TY - CONF

T1 - News from Afar

T2 - When East Meets West: The Second World War in Global Perspective

AU - Harmsen, Peter

PY - 2017/6/22

Y1 - 2017/6/22

N2 - News filtering through about the changing fortunes of the Axis had a direct impact on public opinion in occupied Europe during the war years, not only affecting morale but also at times triggering mass popular action. For example, a wave of protests against the German occupation broke out in Denmark immediately following the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, and a second wave erupted in the summer of 1944 after the Normandy landings. In other words, knowledge of the war at large was an important aspect of life in German-controlled Europe in the 1940s, but remains somewhat understudied. This paper describes the way a number of Danish news outlets reported on three key battles in the Pacific: the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the battle of Midway in June 1942, and the battle of Iwo Jima in the spring of 1945, held against examples of the importance attributed to the Pacific theater of war by writers of diaries in Denmark. It can be tentatively concluded that while reporting on the Pacific was relatively neutral in tone and did not, to a systematic extent, exaggerate Japanese victories, the Danish public especially paid attention to that theater of war in 1941 and 1942, as Japanese advances contributed to the overall image of the global success of the anti-democratic alliance.

AB - News filtering through about the changing fortunes of the Axis had a direct impact on public opinion in occupied Europe during the war years, not only affecting morale but also at times triggering mass popular action. For example, a wave of protests against the German occupation broke out in Denmark immediately following the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, and a second wave erupted in the summer of 1944 after the Normandy landings. In other words, knowledge of the war at large was an important aspect of life in German-controlled Europe in the 1940s, but remains somewhat understudied. This paper describes the way a number of Danish news outlets reported on three key battles in the Pacific: the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the battle of Midway in June 1942, and the battle of Iwo Jima in the spring of 1945, held against examples of the importance attributed to the Pacific theater of war by writers of diaries in Denmark. It can be tentatively concluded that while reporting on the Pacific was relatively neutral in tone and did not, to a systematic extent, exaggerate Japanese victories, the Danish public especially paid attention to that theater of war in 1941 and 1942, as Japanese advances contributed to the overall image of the global success of the anti-democratic alliance.

M3 - Paper

Y2 - 22 June 2017 through 23 June 2017

ER -