Censorship, Propaganda and Public Opinion: The case of the Katyn Graves, 1943

1989 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 63-83
Author(s):  
P. M. H. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Mass Graves ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

THE SUBJECT of this paper is not the sombre story of the mass graves at Katyn, filled with the corpses of murdered Polish officers; nor will it deal directly with the question of who killed those officers. I approach these events in the course of research on the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy in Britain during the Second World War, and on the closely related matters of censorship and propaganda as practised by the British government in that period. The diplomatic crisis produced by the affair of the Katyn graves was one in which publicity was freely used as an instrument of policy—indeed sometimes policy and publicity were indistinguishable. Those who controlled British censorship and propaganda, and attempted to guide public opinion, were faced with acute and wideranging problems. It is the object of this paper to analyse those problems, to see how the government tried to cope with them, and to trace the reactions of the press and public opinion, as a case study in the extent and limitations of government influence in such matters.

Polish-Jewish relations during the war An interpretation

1986 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan T. Gross
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
World War ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government ◽  
Second World

For the last two hundred years, with the exception of a brief interval between the two World Wars, Poland has been either partitioned, or occupied, or governed by proxy. Squeezed between Russia and Germany Poles took nourishment and continuity as a historical nation from remembrance of things past whenever their sovereignty as a political nation was curtailed or abolished. Lately these efforts were inspired by a conviction that even if present day institutions could not be changed, a half-way victory over totalitarianism's attempts to destroy social solidarity would still be won if the community's history were rescued from the regime's ambition to determine not only the country's future but also its past. Thus, the wonderful intuition—that totalitarianism must destroy all context of social reality independent of its own dictate and acquire a copyright not only on what is but also on what had been—came to the Poles not because they read Orwell's 1984, but because for well over one hundred years they nurtured the idea of the Polish nation against all the odds of nineteenth century geopolitics. Once before, when they had lost their national sovereignty, the Poles had locked in on their past spiritually and it worked: Poland was resurrected. But since the Second World War, despite the dogged persistence of the Poles to reclaim their past, to go beyond, revise, and correct the government-approved version of their history manifested during every mass upheaval in the Polish People's Republic, there was never a temptation to reopen the subject of wartime Polish-Jewish relations.

scholarly journals The Royal Commission on Espionage and the Spy Trials of 1946-9: A Case Study in Parliamentary Supremacy

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-172
Author(s):  
Dominique Clément
Keyword(s):  
Civil Liberties ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Canadian History ◽  
World War ◽  
Parliamentary Supremacy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

Abstract Through an examination of the 1946 Royal Commission on Espionage, this paper explores the relationship between Parliamentary supremacy and the civil liberties movement in the period immediately after the Second World War. The commission was formed in late 1945 in response to the defection of Russian cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko, and investigated the existence of a Russian-led spy ring that had recruited several Canadian civil servants. The commission is unique in Canadian history because it was empowered under the War Measures Act, which granted the commission enormous powers. In examining the legal debate surrounding the extreme measures used by this commission, this paper attempts to offer a few answers to some important questions about Canadian civil liberties. What were the consequences of the commission's actions? Do Canadians accept the argument that a government can violate individual liberties to protect the integrity of the state? The Royal Commission on Espionage played a central role in stimulating debate over the need to develop greater legal protection for individual rights against state abuse in Canada.

scholarly journals Legal-historical overview of the protection of homestead (farmer's minimum) in Serbian law

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 273-291
Author(s):  
Biljana Gavrilović
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
World War ◽  
Priority Task ◽  
Legal Identity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
A Priority ◽  
The Government ◽  
Debt Collection ◽  
Second World

The subject of this analysis is the protection of homestead (farmer's minimum), from when it was introduced into Serbian law until the Second World War. The regulation about prohibiting debt collection of the peasant cover the essential part of his homestead, was introduced into Serbian law in the year 1836. It was necessary to prescribe the protection of the homestead, because the peasants borrowed from the usurers and thus lost their house and the last piece of land. That protection of the farmer's house and a few days of land became an integral part of Serbia's legal identity. The regulation about prohibiting debt collection of the peasant cover the essential part of his homestead did not exist in all parts of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Because of that, when the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was founded, the unification of laws became a priority task of the government. In this regard, a rich debate developed, which lasted until the Second World War.

War, Ethnic Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in Lithuania, 1939–1940

2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 461-477
Author(s):  
TOMAS BALKELIS
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
World War ◽  
Population Displacement ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
The Government ◽  
War Victims ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World ◽  
Over Time

AbstractAfter the destruction of the Polish state by the invading Nazi and Soviet armies in the autumn of 1939, about 30,000 Polish nationals fled to eastern Lithuania. This article examines the relationship between population displacement and ethnic rivalry in Lithuania at the onset of the Second World War. As ‘war victims’ in need of help and protection, over time these Polish refugees became increasingly ‘ethnicised’, socially differentiated and isolated from Lithuanian society, and vilified as a potential political threat. Furthermore, the official decision to create a legal category of so-called ‘newcomers’ deprived those Poles who had settled in Vilnius between the wars of citizenship and residence rights in Lithuania. This policy inflated the number of ‘refugees’ to more than 100,000. Various other official measures, such as the creation of camps, forced labour schemes, deportations and repatriations, show how the government manipulated the refugee crisis for its own political purposes.

In the Shadow of the Holocaust

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Fleming
Keyword(s):  
War Crimes ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Polish Government ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

In the midst of the Second World War, the Allies acknowledged Germany's ongoing programme of extermination. In the Shadow of the Holocaust examines the struggle to attain post-war justice and prosecution. Focusing on Poland's engagement with the United Nations War Crimes Commission, it analyses the different ways that the Polish Government in Exile (based in London from 1940) agitated for an Allied response to German atrocities. Michael Fleming shows that jurists associated with the Government in Exile made significant contributions to legal debates on war crimes and, along with others, paid attention to German crimes against Jews. By exploring the relationship between the UNWCC and the Polish War Crimes Office under the authority of the Polish Government in Exile and later, from the summer of 1945, the Polish Government in Warsaw, Fleming provides a new lens through which to examine the early stages of the Cold War.

1944-1949 : Repressie zonder maat of einde ? : Een interimverslag over een onderzoek naar de berechting in België van collaborateurs

Res Publica ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 617-634
Author(s):  
Steven Dhondt ◽  
Luc Huyse
Keyword(s):  
Second World War ◽  
Data Handling ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
World War ◽  
Onderzoek Naar ◽  
First Results ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
Second World

The purge of Second World War collaborators in Belgium has not been the subject of many serious scientific research sofar. However, progress in theorizing and in data handling make it now possible to clear away the major impediments to such scientific research.After the war, extracts of the judgements of the military courts, which were responsible for the trial of collaborators, were published in the government gazette, « Het Belgisch Staatsblad ». These extracts provide the empirical basis of the project, which is put in the theoretical context known as « the ambivalence theory ». A brief look at the military judiciary system sheds some light on the processes behind the judging of collaborators. The article unveils some first results of the analysis of 5,000 court cases. The most important finding sofar is the absence of consistency - in time as well as in space - in the judging of collaborators in Belgium.

Are Students Expected to Critically Engage with Textbook Perspectives of the Second World War? A Comparative and International Study

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Nicholls
Keyword(s):  
International Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
History Textbooks ◽  
World War ◽  
School History ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World ◽  
Contemporary School

This article is a comparative study of perspectives of the Second World War in contemporary school history textbooks from England, Japan, Sweden, Italy and the United States. In the article the author examines the extent to which interpretations of the Second World War differ in the textbooks of each nation as well as the relationship between perspectives and contemporary political agendas. Research on developments in Germany is used as an anchor against which to compare developments in the five countries. Having described and analysed differences the author then investigates the extent to which students in the five countries may be expected to engage with perspectives offered. To construct alternative interpretations of the conflict the author supports an interpretative understanding of the discipline of history based in a neo-hermeneutic reading of the subject.

scholarly journals Avant-gardes et expérimentations des formes dans les revues pharmaceutiques suisses: le cas Sandorama (1962–1965)

Gesnerus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-101
Author(s):  
Muriel Pic
Keyword(s):  
Psychotropic Drugs ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Pharmaceutical Marketing ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Second World

This article reports on formal experimentation (literary, graphic and cinematographic) in Swiss pharmaceutical journals in the 1960s based on a case study: the Sandorama journal of Laboratoires Sandoz. It looks at the relationship between arts, medicine and commerce, showing that the public trust of the doctors who read the journal is built up through forms. The inventiveness of the latter is part of the more global process of a reorganization of pharmaceutical marketing after the Second World War, due in particular to the arrival of psychotropic drugs on the market.

Turning Aliens into Socialists

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Jessica Moberg
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Swedish History ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Highly Evolved

Immediately after the Second World War Sweden was struck by a wave of sightings of strange flying objects. In some cases these mass sightings resulted in panic, particularly after authorities failed to identify them. Decades later, these phenomena were interpreted by two members of the Swedish UFO movement, Erland Sandqvist and Gösta Rehn, as alien spaceships, or UFOs. Rehn argued that ‘[t]here is nothing so dramatic in the Swedish history of UFOs as this invasion of alien fly-things’ (Rehn 1969: 50). In this article the interpretation of such sightings proposed by these authors, namely that we are visited by extraterrestrials from outer space, is approached from the perspective of myth theory. According to this mythical theme, not only are we are not alone in the universe, but also the history of humankind has been shaped by encounters with more highly-evolved alien beings. In their modern day form, these kinds of ideas about aliens and UFOs originated in the United States. The reasoning of Sandqvist and Rehn exemplifies the localization process that took place as members of the Swedish UFO movement began to produce their own narratives about aliens and UFOs. The question I will address is: in what ways do these stories change in new contexts? Texts produced by the Swedish UFO movement are analyzed as a case study of this process.

Hendrik Draye, tegenstander van de uitvoering van de doodstraf

2006 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-152
Author(s):  
Luc Vandeweyer
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
Catholic University ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The University ◽  
Second World ◽  
Young Professor

Hendrik Draye, opponent of the carrying out of the death penaltyIn this annotated and extensively contextualised source edition, Luc Vandeweyer deals with the period of repression after the Second World War. In June 1948, after the execution of two hundred collaboration-suspects in Belgium, the relatively young linguistics professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, Hendrik Draye, proposed, on humanitarian grounds, a Manifesto against the carrying out of the death penalty. Some colleagues, as well as some influential personalities outside the university, reacted positively; some colleagues were rather hesitant; most of them rejected the text. In the end, the initiative foundered because of the emphatic dissuasion by the head of university, who wanted to protect his university and, arguably, the young professor Draeye. The general public’s demand for revenge had not yet abated by then; moreover, the unstable government at that time planned a reorientation of the penal policy, which made a polarization undesirable. Nevertheless, Luc Vandeweyer concludes, "the opportunity for an important debate on the subject had been missed".

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