Psychological Warfare

Second, in the strategic field, they made each victim seem the last. There was still hope that war would not arise, even while the Spanish Republic was being strangled before the eyes of the world. The British hoped that they could stay out even after Czechoslovakia fell. Astute though the Russians were, they hoped to stay out even after Britain and France fought. And as late as December 6, 1941 many Americans still believed that the United States would avoid war. This suited the Nazis' book; take them on one at a time.

Thirdly, in the purely psychological field the Germans used outright fright. They made their own people afraid of Communist liquidations. They brazenly showed movies of their blitzkriegs to the governing groups of prospective victims, just to lower morale. When one nation is really ready to fight, and the other knows it, the nation that doesn't want to fight can be reduced to something resembling a nervous breakdown by constant uncertainty. (The author was in Chungking during the summer of 1940, when the German propaganda agent, Wolf Schenke, showed these German movies to the Chinese leaders. The author asked for an invitation and did not get it; it was for Chinese only, said Schenke. But the Chinese were not awed, or made fearful of the power of Japan's ally. They simply said, "Nice movie ... that's the kind of thing we used to do in the Ch'in dynasty," and let it go at that.)