Winning French Minds

Radio Propaganda in Occupied France, 1940-42

By Denis Courtois

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World War II was very much a war of the radios. As a relatively-new technology, radio was a tool exploited by all the participants of the war to win the hearts and minds of the people. In the period 1940 to 1942 the Nazis captured large parts of western Europe and were dominating on the Eastern front. At this time France was separated into two nominally independent zones, and public opinion could easily have been swayed in favour of the New German Order. This could have had potentially disastrous consequences for Allied attempts to liberate Europe, and so the battle for French minds was launched using the new technology of radio.

Winning French Minds explores the propaganda as presented by different radio stations - in particular, Radiodiffusion, controlled by Vichy France; Radio Paris, controlled by the Nazis; and the BBC - offering a systematic comparative analysis of radio propaganda messages and building a vivid picture of the evolution of broadcasts and social impact of the war on the French population. Using original primary sources from archives in Britain and France, broadcast recordings, radio magazines, and interviews conducted by British Intelligence with those arriving from France during the war, this is a fascinating and unique insight into wartime radio from 1940 to 1942.

Size: 159x254mm, 256 pages, Hardback, ISBN: 9781636241463