Opinion Sur
Almost since the dawn of the publication of newspapers of great circulation there is talk of the crisis of journalism. As early as 1919, Upton Sinclair published The Brass Check, a devastating critique of capital’s power to corrupt both the press and journalists.
However, this criticism became more intense with the beginning of the new millennium, when it became clear that media manipulation was not only in the interests of capital, but also in the interests of the State of national security. It was with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 that a new type of journalist emerged, embedded journalists, that is, reporters linked to military units involved in armed conflicts and who, therefore, report only what the military authorities allow, thus submitting to censorship or self-censorship. In this way, media consensus is created on wars that is only one dimension among many others of the propaganda war. Patrick Lawrence, a prominent American journalist (curiously, it was he who covered the April 25, 1974 Revolution in Portugal for The Guardian), author of the recent book Journalists and their Shadows, shows that the manipulation of journalism to serve national security policy began with the Cold War in the 1950s. He says:
“I lived through the Cold War, though only in its early years, and my memories remain vivid. What struck me most was the hysteria in the press, radio, and television. These experiences left scars that time has not managed to erase, and I am sure that I am not alone in this feeling. This hysteria reached its peak during the fifties and part of the sixties. The big newspapers and television networks gave that era its texture and tone. They brought the Cold War to our doors, to our car radios, to our living rooms. They forged a conscience. They told Americans who they were and what defined them as Americans and, in general, what made America, America. A free press was central to that self-image, and Americans deeply yearned to believe they had it. Our newspapers and television networks did their best to maintain that semblance of freedom and independence. Whether this was an illusion (that the US media submitted to the new State of national security and its various crusades during the Cold War) is now an open and obvious question. I consider it one of the bitterest truths of the last seventy-five years of American history.”
One issue is obvious. Are Europe and North America engaged in a new propaganda war, now in connection with the war in Ukraine? I have no doubt that this is the case. How many bitter truths about Europe’s recent history (our present) will be known in the coming years?
The more general questions that readers less intoxicated by propaganda ask are as follows. Do journalists believe the news they report on and what they write? Or do they know that they are falsifying the truth and misinforming, but that is the only alternative to keep their jobs? These questions are especially relevant to what war correspondents or special envoys report on the war. It is true that propaganda warfare does not work without exceptions. In the case of the war in Ukraine and in relation to Portuguese journalists, it is fair to highlight the case of Bruno Amaral de Carvalho. But in general, the answers to these questions, if they are ever possible, will only be many years from now. Perhaps for that reason, and for now, we can only report on journalists who were correspondents in previous wars, who were “incorporated” before the term existed, but who still had the courage to observe more independently what they saw and to publish what they wrote when censorship made it possible. A very special case is that of Curzio Malaparte (1898-1957) in his book Kaputt, first published in 1944, considered one of the best books on war.
It is a controversial book and is not exactly the story of a war correspondent. Malaparte began as a supporter of Italian fascism and an enthusiast of Mussolini, but broke with both in 1933 and was arrested several times. From 1941, he began covering World War II for Corriere della Sera. He was on several war fronts (such as in Ukraine, which at that time was part of the Soviet Union) accompanying Nazi troops. Many of his articles were censored and only published later. Despite the ambiguity of his political career, his book is a stark representation of the violence of war and the moral corruption of the European elites who promoted it. His stories may not be completely reliable and may mix fact with fiction. Even so, however, the atrocities committed are evident. He narrates those perpetrated by the Nazis with whom he lived, but it cannot be ruled out that the Allies also committed such acts.
Russian prisoners in Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union)
Gathered in a kolkhoz near the village of Nemerov, the prisoners were subjected to a test that consisted of evaluating who could read well and who was illiterate or semi-literate. They had to read the Pravda newspaper. The results of the test on 118 prisoners were as follows:
“The exam lasted about an hour. When the last group of three prisoners completed the two-minute reading, the colonel turned to the Feldwebel and said, ‘Tell them!’ The Feldwebel began to count from afar, pointing at each man with his finger: ‘Ein, zwei, drei…’ On the left are eighty-seven failed, on the right thirty-one who had successfully passed the test. Then, at the colonel’s request, the Sonderfuehrer began to speak. He looked like a school principal dissatisfied with his students. He said that he was disappointed, that he was sorry to have reproved so many, that he would have preferred to have approved them all. In any case, he added, those who failed the exam had no reason to complain, as long as they work and demonstrate more competence than in school. As he spoke, the group of successful prisoners looked at their less fortunate comrades with a compassionate air, and the younger ones rested their elbows on each other’s ribs and laughed. When the Sonderfuehrer had finished speaking, the colonel turned to the Feldwebel and said, “Alles in Ordnung. Weg”, and headed towards his headquarters, followed by the other officers who, from time to time, looked back and exchanged whispers.
“They will stay here until tomorrow and tomorrow they will leave for the forced labor camp,” Feldwebel told the group on the left. Then, he turned to the group on the right, which had passed the test, and sternly ordered them to line up. As soon as the prisoners formed a tight line, touching each other’s elbows—they seemed satisfied and laughed, looking at their comrades as if mocking them—the Feldwebel quickly counted them and said, “Thirty-one,” and pointed his hand at a platoon of SS men waiting at the end of the yard. And he ordered, “On the right, turn around!” The prisoners turned right, advanced by hitting the mud with their feet, and when they came face to face with the wall surrounding the courtyard, the Feldwebel ordered, “Stop!” Then, turning to the SS men who had lined up behind the prisoners and who had already raised their Thompson pistols, he cleared his throat, spat on the ground, and shouted, “Fire!”
Hearing the sound of gunfire, the colonel, who was a few steps from the office, stopped and turned sharply. The other officers stopped and turned around as well. The colonel ran his hand over his face as if wiping his sweat and, followed by his officers, entered the building, passing by me. “Russia must be cleansed of all this educated rabble. Peasants and workers who can read and write too well are dangerous. They are all communists.”
Jewish prostitutes in Romania
Young Romanian Jewish women were sent to the front to serve German soldiers and officers for twenty days in brothels. Malaparte visited one of them in Soroca, located on the banks of the Dniester River, today part of Moldova. It was already late and Malaparte talked to some young women.
“Oh, no! After twenty days of work, we are worthless. I saw them, I saw the others.” She interrupts herself and I notice that her lips are trembling. That day she had to submit herself to forty-three soldiers and six officers. She laughs. She can’t stand life anymore. Physical fatigue is worse than disgust. “Worse than disgust,” she repeats, smiling.
“I found out that two days later they were taken away. Every twenty days, the Germans made a change of girls. Those who left the brothel were put in a truck and sent to the river. Later, Schenck told me that they weren’t worth feeling too sorry for. They were no longer good for anything. They were reduced to rags and, moreover, they were Jewish.”
“Did they know they were going to be shot?” asks Ilse.
“They knew. They were trembling with fear. Oh, they knew! Everyone knew it in Soroca.”
Suicides on the Northern Front
According to Malaparte, by 1941 many German officers were already convinced that Germany could lose the war. On the northern front, as on other fronts, soldier suicides became so frequent that Himmler visited the front with a plan to reduce suicide… punishing suicides. Report reproduced by Malaparte:
“It’s horrible! Always celebrating, day and night (the banquets of the elites), while suicides among officers and soldiers increase at a dizzying pace. Himmler personally came to the north to try to put an end to this epidemic of suicides. He goes for the dead in prison. He will have them buried with their hands tied. He believes he can end suicides through terror. Yesterday, he had three Alpenjäger shot for attempting to hang themselves. Himmler doesn’t know that being dead is a wonderful thing.” He looked at me with that look that the eyes of the dead have. “Many shoot themselves in the head. Many drown in rivers and lakes (they are the youngest among us). Others wander delirious in the forest.”
They are three atrocious war stories. Novelized? It is possible, but not completely invented. How many atrocities of this or another kind have been committed in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan or are being committed today in Syria, Yemen, and Ukraine? Of the former, we already know a lot. About the latter, we may only know many years from now.
Translation from Portuguese to Spanish by Antoni Aguiló and José Luis Exeni Rodríguez. Article sent to Other News by the author, published in Diario 16 of Spain
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