"How to Win an Information War" by Peter Pomerantsev
Reviewing a book about WWII radio trolls.
“How to Win an Information War” (2024) is a non-fiction book written by Ukrainian born journalist Peter Pomerantsev.
During World War II, Denis Sefton Delmer operated a black propaganda radio station under the name “Gustav Siegfried Eins”. The station broadcast the voice of “Der Chef”, a disgruntled German officer.
Der Chef spoke with glowing fury about elevated Nazi party members and SS-men. He told the listeners in great detail about the decadent lifestyles enjoyed by corrupt bureaucrats in Nazi-Germany, even naming specific officials.
The station gained many intrigued German listeners who shared the frustrations Der Chef expressed, some believed he spoke on behalf of a simmering mutiny.
However, the speeches sent on Gustav Siegfried Eins where all composed by Sefton Delmer and Der Chef was merely a role played by a Jewish refugee.
The book follows the life of Sefton Delmer and how he became a master at both creating and countering propaganda.
It also explores Pomerantsev’s work documenting war crimes in Ukraine after the 2022 Russian invasion and how lessons from Delmer apply in today’s information war against Vladimir Putin.
The Book
Sefton Delmer’s parents where Australian, but he was born in Berlin and grew up in Germany. Back then being Australian was as good as being British, so when World War I broke out his family became “enemy nationals” in a hostile country.
Delmer was ostracized and struggled to make friends at school and his father was arrested on false charges of espionage.
Despite this, Delmer eagerly joined in the patriotic chants and marches at school, because he wanted to fit in. Pomerantsev connects this to the work of Jacques Ellul, which describes propaganda as “the remedy for loneliness”.
As Germany gradually lost the war, living conditions worsened. When Delmer’s father was finally released from prison he was able to obtain visas and relocate his family to London.
Before Sefton Delmer wrote scripts for Der Chef, he penned articles as a foreign correspondent in Germany for The Daily Express.
While there, he interviewed Adolf Hitler face-to-face in a Storm Division headquarters in Munich. He also followed Hitler during his presidential campaign against Hindenburg in 1932, even travelling with him on the plane flying him from city to city.
Delmer’s close ties with Hitler and other important German Fascists lead some to view him as a Nazi sympathizer and those suspicions would haunt him into World War II, but Pomerantsev explains that Delmer credits his time in Hitler’s inner circle with enabling his work countering Nazi propaganda.
Before the debut of “Der Chef”, the Germans were already using radio stations pretending to be something they weren’t against the British.
One such station, called “Worker’s Challenge”, spread rumors about a conspiracy among the bosses to make the air raid sirens go off too late in order to squeeze more profit out of their employees.
Britain also ran their own covert propaganda radio station, “Sender der europäischen Revolution”, which posed as a Marxist station calling for a Socialist revolution in Germany, but it failed to attract attention.
When Delmer was brought on his work was a lot more successful, especially with the show of Der Chef. Through prisoner of war interviews, intercepted letters and spies the British were able to establish that his station was quite popular.
Later, Delmer set up a different station, named “Radio Wehrmachtsender Nord”, purporting to be run by soldiers in occupied Norway.
He also operated “Soldatensender Calais” which broadcast more varied content, including soothing music, speeches by German leaders and news about submarine movements.
In the lead up to D-Day, Delmer created manuals for German soldiers on how to fake illness or injure themselves to avoid service and from there it got darker and darker, like a prankster not knowing when to quit, Delmer prolonged the joke until it was no longer funny.
After the war, Sefton Delmer envisioned himself rebuilding democratic media in occupied Germany to prevent the return of Nazism and for a time he had the opportunity.
The British government tasked him with establishing a newswire, but not long after details about his secret role during the war leaked to the press and due to the unsavory nature of his work he was sent back to England.
The Commentary
“How to Win an Information War” tells a well-researched and riveting story, but derives generic lessons and has weak takes on polarization in America.
The book retreads Freudian psychological musings on the appeal of Fascism and Hannah Arendt’s “Banality of Evil”, though this is obviously intentional given the sources and quotations prominently cited.
“It’s all about a sense of belonging” is hardly a novel insight on the topic of propaganda, cults or political extremism, but it helps that it’s supported with references to the places were the idea first appeared and the life of Sefton Delmer.
Pomerantsev mostly presents as a suave fellow, but at times descends into Trump derangement syndrome.
While describing the gloom of our current fake news world early in the book, one of the few examples brought up is a growing perception that “serious” journalists and the media are enemies of the people.
The last phrase being an allusion to the spray-tanned former US president.
Throughout the book, Pomerantsev mentions some variation of “media that claim to value truth and evidence” or “media that claim to defend democracy”, all of which are just reluctant ways of bringing to mind what is commonly called the mainstream media.
Adding the precautionary “claim” before these signifiers is likely a courtesy to Trump-voters, but it doesn’t accomplish much when Pomerantsev’s handling of American politics is so inconsistent.
The allegations made by Fox News about rigged electronic voting machines in the context of the 2020 presidential election are treated as very serious, but the myriad of claimed irregularities, including faulty voting machines, spread by mainstream journalists in relation to 2016 isn’t addressed.
Unlike other disinfologists baying for more censorship on social media, Pomerantsev seems to be presenting the tricks employed by Delmer as an alternative to that dark reality.
What the “secret recipe” behind Delmer’s success consists of is inconsistently characterized in the book.
One explanation goes that the audience was attracted by the swearing, sex and scandals, like with tabloid magazines. Another that Delmer’s broadcasts reawakened critical thinking in the listener by making them ponder the inconsistencies and riddles they included.
A third theory is the one given by Delmer himself during an official visit by the royal family, in a recording he explains the key behind his propaganda is to exaggerate Nazi ideology “into the ridiculous”.
Where the Nazis saw hidden Jews and Bolsheviks everywhere, Delmer took it one step further and made a station claiming the German government was crawling with traitors as well.
My take is that the other pro-democratic radio stations were unsuccessful for the same reason many Christian movies don’t appeal to those not already converted. They failed to tell a good story.
Sefton Delmer entertained the listener first and snuck the messaging in the back door. It is that simple.