The Why We Fight series of Propaganda Films

This is from the book Film & Radio Propaganda in World War II, 1983.

The 7th chapter of the book deals with the Why We Fight series of films. The author starts out by defining Social Engineering as "human behaviour can be manipulated towards socially desirable goals," or "the need to offer a reason why to an educated citizenry." Propaganda is basically a form of social engineering.

In the U.S. Army there was originally a Morale Branch, which ended up becoming the Information and Education Division, and they were the ones who worked with propaganda. "...the Why We Fight series must be considered one of its greatest achievements."

The author says that the series was definitely propaganda, that "Facts were selected with an eye to offering emotional reasons for supporting one's own war effort, the cause of one's allies, and for fearing and hating one's enemies."" The series consisted of the following:

1. Prelude to War, which divided the world into free and slave.
2. The Nazis Strike covered the Nazi invasion of Poland and the low countries.
3. Divide and Conquer: dealt with the collapse of France and the fifth column at work there.
4. The Battle of Britain
5. The Battle of China ("...flatfooted propaganda which relied on too much Hollywood feature filmage")
6. Battle of Russia
7. War Comes to America ("...tracing the growth of pro-war sentiment...")

"The original purpose of the films was to define war aims in an exciting but truthful fashion; in the end truth took a back seat to emotional patriotism."