WWI Propaganda, Total War, and Civilian Dehumanization
This paper examines the role of propaganda in World War One's program of "total war," arguing that atrocity propaganda served four key functions: mobilizing hatred against the enemy, justifying one's own cause, enlisting neutral parties, and strengthening allied support. The paper explores how nationalist and xenophobic propaganda campaigns dehumanized civilian populations based on race, ethnicity, and national identity, desensitizing soldiers and military leaders to mass violence. It further discusses how new technologies — including chemical weapons, tanks, and aircraft — enabled unprecedented civilian casualties, and how WWI fundamentally altered the norms of warfare, paving the way for more widespread use of weapons of mass destruction and genocide throughout the twentieth century.
- Introduction: The Unprecedented Atrocities of World War One: WWI's total war program and propaganda's four key functions
- Propaganda, Nationalism, and the Dehumanization of Civilians: Xenophobic propaganda dehumanized civilians by race and nationality
- Total War, Chemical Weapons, and the Normalization of Mass Violence: New technologies normalized mass violence and chemical warfare
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds abstract claims in concrete primary and secondary sources, including period eyewitness accounts and historical scholarship on chemical warfare, lending credibility to its argument.
- It traces a clear causal chain — from nationalist propaganda to dehumanization to the normalization of mass violence — giving the argument logical coherence across its short length.
- The use of specific examples, such as the Russian "Arch Enemy" poster and cartoon maps depicting national stereotypes, illustrates how propaganda operated visually and culturally, not just rhetorically.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates the technique of contextualizing historical events within broader ideological frameworks. Rather than simply cataloguing WWI atrocities, it situates propaganda within the political context of nationalism and total war, showing how ideology enabled and escalated violence. This analytical layering — connecting media, technology, and political identity — is a hallmark of effective historical argumentation at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The paper is organized into three thematic movements: an introduction establishing the unprecedented nature of WWI violence and the four functions of atrocity propaganda; a central section on how xenophobic and nationalist propaganda dehumanized civilian populations; and a concluding section linking new military technologies, chemical warfare, and the long-term normalization of inhumane warfare. Each paragraph builds on the previous, moving from ideology to imagery to material consequence.
Introduction: The Unprecedented Atrocities of World War One
While war can never truly be called a humane practice, the atrocities of World War One were in many ways unprecedented. The program of "total war" that dominated military discourse enabled, and in many cases actively advocated, the killing of civilians — something that had not before been considered traditional military strategy. Moreover, significant technological developments in warfare made it possible to annihilate large numbers of people at once. Propaganda campaigns became integral to the "total war" theater.
Atrocity propaganda was "employed on a global scale" during the First World War to serve four key functions: the mobilization of hatred against the enemy, convincing the population of their own righteousness in the cause, enlisting support from otherwise neutral parties or countries, and strengthening support for allies.1 During the peak of the age of nationalism, national identities fueled the power of propaganda during the First World War, making the enforcement of ethnicity, race, and nationalism underlying functions of political propaganda. Coupled with new technologies, the result was the beginning of horrifically inhumane military campaigns.
Propaganda, Nationalism, and the Dehumanization of Civilians
During the First World War, civilians were proposed to be targets based on their race, ethnicity, or national identity. Through the aggressive use of propaganda, it was asserted that anyone from a target population was inherently an enemy who could not be trusted and who deserved — indeed needed — to die in the interests of national defense. This xenophobic mentality is evident in the posters circulating at the time, such as the "Arch Enemy" poster from Russia and the cartoon maps depicting stereotypes of people from different nations.2
By caricaturizing people and targeting ethnicity and nationality in this way, a campaign of dehumanization had begun. No longer were civilians seen as innocent people; rather, they had been transformed into the epitome of evil in the eyes of their enemies. As a result of this dehumanization, soldiers and military leaders alike became desensitized to the campaign of total war. Propaganda created nationalistic and xenophobic mentalities that actively propagated racism.
References
Fitzgerald, Gerald J. "Chemical Warfare and Medical Response During World War I." American Journal of Public Health 98, No. 4 (2008): 611–625.
Source Records of the Great War, Vol. II, ed. Charles F. Horne. National Alumni, 1923. Accessed: http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/germanatrocities_usreport.htm
Welch, David. "Depicting the Enemy." British Library. Accessed:
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.