps.
In the first months of the war, the song was rarely performed, because the authorities still had illusions that the war would not last long, and victory could be won "with little bloodshed." And only from October 15, 1941, when the Germans were already rushing to Moscow, they began to broadcast it daily on the radio.
The influence of the "Holy War" is difficult to overestimate. She raised the soldiers into battle, returned them confidence in victory even in the most difficult days of the war. She was also repeatedly called the anthem of the defense of the Fatherland.
Another popular song of the Great Patriotic War - "Katyusha" - was written back in 1938 by Mikhail Isakovsky and set to music by Matvey Blanter. However, the "finest hour" of the song fell precisely on the war years. Then "Katyusha" was repeatedly performed abroad, in particular in France.
The words "Katyusha" are well known in our time and do not lose popularity, but few people know that during the war years there were other versions of this song. For example, as you know, the Soviet MLRS BM-13 were unofficially called "Katyushas", and one of the versions of the song was dedicated to this particular "Katyusha":
Trembling beats the German across the river.
This is our Russian "Katyusha"
Nemchure sings for peace.
Tell me how you started the song
Tell me about "Katina" affairs,
About the one who beat
About the one whose bones she smashed.
We all love darling "Katyusha",
We all love the way she sings.
Exhausting the soul from the enemy
And gives courage to friends!
However, the march “Farewell of the Slav” turned out to have the most unusual fate. It was written back in 1912 by Vasily Agapkin, became popular during the First World War, and after the revolution was regularly performed in the white armies of Kolchak, Denikin and Wrangel. And despite all this, Soviet propaganda took it into its arsenal, and a new peak in the popularity of "Farewell of the Slav" fell on the years of the Great Patriotic War.
The march was performed at the parade on November 7, 1941 and at the Victory Parade on June 24, 1945, as well as at railway stations before sending soldiers to the front.
As you can see, music is a universal weapon, unpretentious, and can serve any regime and any ideology.
Propaganda for the Enemy
Until now, we have been talking about propaganda addressed to Soviet civilians and soldiers. But significant was also propaganda addressed directly to enemy soldiers. The most common form of it was, of course, leaflets. They are very easy to make and were printed in astronomical quantities. So, in 1941 alone, 668 million copies of leaflets were created and distributed among the Germans.
In total, during the war years, about three billion copies of Soviet leaflets were printed - more than the population of the whole world at that time.
Mikhail Burtsev, major general, founder of the special propaganda service in the Red Army, spoke about the process of creating propaganda leaflets addressed to the enemy after the war:
A topic was carefully chosen for each leaflet. A popular theme was that wives, children and parents were waiting for German soldiers at home, and that the greatest chance to return to them was surrender. In the accompanying photographs, those who had already been taken prisoner always looked happy. It was alleged that in captivity they were well fed and kept only in well-heated rooms. Of course, this was only a propaganda move and in most cases did not correspond to the truth. For example, it is known that many Germans who surrendered in Stalingrad soon died of cold, since there were simply no heated rooms for prisoners in the vicinity of the destroyed city.
Captured German soldiers with satisfied faces at the Soviet poster with the inscription "The shortest way home is Russian captivity." July 1943
Now let's look at examples of campaign appeals.
Here are just some of the slogans of the first months of the war on the leaflets:
"German soldiers! Soviet Russia has not encroached and is not encroaching on the independence and integrity of Germany. Think about what you shed your blood for?
"German soldiers! Remember: the destruction of the bloody reign of Hitler and his minions is the only way to peace!”
"German soldiers! In the courageous struggle against the Nazi regime, victory awaits you! The Russian people will help you. Overthrow Hitler! Save Germany!
Needless to say, most of these slogans, and especially the theme of the overthrow of Hitler, did not find any support among the German soldiers in 1941. As long as Germany was winning, Hitler enjoyed enormous support from both the German population and the troops.
Caption: "German soldier! Look who's to blame for this war. Down with Hitler and his fascist gang!”
"With Hitler, the war will never end." The leaflet is based on Vasily Vereshchagin's painting "The Apotheosis of War"
More effective were leaflets addressed not to an abstract German soldier, but to a specific division or unit. Here is an example of the text of such a flyer:
Such appeals already made ordinary soldiers think, especially if they were surrounded, and there really was no help.
For propaganda in the camp of the enemy, the Soviet command also published newspapers. So, in June 1941, the printing houses of the 7th department of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army published 18 newspapers in foreign languages, including 10 in German. The largest of these was the newspaper Front Illustrierte (“Front Illustrations”), which was issued with a circulation of 200 copies.
Caricature of Himmler on a Soviet leaflet. Text: "There will be peace and quiet in Germany as long as Himmler is Minister of the Interior."
- Andrey Sarmatov
- https://ru.wikipedia.org https://vatnikstan.ru
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