At this time, there was a war going on in the distance.
When it is not over, the information we have learned seems to be a lot, but it is more or less related to the propaganda of public opinion on both sides of the war, and deviates from the truth.
Because, at any time, information warfare is an important part of a war.
But behind these true and false messages, we, each of us, should uphold some basic ideas and persistence:
Always be on the side of justice and not preach the law of the jungle. Remember a quote from Zweig, a witness to two world wars: "Never before has there been a generation like ours that has degenerated morally from such a high spiritual civilization to such a low level." ”
Always be on the side of peace and not engage in violent worship. Remember Lu Xun's words: "The murderer is destroying the world, the savior is repairing it, and the princes who are qualified as cannon fodder are always complimenting the murderer." ”
Always on the side of the weak, politicians in war have their own purposes, and it is always civilians who are hurt.
Do not glorify war, for mankind has worked so many years to move toward civilization and peace, not to return to barbarism and violence.
Don't entertain the war, the real misery of others is not the material for us to watch the fire from the other side, joke and shake the cleverness.
Don't show the lower limit of iq, take pride in exposing the ugliness of your heart, and treat women in war as the object of obscenity.
The Roman philosopher Emperor Mark Aure, who left his Meditations, said: "The nature of the universe is to destroy what exists and then create something similar." ”
Replacing "universe" with "war" still holds true.
So what we're watching, is it a repetition of history? regress? Or progress?
In 1945, after Japan's defeat and surrender, American journalists who entered Tokyo showed unusual interest in the two interviewees.
One was Hideki Tojo, who provoked the Pacific War.
The other is "Tokyo Rose".
Hideki Tojo had become a war criminal, and it was not difficult to find him. But "Tokyo Rose" is still mysterious, who is this woman with a pure American accent who always stirs up homesickness among American soldiers on the radio?
An American journalist named Clark Lee quickly identified his interviewee, Ikuko Toguri of Radio Tokyo.
On September 1, 1945, Clark Yomiko met at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. He brought in a contract saying he would get $2,000 if he was interviewed and signed to confirm that he was a "Tokyo Rose."
When Toguri signed the autograph, Clark told her that she was a traitor in the eyes of americans, and that the newspaper could not pay the traitors.
After the war, Toguri was interviewed in Japan.
Toguri Ikuko was born in the United States in 1916 to a japanese immigrant family. In 1941, she graduated from the University of California and then represented her mother in Japan to visit her sick aunt.
Unexpectedly, during the period in Japan, the Pearl Harbor incident broke out. The war between the United States and Japan blocked Toguri Ikuko's way back to China. She had to stay in Japan and had difficulty making a living because she did not know Japanese.
To survive, she found a job as a typist at Radio Tokyo. Because she spoke English, she was chosen to be an announcer to the American soldiers fighting on the Pacific Islands.
At that time, in order to break the morale of American soldiers, the Japanese military used radio propaganda to fight psychological warfare. Female announcers must do everything in their power to evoke the nostalgia of American soldiers.
A common theme in these broadcasts was to make the soldiers suspicious of what their lonely wives or girlfriends, who were left behind, were doing at home. Female announcers usually hint to listeners that you're out fighting and your wife/girlfriend is fighting the king next door.
And so on, thus breaking the morale of the US military.
Toguri Became the Spokesperson for Tokyo Rose.
Toguri Ikuko's show is called "Zero Hour". It's clearly a late-night sultry show. Gentle, witty, witty, and humorous, she was extremely popular with American soldiers and became their object of YY.
Her show was so popular that people thought of her as the only "Tokyo Rose" after the war.
Toguri Ikuko has a stage name, not "Tokyo Rose", but "Orphan An" (the Pacific U.S. Military calls itself "Orphan", referring to herself as abandoned). She always reports herself on the show: "Your dearest enemy, Orphan Ann." ”
In fact, the "Tokyo Rose" does not exist as a concrete person. It is the "nickname" of American soldiers to these enemy female announcers. These "nicknames" also include "Tokyo Nancy", "Wireless Rose", "Mrs. Tojo", etc.
At least 8 female announcers are said to be broadcasting to U.S. troops in Tokyo.
At the post-war trial, Toguri said she cherished and cared for her American citizenship and that she was under pressure from the Japanese military to broadcast to the U.S. military. She said she adopted a comical broadcast style, also to minimize the psychological harm to U.S. soldiers.
Toguri Ikuko (left).
In October 1949, she was convicted of treason and stripped of her U.S. citizenship.
However, some scholars have pointed out that Toguri's real crime is that she is a Japanese person in terms of race, and the key issue is that americans want to take revenge on Japan after the war.
By the 1960s and 1970s, as Americans' hatred of Japan had waned, tokuri's case had been reconclusive. In 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced an unconditional amnesty for her and restored her U.S. citizenship.
During World War II, the Axis powers regarded radio broadcasting as the best "heart war" weapon, and opened up broadcast battlefields, created ace columns, and launched special announcers.
There is an economic background here. On the eve of World War II, more than 90 percent of urban households and about 70 percent of rural households in the United States owned radios. In European countries such as the United Kingdom and France, the penetration rate of radio is also very high. In order to increase the listening rate, the fascist German government produced a large number of cheap radios by subsidizing radio manufacturers for their propaganda purposes.
The popularity of radio has become an indispensable possession in the family. Listening to the radio is the most important entertainment activity for Western families. This popularity is as popular as we are now obsessed with smartphones.
The German-Italian-Japanese Axis were the first to see an opportunity for war propaganda from this epidemic.
In the Pacific Theater, there is the "Tokyo Rose". In the European battlefield, there is "Lord Ha Ha".
According to different characteristics, Goebbels, the propaganda minister of Nazi Germany, divided the world into 6 broadcasting areas, conducted targeted broadcasts, and widely implemented propaganda psychological warfare. Among them, "Lord Ha Ha" can be called his proud work.
Goebbels.
Like "Tokyo Rose", "Lord Ha Ha" is also a nickname, a collective name for several announcers on English-language news programs on German radio.
The most famous "Lord Ha Ha" is William Joyce. In September 1939, Joyce was hired as a newscaster for the German radio station Hamburg, and then with his special thick nasal voice, he worked as an anchor for six years on an English-language news program called Call from Germany. Many Britons believe that "Lord Haha" is Joyce.
"German Call" is a large-scale propaganda program launched by the Propaganda Department of Nazi Germany during the war, broadcasting in nearly 30 languages, mainly news broadcasts and jazz music. The program first broadcast news, then conversation, and later added commentary, with the aim of using true and false news and various comments with threatening implications to break the morale of the American, Australian, British and Canadian troops and disturb the mood of the audience in the rear. The show did not stop broadcasting until 30 April 1945, when british troops entered Berlin.
According to the British Ministry of Information's survey of the audience of "Lord Ha Ha", as of January 1940, one in six adult listeners in Britain, that is, about 6 million people, were regular regular listeners of Joyce; half or 18 million people were his irregular listeners; and only one-third of the population had never listened to his programs. At the time, the BBC had a regular audience of just 23 million people.
In a brawl in 1924, Joyce was slashed with a razor on the right cheek, leaving a striking scar.
Unlike Toguri, Joyce took the initiative to move closer and became a brainwashing tool for Nazi Germany.
As early as a teenager, Joyce was a fan of fascism. In 1932, he joined the British Fascist League. He was 26 years old, a father of two and a PhD student at the University of London.
The following year, Joyce left school on the grounds that he needed to work full-time in the British Fascist League.
He made no secret of his admiration for Hitler and his dislike for the Jews. In August 1939, he sneaked to Berlin and then began serving in the Ministry of External Broadcasting in Nazi Germany.
He touted Germany's record on the show, attacking Churchill and the Jews.
Paradoxically, his broadcast style with a thick nasal tone was welcomed by the British and became an "Internet celebrity" at that time.
After Germany's defeat, Joyce was arrested. The Central Criminal Court in London sentenced him to death for treason in September 1945.
The Allies also realized the power of propaganda in war. Eisenhower said, "Spending $1 on propaganda can achieve the effect of spending $5 on defense." ”
But the Allies were more focused on internal propaganda. Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, and de Gaulle were all champion radio speeches, mobilizing the people's enthusiasm for war and achieving great results.
Two days after the fall of France, de Gaulle twice called on the French people to rise up and resist through the BBC. Since then, he has been speaking at the BBC almost every week, inspiring the French through the airwaves. It can be said that without broadcasting, there would be no Free French Resistance Movement led by him.
De Gaulle gave a radio lecture at the BBC.
But when it came to enemy propaganda, the Allies were lackluster.
After Pearl Harbor, The Japanese broadcaster launched a series of propaganda campaigns against the Philippines. MacArthur then urgently demanded that American radio programs confront Radio Tokyo. A radio station based in San Francisco tried to broadcast the program, which was quickly interfered with by Japanese radio. Clearly, the United States does not yet have the equipment to do this. Finally, the United States government borrowed three transmitters on the west coast that had been used for telephone communications, and successfully broadcast to the Philippines.
Previously, the same was true for the UK. Although the BBC also has a large domestic audience, their initial reaction to the popularity of "Lord Ha Ha" is ignorant. Their counterattack was to create a special program for ridicule and criticism of "Lord Ha Ha".
The Soviet Union, relying on its technological superiority, had some unexpected highlights in its external broadcasting. Their approach is to cut into the enemy's Taiwan and "engage in public opinion sabotage" and confuse the public opinion. The Soviets tuned the frequency of high-power radio stations to the frequencies of German radios, which was equivalent to setting up a substation that could broadcast simultaneously. This allows you to broadcast your own broadcasts at any time while the Germans are broadcasting.
When the announcer of the fascist radio in Berlin read that "the Soviet army has been hastily retreated to the east of the Dnieper River", a voice suddenly appeared: "Lie! Shameless lie! ”
When the announcer read "The Germans have achieved a new victory," the voice resurfaced: "Haha, in the grave!" ”
The Allies later concocted the Axis radio propaganda tactics, using broadcasting against the enemy as a form of psychological warfare.
The Allies used high-power radio to carry out "radio bombing" to Italy for 17 months, and the content of the broadcast was true and false, but it was mainly to publicize how the Italian army was used by the German army and how it was used as cannon fodder by the German army, etc., deepening the rift in German-Italian cooperation in this way, and it is said that the effect is good.
The British carried out a program called "Black Propaganda", creating a number of fake German radio stations with a mixture of pornography, anti-Nazis, and real-life in the rear, making the audience addicted and thus dissolving the will of the Germans.
The United States learned the practice of "Tokyo Rose" in the Pacific Theater, specially recorded a large number of Japanese folk songs and nursery rhymes, and played the mesmerizing sounds to the Japanese soldiers every day, arousing their homesickness, and then gradually disintegrating their fighting spirit.
In a sense, World War II reached the peak of the war in the airwaves, and it also ended in the airwaves.
Emperor Hirohito of Japan read the edict of surrender by radio.
At noon on August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito broadcast to the whole country of Japan the "Edict of the End of the War" accepting the Potsdam Proclamation and carrying out unconditional surrender, and the airwaves immediately spread overseas. Over and over again, the loudspeakers broadcast the order, which was regarded by the Japanese people as a descendant of the god Amaterasu: lay down your arms and accept surrender.
History joked about the Japanese here: Japan, which excelled in radio propaganda warfare and had a team of "Tokyo Rose" announcers, eventually announced their defeat on the radio.
Now, more than 70 years later, we have also seen a hidden propaganda war in the War between Russia and Ukraine. It's just that the position has been replaced by a radio station to a more accessible Internet. No wonder it is said that, according to Ukraine, the counter-offensive should have now reached Moscow; according to Russia, order in Kiev should have been maintained by now.
Reading history wisely, at this moment, in the complex war report information, history is more worth looking back.