- Morale Operations Branch
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Morale Operations was a branch of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. It utilized psychological warfare, particularly propaganda, to demoralize the German forces in Europe.
Contents
Origins
William Joseph Donovan formed the Morale Operations Branch of the Office of Strategic Services on March 3, 1943.[1] Donovan admired the perceived effectiveness of Nazi propaganda and saw the United States’ lack of similar operations as a significant weakness.[2] To that end, he created the Morale Operations branch, which used deception and subversion to undermine belief in the German Wehrmacht, Hitler, and Nazism.
Organization
The Morale Operations Branch comprised five sections: the Special Communications Detachment, the Radio Division, the Special Contacts Division, the Publications and Campaigns Division, and the Foreign Division. The Special Communications Detachment was responsible for “combat propaganda operations in coordination with the U.S. Army in Europe.”[2] The Radio Division “conducted all black or clandestine radio programs.”[2] The Special Contacts Division “distributed propaganda to partisan groups.”[2] The Publications and Campaigns Division “produced leaflets, pamphlets, and whispering campaigns.”[2] The Foreign Division “conducted miscellaneous [Morale Operations] activities abroad.”[2] Collectively these divisions carried out psychological warfare operations for the U.S. Army.
The Morale Operations Branch had outposts in several locations across the globe. Usually these stations were close to U.S. Army combat stations or integrated into Army intelligence posts.[2] By 1945 the Morale Operations Branch had one station in Algeria, Egypt, France, and Britain, two in Sweden, and six in Italy.[2] The most important of these stations was in London, Britain.[2]
Campaigns
Leaflets
How Much Longer?
The “How Much Longer?” campaign was the first major black propaganda leaflet campaign. The campaign produced sixteen different leaflets. Each of these featured a cartoon depicting a burdensome situation and asked how much longer German citizens would tolerate it.[2] These leaflets were “distributed throughout Italy, southern France, and the Balkans.”[1]
Skorpion West
Skorpion West was another successful leaflet campaign. After the German defeat at Normandy, a German propaganda team located in France created optimistic leaflets in an effort to boost morale. Germany then airdropped these leaflets over their lines to bolster the spirits of the German soldiers.
The Morale Operations branch obtained copies of these leaflets and immediately produced their own facsimiles. The Germans believed these false documents were genuine and began distributing them. The first of these leaflets indicated that the German high command did not believe their soldiers would be able to hold the line and “encouraged soldiers to scorch the earth before dying in a last stand for Nationalist Socialism.”[2] The second ordered all soldiers to shoot any officers who attempted to surrender or retreat.[2] A third pamphlet ordered soldiers to carry out the evacuation of civilian populations by force (Morale Operations hoped that this would create traffic congestion and clog supply lines).[2]
Ultimately the Germans denounced all Skorpion West pamphlets, including the ones that the German propaganda team had created, as enemy propaganda and ordered all troops to ignore their messages.[2]
Poison-Pen Letters
Operation Hemlock
Operation Hemlock was a poison-pen letter campaign consisting of anonymous letters sent to Gestapo officers that implicated various German soldiers and officials in pro-Allied behavior.[2] One such letter implied that the Gestapo had killed German Major General Franz Krech after plotting to defect to the Allies.[3] In actuality, Greek guerillas had ambushed and killed Krech.[3]
Death Notices
The Morale Operations Branch also sent letters to the families of German soldiers. These letters indicated that the recently deceased was a victim of a mercy killing at the hands of a German doctor.[2] Other letters claimed that Nazi Party officials had stolen valuable possessions while he lay on his deathbed.[2]
Lichtenau Letter
One Morale Operations letter appeared to be a Christmas greeting from the mayor of Lichtenau. At first glance it appeared as a morale booster for Nazi soldiers, but it also contained several indications of hardships resulting from the war. The letter included claims that government had drafted civilians into the military, that young teenagers were becoming pilots after only a few weeks of training, and that loved ones back home were sacrificing their health to promote the Nazi cause.[2]
Newspapers
Das neue Deutschland
The Morale Operations branch created the Das neue Deustchland newspaper to appear as if a fictional clandestine peace party in Germany had written it.[2] The goal of the newspaper was to promote an anti-Nazi revolution and the re-establishment of a liberal democracy.[2] Morale Operations sent thousands of peace party membership applications to enemy soldiers and civilians in Europe, leading Himmler to denounce the paper and threaten soldiers with execution if they read it.[2]
The Harvard Project
The Harvard Project created a four-page weekly business publication, Handel and Wandel, which appeared to analyze world economic news. The leaflet suggested that if Germany expelled the Nazi regime, Allied and German businessmen could work together to defend capitalism from an impending wave of Bolshevism.[2]
Operation Cornflakes
During Operation Cornflakes, Morale Operations agents interviewed German POWs who had worked as mail clerks to discover how the German postal service functioned.[3] Morale Operations then created replicas of German mailbags and stuffed them with various forms of printed propaganda.[2] They placed these bags near trains after an Allied air raid in hopes that the Germans would believe the bags were genuine and thus unwittingly distribute the propaganda.[2] The German postal service delivered a total 320 bags of Morale Operations propaganda.[2] Postwar interrogations of German prisoners revealed that many soldiers received Das neue Deustchland as a result of this operation.[2]
Radio
Soldatensender
Soldatensender was a Morale Operations grey radio station that broadcast anti-Nazi propaganda hidden in news, music, and entertainment.[1] It quickly became the most popular station in Western Europe.[1] Morale Operations also used it to report news on German military failures, which eroded Nazi morale.[3] After the 1944 coup against Hitler during Operation Valkyrie, Soldatensender broadcast the names of hundreds of Germans in an attempt to cast suspicion on as many Germans as possible.[3] As a result of this the Gestapo arrested and executed roughly 2,500 Germans.[1]
Joker Campaign
German General Ludwig Beck, the former German Army Chief of Staff, died after the attempt on Hitler’s life during Operation Valkyrie, although the Nazi regime never acknowledged his death. During the Joker Campaign a Morale Operations agent, pretending to Beck, broadcast several messages from London to German soldiers and civilians.[3] These messages blamed German losses on Nazi incompetence and urged the German people to overthrow Hitler and sue for peace in hopes that this would stop the Allies from annihilating their country.[4]
Volkssender Drei
The Volkssender Drei campaign created the first Morale Operations radio station on the European continent. An agent claiming to be Hoffman, a German commander and the son of the general who signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, broadcast messages on a nightly basis. These messages stated that Hoffman had liberated a small town in the mountainous region of Germany and encouraged other German commanders to do the same.[4] The program ended in October 1944 when the Allies purportedly liberated the fictional city.[4]
Operation Anne / Radio 1212
Operation Anne, also known as Radio 1212, was one of the most successful radio operations of the war. It reportedly came from an anti-Nazi Rhineland group and initially provided accurate information, prompting Wehrmacht commanders to trust its information. After the Allies had broken through the Moselle region however, Radio 1212 issued false reports, evacuation and mobilization orders, and rumors in order to create maximum confusion and hysteria.[4] The station even created a fictional resistance group and encouraged listeners to join.[4]
References
- ^ a b c d e Central Intelligence Agency. (2010, July 9). The office of strategic services: morale operations branch. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2010-featured-story-archive/oss-morale-operations.html[dead link]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Laurie, C. (1996). The propaganda warriors: america's crusade against nazi germany. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
- ^ a b c d e f O'Donnell, P.K. (2004). Operatives, spies, and saboteurs. New York NY: Free Press.
- ^ a b c d e Laurie, C. (1996). The propaganda warriors: America's crusade against Nazi Germany. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.
External links
- The Office of Strategic Services: Morale Operations Branch — Central Intelligence Agency CIA page on OSS Morale Operations
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