photographs that may have been made weeks, even
months before or that had no direct relation to the
news story it accompanied. On the other hand,
governments, the British crown being an especially
obvious example, pioneered the use of combat
photographers who were attached to military units
and under their command. Otherwise dispassionate
photographers, such as Roger Fenton during the
Crimean War, provided imagery that the govern-
ment used for its own propagandist purposes by
contextualizing it with information that furthered
the British government’s policies. Propaganda
photography was well entrenched by the end of
the nineteenth century, and as early as 1900 some
began to question whether any printed photograph
could be entirely trusted as ‘‘the truth.’’
The continuing development and increasing
sophistication of the mass printed media in the
early years of the twentieth century brought propa-
ganda photography to its height of influence.
World War I can be defined as a world war partly
because of the world-wide dissemination of infor-
mation about the war, including propaganda.
Nations and their peoples were exhorted to partici-
pate in this war by means posters, films, rallies, and
by extra issues of daily or weekly papers heavily
illustrated with photographs. Again, it was the con-
text into which these photographs were placed that
served the propagandistic purpose. It was the cap-
tions that would make claims and ‘‘identify’’ what
the reader was to focus on or believe: were the
destroyed wagons or dead bodies results of enemy
action? The reliability and trustworthiness of
photographs were thus at the mercy of those that
published them, whether they be private companies
or government organs. All nations participating in
World War I installed propaganda ministries and
called up the best of their photographers and cam-
eramen. A number of new technologies were intro-
duced within these administrations, among them
high quality aerial photography, which in turn sti-
mulated photographers to explore new forms.
A number of revolutions followed the end of
World War I, and all of them had used photogra-
phy as a means of propaganda among their fol-
lowers and sympathizers. Within the German
revolutions of 1918 most of the propaganda was
distributed by picture postcards as printed papers
were too expensive for the general public. The
Soviet revolution, on the other hand, made exten-
sive use of large posters that were printed in small
issues on photographic mural paper. Although
photography did not play an important role in the
propaganda strategies designed by Lenin, it was
omnipresent at the October Revolution and in the
following years. By the early 1920s a number of
young Russian artists had concentrated on what
they called Agitprop, and propaganda was an inte-
gral part. Agitprop meant the inclusion of all forms
of avant-garde art into everyday life, especially into
communist ideology and thus into propaganda.
A number of artists began their careers in Agitprop
programs, some of them becoming world-renowned.
Chief among these is Alexandr Rodchenko who in
1924 had his first photographic posters published on
the occasion of a film program named ‘‘Cinema
Eye.’’ From here it was a short step towards the use
of propaganda within nearly any public appearance,
and when the Soviet Union started to participate in
international fairs and exhibitions, its stands were
covered with large format photographs in the most
unusual designs of the time. El Lissitzky was the chief
designer of Soviet manifestations in the world, and he
made extensive use of all sorts of propaganda: jour-
nalistic approaches to country and citizens, architec-
tural photography of new structures erected, and
portraits of important politicians. His compositions
were marked by strong graphic and typographical
elements with the result that this propaganda strongly
resembled advertising. Soviet propaganda, however,
was carried out on a grand scale, and along with the
painting style Socialist Realism, formed the visual
face of the Soviet empire. Yet by the 1930s, propa-
ganda was shaping politics everywhere: No election
was held without campaigns in magazines and news-
papers, press releases, and posters, all illustrated with
photographs—the medium that would attest to the
‘‘truthfulness’’ of that which propaganda could very
well be manipulating or subverting.
Fascist and Nazi propaganda in Italy and Ger-
many marked the next phase in systematic and over-
whelmingly effective use of propaganda that resulted
in the destruction of democracy. Up to 1936 Ger-
man propaganda followed strictly the modernist
rules of Italian Fascist propaganda, featuring the
styles and methods promulgated by Agitprop and
avant-garde art: photomontage and diagonal com-
position, use of (typo)graphic effects and telling
short stories in small sequences, eye-catching images
marked by bright whites and deep shadows. The last
manifestation of this modernist propaganda style
came in the exhibitionGermanyand its catalogue
that accompanied the Berlin Olympic Games of
1936 designed by the former Bauhaus student and
teacher Herbert Bayer. Yet Hitler effectively stamp-
ed out modernist art in Germany, labeling it ‘‘degen-
erate,’’ closing down the Bauhaus and causing many
artists to flee. Bayer himself emigrated to the United
States in 1938 after realizing that his vision of mod-
ern design could no longer be pursued.PROPAGANDA