Why Germany Wants Peace
- Title:
- Why Germany Wants Peace
- Alternate Title:
- Why Germany Wants Peace
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Committee on Public Information
- Date:
- 1918
- Date 2:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2356.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2356_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1900 - 1919
- Subject:
- World War I
Unusual Graphics/Text - Measurement:
- 26 x 31 on sheet 78 x 52 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- From the outbreak of World War I until America's declaration of war in April 1917, the official posture of the country had been neutrality. There was concern whether German-Americans would fight against the Kaiser and whether Irish-Americans would fight alongside the British. Even after America entered the war, the public was far from unified behind the cause. There were vocal misgivings from intellectuals, labor leaders, progressive reformers and long-time isolationists (Brewer 2009, 49, 53).
To meet these concerns, Wilson launched an all-out effort to gain wider public support. On April 14, he created the Committee on Public Information, headed by a former muckraking journalist, George Creel (Ibid., 55-57). The Committee conducted a "vast enterprise in salesmanship," in which it "extolled American greatness and condemned German barbarism by using sensational stories of atrocity, which were later discredited." (Ibid., 10). It was "charged with the task of directing the release and suppression of government news to promote the 'absolute justice of America's cause, the absolute selflessness of America's aims.'" (Venzon 1995, 162). Other organizations helped in this effort. The Council of National Defense had been created in 1916 to coordinate mobilization efforts, and had created State Councils of Defense to assist it; after the war began, "The state councils became primarily propaganda agencies to generate public support for the war effort." (Ibid. 174).
The collection includes four maps - all virtually identical - issued to this end by the Creel Committee and its affiliates: ID #1192 (poster - "The Prussian Blot"); ID #1194 and #2109 (folding maps in pamphlets - "Why Germany Wants Peace Now"); and ID #2356 (poster - "Why Germany Wants Peace"). Each of these shows the vast areas stretching South and East from Germany to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea occupied by the axis powers. And each thereby explicitly or implicitly attacks the long-standing "Pan-German Plan" of conquest.
The Pan-German movement had coalesced in the 1890s among German critics of imperial timidity, and it had gained substantial influence by the eve of the War. It urged, among other things, the uniting of all ethnic Germans ("Deutschtum"), regardless of existing state borders; reduction of "un-German" (Slav, Catholic, Jewish) cultural influence; and creation of "lebensraum" for Germany by colonial annexation. Baranowski 2011, 42-45; Wertheimer 1924, 3-4. In 1916, a French journalist and scholar published "The Pangerman Plot Unmasked," which became a sensation, particularly after its translation into English the following year. The message was clear: Pangermanism was not merely a German claim "to annex only the regions inhabited by dense masses of Germans, on the border of the Empire," or "to gather within the same political fold the peoples who are more or less Germanic by origin" (albeit "quite inadmissible"). "Pangermanism is more than that. It is really the doctrine, of purely Prussian origin, which aims at annexing all the various regions, irrespective of race or language, of which the possession is deemed useful to the power of Hohenzollerns." Cheradame 1917, 1-2.
This poster was published by the Creel Committee in 1918 and sets out Germany's aggression at the top in blood red. Below this is a statement of the Committee's goals: "Every American ought to know WHY we entered this War. Every American ought to know WHY this conflict must continue until our aims are achieved." This is followed by a list of the Committee's publications and address for obtaining them. Copies of two of those publications are in the collection, item no. 5, "Conquest and Kultur" (ID #2109) and item no. 7, "War Cyclopedia" (ID #1194).
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.