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Piecing together a fractured European continent after World War I, the Versailles Peace Treaty stipulated the long term occupation of the Rhineland by Allied troops. This occupation, perceived as a humiliation by the political right, caused anger and dismay in Germany and an aggressive propaganda war broke out-heightened by an explosion of vicious racist propaganda against the use of non-European colonial troops by France in the border area. These troops, the so-called Schwarze Schmach or 'Black humiliation' raised questions of race and the Other in a Germany which was to be torn apart by racial anger in the decades to come. Here, in the first English-language book on the subject, Peter Collar uses the propaganda posters, letters and speeches to reconstruct the nature and organisation of a propaganda campaign conducted against a background of fractured international relations and turbulent internal politics in the early years of the Weimar Republic. This will be essential reading for students and scholars of Weimar Germany and those interested in Race and Politics in the early 20th Century.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations
Glossary
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The Pfalz: Focus of French Ambitions in the
Weimar Crisis Years
2. The Bavarian Pfalzzentrale and the
Rheinische Volkspflege: A Discordant Evolution
3. The Origins of the Schwarze Schmach Campaign
4. Women in Rhineland Propaganda: Exploiters
or the Exploited?
5. Publicly Funded Propaganda and Private
Initiatives: Contrasting Styles and Motivation
6. The Pfalzzentrale: Metamorphosis and Dissolution
7. Pfalzzentrale Propaganda: Anti-France, but
Pro-Bavaria or Pro-Reich?
8. German Rhineland Propaganda: The Product
of a Fractured Society
Appendix I: Constituent Organisations of the
Rheinische Frauenliga in May 1921
Appendix II: Presentations Made by Leading Members of
the Rheinische Frauenliga in Autumn 1920
Appendix III: Questionnaire Sent Out by the Rheinische Frauenliga,
February 1922
Appendix IV: 1871 and Now
Appendix V: Appeal by the Volksbund 'Rettet die Ehre'
Appendix VI: Railway Propaganda Leaflet
Notes
Bibliography
About the author
Peter Collar holds a PhD in German History from the University of London, and has had a distinguished career as a scientist
Summary
Piecing together a fractured European continent after World War I, the Versailles Peace Treaty stipulated the long term occupation of the Rhineland by Allied troops. This occupation, perceived as a humiliation by the political right, caused anger and dismay in Germany and an aggressive propaganda war broke out-heightened by an explosion of vicious racist propaganda against the use of non-European colonial troops by France in the border area. These troops, the so-called Schwarze Schmach or 'Black humiliation' raised questions of race and the Other in a Germany which was to be torn apart by racial anger in the decades to come. Here, in the first English-language book on the subject, Peter Collar uses the propaganda posters, letters and speeches to reconstruct the nature and organisation of a propaganda campaign conducted against a background of fractured international relations and turbulent internal politics in the early years of the Weimar Republic. This will be essential reading for students and scholars of Weimar Germany and those interested in Race and Politics in the early 20th Century.
