Visual Images of the Enemy - Report Example

Visual Images of the Enemy: World War II German and American Propaganda Posters Rhetoric propaganda can be a positive or negative tool depending on the use. A positive use can be when trying to encourage people to save resources, have a national pride, or have a peaceful attitude. Negative uses are when a government uses rhetoric propaganda to target a special interest group. The visual rhetoric propaganda can be even more powerful than the written. Even the illiterate and children can understand the message given in visual rhetoric propaganda. Although on opposite sides during World War II, the American and German governments targeted a special interest group to blame the war on during that time. The American government, mad over Pearl Harbor, targeted the American Japanese. The German government blamed the Jews for everything from the Treaty of Versailles to the economic woes of the time. As a result both countries created propaganda fliers and posters to persuade their respective citizens of the evils of these groups. Due to the expansive collection of American and German anti-Japanese and anti-Semitic posters, only two from each country will be given to prove points and theories. The American posters tried to appeal to moral outrage. Whether fighting to stop the invading Japanese to a possible Japanese invasion, the Americans were seen as morally right. The Japanese were portrayed as the morally wrong. Americans in the following posters were helpless, while the evil Japanese killed them despite their helplessness. Both following posters also used vivid color. The lightest color used was a light blue in the background of figure 2. Dark hues of orange, black, yellow, and blue portrayed the feeling of evil and darkness. In figure 1, the background is orange with black and red text. The Japanese hitting the death blow to the American POW and the POW are black and white. Figure 2 shows all color, but the men fighting in the battle field are shadows. The posters’ colors have as much impact as the words or pictures themselves. Figure 1, Stay on the Job until every Figure 2, This is the Enemy. 1942 Murdering Jap is wiped out! (Posters from WWII) Date Unknown. (Posters from WWII) The posters are distorted to show the American’s point of view. The Japanese are shown using typical stereotypes. Both Japanese in the pictures above are darker than their American/Caucasian victims. They both have grotesque slanted eyes that in figure 2 appear buggy. The idea is to make the Japanese look as inhuman as possible. That will make the Americans feel outrage and disgust, but also make them feel like annihilating anyone Japanese as well. The Germans took a different approach in their poster campaign. They did not use their target group and Germans in the posters below. The Germans used Jews fighting or destroying the Allies. The Allies in turn want to annihilate the Germans. The moral is the Jews need to be dealt with. The Germans wanted to project the image that Jews manipulated world events. The German posters showed this manipulation vividly. Figure 3, Unknown Name. Date Unknown. Figure 4, Unknown Name. 1941-1942. (HDHU Collection – Antisemitism) (HDHU Collection--- Antisemitism) Unlike the American posters, the Germans used a yellow, gray, black, and red approach. The blacks and shades of gray in figure 3 give the Jewish man and meat grinder an ominous feeling. The yellow background is dirty and unclear, like the German’s dirty message. The darkness of figure 4 make what the Jewish man is doing look wrong. The yellowness of the Jew in this poster shows the cowardliness of a beast eating prey in the dark. Both figures have red writing to emphasize their point. In response to the anti-Japanese propaganda, the American public felt justified when the government rounded up all the Japanese and Chinese to place in internment camps. In fact, very few Japanese-Americans were disloyal but the hysteria revolving around the war led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 9066, which authorized the Secretary of War to set up military areas where Japanese-Americans from the West Coast would be sent until their loyalty was proven and they could work and live outside the camps. (Granada Japanese Internment Camp) The following images are of the Grenada Internment Camp in Colorado. The impact of the anti-Japanese rhetoric propaganda led normal Americans to ignore the freedoms of their fellow Japanese-American citizens. Americans fell into the rhetoric propaganda trap of using their emotions to strip not only the Japanese-Americans of their freedom, but to threaten their own freedom as well. The Uyano family in their barracks room at the Amache Center. The mother’s handiwork in preparing drapes, fashioning furniture out of scrap material, plus the boys ingenuity in preparing double deck bunks have made this bare brick floored barracks room a fairly comfortable duration home. Tosh Uyano, left, is charged with documenting the history of the Amache Center. " Photo by Tom Parker, 12/9/42. (Granada Japanese Internment Camp) Visually rhetoric propaganda is a tool to stir the masses emotions. In the case of the anti-Japanese rhetoric propaganda, the government used these posters to fuel citizen emotions. In American, congressmen listen to voters. Millions of voters lobbied their congressmen to save them from the murderous, raping, and barbaric Japanese. If all Japanese were bad, then the American public wanted the Japanese population within their nation in camps. These rhetoric visual propaganda posters helped fuel this passionate anti-Japanese movement. Both the American and German posters portray the ethos, pathos, and logos aspect of rhetoric visual propaganda. The American propaganda ethos is based on not the author’s reputation, but the author’s message. The pathos of the American propaganda is the Japanese atrocities in WWII. Pearl Harbor and the POW treatment in WWII of the Japanese toward the Americans soldiers were emotional weapons the Americans used against all Japanese. The logos aspect was the facts reported of POW treatment. Statistics given in figure 1 show that Americans were dying at Japanese hands, thus it was logical that all Americans should hate the Japanese. The German visual rhetoric propaganda had far deadlier consequences for the Jews. Since all of Germany’s woes were due to the Jews, the Nazis decided on ‘The Final Solution’. Every Jew was earmarked for death. Camps like Dachau, Sobibor, and Auschwitz were created to kill up on arrival or work to death Jews. Millions of Jews died in Europe during WWII. Germans believed due to the visual rhetoric propaganda that Jews were the cause of WWII. If all Jews were killed, the Allies would stop attacking according to the visual rhetoric posters produced by the Nazis. The Germans not only knew, but approved of the Jews removal from their cities. Millions of Jews do not just disappear. An estimated one million Jews died in Auschwitz alone. One report states: According to Franciszek Piper (Franciszek Piper: Ilu ludzi zginelo w KL Auschwitz? Oswiecim 1992) the total number murdered at Auschwitz I, II and III was approximately 1,100,000. Included among the victims were 1,000,000 Jews, 70-75,000 non-Jewish Poles, 21,000 Sinti and Roma, 15,000 Soviet POWs and 10-15,000 persons from other countries. (Auschwitz) Visual rhetoric propaganda made the Germans passively let six million Jews go to the gas chambers. If the NAZI visual rhetoric propaganda showed the image below of a train arriving at Auschwitz, the Germans might not have turned a blind eye. Auschwitz II (Birkenau). Arrival at the Ramp (Auschwitz) The German ethos did not depend on the author, but the message. The creditability of the NAZI party gave the posters validity. The pathos of the German propaganda was the manipulative aspect of the Jews actions in world affairs. If dark Jews controlled the world, then Germans must stop the Jews, not the Allies. In other words, the Allies would stop coming with the destruction of the Jews. The logos of the German propaganda was the fact that Jews were present in every aspect of German and European life. Due to the Catholic Church’s ban on usury, Jews worked with money. The perception became that Jews were rich and controlled the world. Thus the posters worked in a logical way. The Germans hatred for the Jews was logical due to the facts the Germans perceived. Visual rhetoric propaganda can be dangerous. It distorts the truth in manner to impact a group in an ethos, pathos, and logos manner. The impact is usually violent, biased, and unreasonable. The American/Japanese and German/Jewish conflict are only two examples of the horrendous actions governments can take after using visual rhetoric propaganda. History offers many more examples. Visual rhetoric propaganda needs to be viewed suspiciously by the public, instead of accepted as fact. Rhetoric propaganda art is designed to impact in an ethos, pathos, and logos way. The validity of the author or message makes the rhetoric propaganda art impact the masses. The pathos makes the people feel strongly about an issue. The logos must be present to have the other two logically accept by the people being targeted. No matter how outrageous the subject or unfair, people respond to art, posters, and other visual aids. The posters above helped make the Americans and Germans feel the way their governments wanted them to feel during WWII. Works Cited “Auschwitz.” 2006. http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/auschwitz.html “HDHU Collection – Antisemitism.” Suffolk Center of the Holocaust, Diversity, & Human Understanding. 2009. http://depthome.sunysuffolk.edu/Library/HDHU/collection.asp “Granada Japanese Internment Camp.” 2009. http://www.colorado.gov/dpa/doit/archives/wwcod/granada.htm “Posters from WWII.” Japanese American Internet Curriculum. 2009. http://bss.sfsu.edu/internment/posters.html Read More