A Rain of Propaganda: The Media Production of the Office of War Information in Stockholm, 1942–1945

During World War II, both Nazi Germany and the Allies invested heavily in propaganda in neutral Sweden. The battle for hearts and minds did not only involve widespread dissemination of propaganda, but Stockholm became a veritable hotspot for espionage as well as intelligence gathering on enemies’ propaganda efforts. Moreover, throughout the war, the Allies used Sweden as a key gateway to circulate propaganda in Denmark, Norway and Finland, too. This paper studies the media production of the US Office of War Information in Stockholm, 1942–1945. While previous research has focused on the organization of OWI and the American view on war propaganda in Scandinavia, little emphasis has been placed on the actual production and circulation of American propaganda in Sweden during World War II. Moreover, the OWI-supported media (e.g. books, magazines, films, radio and news stories) that were circulated in Sweden and the Nordic countries have not been studied in depth. This raises the following central research questions: How did OWI Stockholm produce and disseminate American propaganda in Sweden? What function did the Stockholm outpost have in the distribution of propaganda in the neighbouring Nordic countries?
The main source material comprises previously neglected archival material from the Civilian Security Service’s (Allmänna Säkerhetstjänsten) counter-espionage (on both American and Nazi German propaganda activities in Sweden), reports and hearings from the US congress on the planning and implementation of US war propaganda, as well as preserved examples of American propaganda in Swedish mass media. Additionally, to trace the public debate about American propaganda efforts, I will utilize the National Library of Sweden’s and the National Library of Denmark’s digital search tools for digitized newspapers.