Review by Choice Review
Rather than analyzing propaganda policy or specific propaganda campaigns, Welch analyzes the strains on German society during WW I and how the political leadership attempted to control the population through propaganda. He argues that the German collapse in 1918 was not due to the failure of propaganda, as nationalists later claimed. Rather, it was due to the failure of military and civilian officials to understand the significance of public opinion and then to make the necessary social, economic, and political reforms needed to prevent the collapse of the home front. Symptomatic of the Imperial elite's inability to understand either public opinion or the tools of the communications revolution was their attitude toward German cinema. Although men such as Ludendorff recognized the potential of film propaganda, elite hostility toward a "mass medium" prevented its effective utilization. The book is generally well written, although the role of propaganda, and even the specific propaganda campaigns, sometimes get obscured by extensive detail. Welch provides a useful perspective on the impact of total war on the collapse of Imperial Germany and, by implication, the prologue to the Nazi era. Graduate students and up. F. Krome; Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
