German Propaganda and the African and Asian Theaters of the War

Abstract

This chapter focuses on propaganda campaigns in Germany amidst the First World War. It recognizes World War I and the subsequent experience of internment as global conflicts. After the propaganda campaigns, enemy aliens became victims of oppressive politics and populist xenophobia. The chapter details how the propaganda campaign involved the maltreatment of German colonial settlers. It also notes that the war overturned the conventional ideas of racial solidarity. Since legal norms proved to be powerless against claims of national security, international law played a role in controlling the conduct of belligerent powers in favor of a focus on the propaganda war that developed during the conflict.