Psychology. the Third Dimension of War 9780231888844

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COLUMBIA HOME FRONT WARBOOKS NUMBER 6

PSYCHOLOGY The Third Dimension Of War BY C A R R O L L C. P R A T T PROFESSOR RUTGERS

NEW

YORK:

OF

PSYCHOLOGY

UNIVERSITY

MORNINGSIDE

HEIGHTS

C O L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS 1942

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C O L U M B I A UNIVERSITY PRESS, N E W

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FOREIGN AGENTS: Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford, Amen House, London, E. C. 4, England, and B. I. Building, Nicol Road, Bombay, India MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

of a century ago—in April, 1 g 17—a small group of psychologists, interested primarily in rather remote and abstruse types of experiment and theory, were holding their annual two-day session that year in Harvard University. It was considered more or less bad form to introduce practical or applied problems into the discussions, for the founder and leader of the group, the late Edward Bradford Titchener of Cornell, was profoundly convinced that psychology must make an undisputed place for itself as a pure experimental and theoretical science before turning to the more nutritious problems of everyday human needs and wants. It was therefore more than a matter of mere good form, in view of Titchener's adamant convictions and his forceful personality, when one of the members asked Titchener's permission to introduce a problem which might have a bearing on the national emergency which then existed. Titchener graciously allowed the matter to be brought up, but literally descended from his place at the head of QUARTER

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the table in order to make clear that for his group it was indeed only an emergency that could cause topics in pure science to be replaced by vulgar demands from the outside world. For some little time it was uncertain whether there would be any meeting at all in 1942, for most of the present members feel that it might perhaps be bad form to bring psychologists together now for any purpose other than immediate prosecution of psychological warfare. T h u s in the brief twenty-five-year armistice in the war which began in 1 9 1 4 , psychology has changed from an immature science, considerably on the defensive even with respect to its own problems and subject matter, to a discipline which is used very extensively and boldly, often rashly, in every phase of military and civilian war effort. It was Robert M . Yerkes, professor of psychology in Yale University, who begged Titchener's permission to interrupt the peaceful habits of psychological theorizing in 1 9 1 7 and who was largely responsible for introducing psychological testing into the American army at that time. T h e famous A r m y Alpha tests were given to

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nearly two million recruits, and although the tests at first were looked upon by the majority of army officers as fanciful nonsense, it was not long before even the hard-boiled officers of the line were willing to admit that the curious pencil-andpaper stunts had a certain limited merit. T h e psychologists were delighted with the results, not only for patriotic reasons but also because the data thus obtained by the tests were valuable in answering a number of unsettled and hotly disputed questions within psychology itself, such as the distribution of abilities in a large cross section of average Americans, the point at which mental age ceases to advance, and the relation of intelligence to amount of schooling. One weakness of the American army, as judged by wartime standards, is that for the most part it is an institution and organization designed to serve the needs of a peace-loving nation. One of the deliberate traditions of American politics is that in times of peace the armed forces of this country should be small; that inasmuch as boys will be boys with their guns and toys it is unsafe to place more than a skeleton force at the disposal [5]

of professional soldiers; that Americans do not want to be, and must not be made to be, warminded, especially since one reason why many of our citizens or their fathers came to this country was to escape the oppressive militaristic atmosphere and duties of their native lands. This outlook on life has much to commend it, and it is not, let us hope, mere play on words to say that one impulse to get back into the unfinished World War was the desire on our part to fight for a safer place for the peaceful citizens of the United States to live in. This point of view, however, tends to make the army a rather conservative institution, maintained for defense rather than offense, and hence not fully alert during times of armistice to the newest methods devised by professional soldiers in more militaristic countries. Especially is this state of affairs true with respect to the contributions which the ever-changing techniques of applied science can make to the art of war. In modern warfare the need for specialists in science is very great. A number of scientific organizations in this country owe their origin to the demands [6]

made on scientists during times of national stress; but after the need appears to be over these organizations turn their efforts in directions which have little or nothing to do with war, partly because army leaders seem to forget that such organizations have any more reason for existence. One of the committees in psychology appointed in 1940 by a federal agency took upon itself the preparation of a bibliography on military psychology as a means of making easily accessible the more relevant and important trends in this field. It seemed advisable in this connection to assemble all possible knowledge regarding the use of psychology in the German army. 1 This part of the bibliography, together with a bibliography on German Psychological Warfare prepared for the Committee for National Morale, 2 had a good deal to do with sensitizing the American people, as well as the army, to the far-reachJ

C. C. Pratt, ed., "Military Psychology," Psychological Bulletin, 1941, 38: 309-508; see especially the section on German Military Psychology by H. L . Ansbacher, pp. 370-92, and the section on Classification of Military Personnel by T . W . Harrell and R . D. Churchill, pp. 331-53. 2

L. Farago, ed., German Psychological mittee for National Morale, 1941.

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Warfare, New York, Com-

ing role played by psychology in the new phase of hostilities. Indeed, the activities and tasks of American military psychology may perhaps best be outlined by setting it against the background and dangers created by the extensive use and misuse of psychology in German military circles during the last fifteen or more years. After the cessation of hostilities in 1918 the German Supreme Command found itself in a paradoxical and to them unbelievable situation. They had fostered in themselves and in the army an abiding faith in the complete invincibility of German arms. Yet their political representatives had signed a document at Versailles which announced to the world the military defeat of Germany and forced on that country a republican form of government and a constitution which the military leaders thoroughly detested. How was that bitterly unpleasant state of affairs to be accounted for? The explanation took the form of elaborate rationalizations, attempts to conceal the true facts behind a verbal screen of closely reasoned distortions and misdirections of attention. The main burden of the rationalization was

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Ludendorff's insistence that the army had been stabbed in the back. The writings of Ludendorff became very popular among certain groups in Germany, but in Allied countries their author was regarded as mildly deranged and his views were dismissed as inconsequential ravings. It is only now painfully apparent that Ludendorff's influence on German students of military strategy, as well as upon Hitler himself, was grossly underestimated beyond the Rhine, although perhaps not beyond Germany's eastern border. He was the first of a number of clever writers whose verbal gifts were devoted to a detailed account of the stab in the back delivered to the German army during 1917-18. What was this stab in the back? According to the doctrine which grew up in Germany during the decade following the armistice, the armies of the Kaiser were never defeated in any proper military sense. They were weakened by the powerful drives on the western front in the summer of 1918, but they still had tremendous latent powers of recuperation which were never utilized. The apparent collapse was [9]

brought about by a breakdown in morale, especially by the breakdown in all classes of civilians behind the front-line troops. T h e home front had not been adequately protected against a diabolical weapon developed by the Allies and perfected by Woodrow Wilson. This master of pernicious rhetoric brought to a climax the use of honeyed and treacherous phrases designed to break the will to resist on the part of the German people. With the aid of fourteen sharply poisoned points he misled the Germans into longing for peace, for peace based on justice, on covenants openly arrived at, on the self-determination of nations, for peace without victory, revenge, or retribution, for peace guaranteed by a league of nations in which all countries would share alike in maintaining economic order and spiritual welfare. T h e events which followed Versailles made it possible for the German militarists, and especially the Nazi party, to argue that the Allies, with Wilson at their head, had forged and polished this powerful verbal weapon for the sole purpose of crushing Germany. It made no difference what words were used to operate this Mach[10]

iavellian trick of intellectual warfare, so long as the desired effect was achieved. They could be true or false, rational or irrational, soothing or terrifying; their meaning according to decent rules of semantics was of secondary importance, provided they served to undermine the morale of the enemy. T h e German people were unprepared for this sort of direct attack upon themselves. They were in the habit of dealing with words in terms of their manifest meaning, and as a result were caught unawares by the latent, double, and false meanings that lay beneath the deceptive surface of Wilson's eloquence. They actually believed what Wilson said, and were therefore misled into supposing that their cause was not just and that their armies were not invincible. They no longer felt the desire to win, so that without their support there was nothing for the military leaders to do but beg for an armistice and hope for a just peace. When the treaty of peace was signed, Ludendorff's worst fears were realized. In following Wilson the German people had been trapped by a gigantic verbal hoax and led helplessly to their own economic

and spiritual slaughter. This view of German defeat was carefully nurtured throughout Germany, especially in the schools, and became one of the strongest planks in the platform of the Nazi party. Within the army itself there were several writers who made use of Ludendorff's general trend of argument but who went far beyond him in making overt and clear the latent military implications only partially revealed in Ludendorff's formulation of the argument. Ludendorff's writings were a sort of psychological defense mechanism, an emotional catharsis by means of which he wanted and needed to justify both to himself and to the German people what he had done, or had failed to do, on the field of battle. Having accepted the logic of his defense, his followers in military circles began vigorously to work it over into a doctrine of belligerent offense. Perhaps the best-known apologist and theorist in this group is Colonel Dr. Albrecht Blau, probably by now General Blau. He has developed most carefully and consistently the plan and need for threedimensional total war. Other writers in this field [12]

are the former chief of LudendorfFs Intelligence Service, Colonel Nicolai; the famous geopolitician and former Bavarian general, Haushofer; the commander of the army's Division of Psychology, General Hans von Voss; the psychologists, Simoneit and E. R. Jaensch; and the former corporal in LudendorfFs army, Adolf Hitler. Colonel Blau argued that the psychological weapon which weakened German morale in 1918 must be studied and adopted as an integral part of German military strategy. It should be recognized as a valuable weapon of war and ruthlessly and systematically employed, along with every other conceivable device, as a means of defeating the enemy. Modern warfare, according to Blau, has three major divisions: military, economic, and psychological. The military side may safely be left to those experts who make fighting in the conventional sense their profession. But the conventional military command must be expanded to include experts whose task will be in time of war to bring about complete regimentation of the country with respect to barter and exchange, taxes, rationing, and the production and [>3]

distribution of goods. Last but not least in Blau's scheme comes psychological warfare. These three phases taken together constitute total tridimensional war. T h e y enlist the services of the whole nation so that every last individual is catalogued and knows what he must do and what he must not do. T o t a l war means literally the enlistment of the total resources of the nation—military, economic, and psychological. These ideas of Colonel Blau were not systematically formulated and published until 1938, but they were well known and freely circulated in the army and within the inner circle of the Nazi party long before Hitler came to power. As a matter of fact, a Division of Psychology was created in the German army under the command of General von Voss in 1929, and we have good evidence that preparations for this work were begun several years before that date in the small but highly efficient army which followed the letter, if not the spirit, of the Versailles restrictions. Psychological warfare has two major divisions, which overlap to some extent but which in certain respects are entirely different. T h e first [!4]

division or branch of military psychology has to do with what may be called tests and measurements. This activity is less dramatic to the general public than the second but not for that reason any less important. The second branch may be called morale and propaganda. The task of tests and measurements is one of human engineering and is designed to secure a maximum of efficiency in the use and distribution of human abilities placed at the disposal of the army. In all countries peoplelike to believe that the army is an organization which by training and rigid discipline is able to demonstrate a superlative efficiency in the accomplishment of its tasks. On the basis of the more exact knowledge developed by psychologists with respect to the nature and distribution of human intelligence and aptitudes, it was possible to convince the American War Department that a program of testing should be introduced in our army in 1917, and this same conviction has now led to the adoption of a similar but much more extensive program in the German army. Human engineering of this sort runs into many different directions, of which the follow-

er

ing may serve as examples: (1) the elimination of the mentally unfit and the selection of the mentally gifted for those tasks requiring greater ability; (2) the analysis of military jobs and the discovery of special aptitudes that best fit these jobs; (3) the classification of personnel along lines of special interests, traits, and experience; (4) the creation of quick tests of visual and auditory acuity and of muscular coordination in order to find men best equipped to manage the newer instruments of mechanized warfare; and (5) analysis and application of various methods of learning and training so that men may reach efficiency of performance in as short a time as possible. The aim of that branch of German military psychology that deals with morale and propaganda may perhaps be best understood by viewing this branch as the positive and aggressive aspect of the rationalization regarding their own military defeat in 1918. If the defeat was really a breakdown of morale brought about by enemy propaganda rather than a capitulation of the fighting forces, then with the resumption of hostilities every conceivable method must be used to secure [16]

high morale at home and low morale in enemy countries. T o achieve this aim, German propaanda has made use of every known device, plus a few others hitherto undreamed of in the satanic perversions of the darkest Machiavellian nightmares. Among our own people propaganda has come to be regarded as a word to conjure with or as a scurrilous activity to be drastically excoriated. Both attitudes are understandable and partially justified, but when carried to an extreme they lead to ostrich-head-in-the-sand futilities if not to catastrophies. We live in an age of intense propaganda, of intolerant and strident promulgations of ideologies. T o turn a deaf ear is to court disaster, for no man can live completely outside his own time and place. Better to sharpen the wits in order better to appreciate the truth that lies concealed in many a verbal distortion. T h e other attitude is too much like that of those parents who would protect their children from the vulgarities and chaff of radio and movies by refusing to let them turn the dials or gaze on the silver screen. If Beethoven is now all too fre[•7]

quently preceded and followed by toothpaste and cosmetics, it is not a difficult act of discrimination to learn to enjoy the one and ignore the other. T h e word propaganda was originally applied to an activity which was inspired by very laudable motives. In the Roman Catholic Church, the College of Propaganda was a committee of cardinals whose task it was to adapt the teachings of Christianity to the practices and customs of people in widely different parts of the world. Every doctrine or ideology, no matter how noble, is likely to run into difficulties in getting itself properly understood. A good propagandist is merely one who knows how to present his ideas effectively, and the arts of propaganda are merely the means by which a point of view can best be made acceptable. T o make even some of the best doctrines palatable and attractive may require subtle manipulation of emphases, frequent repetition of cardinal points, judicious silences, emotional supports, and carefully timed overand under-statements. These same practices, when driven to extremes, lead to downright [18]

lying, brazen distortions, deliberate obfuscations, wholesale censorship, intellectual goosestepping, and methodical terrorism. However, the difference between inoffensive and obnoxious methods of propaganda is one of degree rather than of kind, and it depends to some extent on whether one is on the sending or the receiving end. All communication, no matter how innocent or how indifferently motivated it may seem to be, involves some elements of propaganda, for it is hardly possible to remove all trace of preference and selection from the announcement of even the simplest idea. As soon as the speaker or writer takes any interest whatever in the formulation of his ideas and thoughts, he is on the way to becoming a propagandist for his own way of thinking. It is certainly questionable whether there is any such thing as objectivity of thought except in a few rarefied domains of natural science in which the external facts of the world are more or less completely coercive in the dictation of propositions and conclusions. In the biological and social sciences, and especially in the wide[*9]

open spaces of political, ethical, and theological opinion, thought is often determined less by the nature of the materials with which it is presented than it is by interest, wish, temperament, desire, love, fear, and hope. Successful communication of this kind of thought requires some of the more obvious wiles and stratagems of propaganda, and the best protections against the more extreme profanations and pollutions of propaganda are (1) a genuine love for the truth and (2) willingness to know something about the mousetraps and pitfalls into which the gullible stumble and fall. It is hardly necessary for us to run through, in textbook fashion, the whole list of devices, both conscious and unconscious, which individuals, groups, and nations resort to in their rationalizations and propaganda. N e w articles and chapters on the subject appear almost daily. Whole journals are devoted to the topic. Newspapers run editorials and readers write replies. A n d the A B C ' s of the whole matter are placed even before school children in the form of catchwords which they will not easily forget. W e all know

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about glittering generalities, band-wagon effects, the plain-folks appeal, the calling of names, and the stacking of cards, although these contrivances may not be more important that the less familiar undistributed middle, a non sequitur, an instance of special pleading, or a case of petitio principii. It is more important in these critical times to bear steadfastly in mind the fact that the Nazi party and the German army are using propaganda as a military weapon to bolster the morale of their own people and to undermine the morale of their enemies. Only in this setting does the task of the United Nations become clear with respect to their own problem of morale and propaganda. T h e theory and practice of German propaganda with respect to all people, including their own, is based on the malign conviction that the mass of mankind is stupid, inconsistent, and forgetful. This premise leads to the conclusion that any kind of attitude whatever can be inculcated into the collective mind of a nation if proper methods are employed. If the purpose is to achieve high morale, this can be done by the [21]

right kind of propaganda; if the purpose is to undermine morale, this can also be done by the right kind of propaganda. Since total warfare requires high morale among civilians as well as in the fighting forces, the care devoted to the preparation of the home front in Germany has been lavish and thorough. The result has been, whether consciously and deliberately cultivated or not, the development in the German nation of a state of mind closely resembling the tenacity and ferocity of certain psychoses in the individual mind. The writing and talk which have come out of Nazi Germany for several years past reveal many characteristics in common with frenzied delusions of grandeur and parallel delusions of persecution. Das deutsche Volk with its manifold superiorities over other nations, purity of blood and race, the sanctity of the supreme leader, the destiny of Germany to lead mankind into a new order, the strident belief in Teutonic invincibility: these are all megalomaniac attitudes which the government, with its complete control of radio and press, has fostered with diligence. On the other hand, the Germans have been given a [22]

whole hierarchy of convenient and psychologically necessary phobias: the Jews, the injustices of Versailles, the horrible dangers of Bolshevism, the corruptions which seep in from the decadent democracies, the policies of blockade and encirclement practiced by their enemies, and now, more recently, the unspeakable revenge and possible total annihilation that await them if their enemies are victorious. Most competent observers seem to agree that for the present at any rate this intensive program of propaganda has achieved notable success. German morale is high. Towards its enemies German propaganda has been equally intense and has often resorted to terrifying and nerve-racking practices. In line with the theory of the High Command that disruption of enemy morale is part of military strategy, years of preparation have been devoted to this purpose, for this phase of military strategy precedes actual hostilities and can therefore be carried on during times of so-called peace. The theory of this type of propaganda is relatively simple, however difficult it may be in practice. Every country has various kinds and conditions of disunity, no mat[ 2 3]

ter how good its morale may be. The task is to discover the sources and characteristics of these disunities and then to hammer away at them incessantly in order to magnify their disrupting effects. T h e tragic fate of France was due partly to this kind of psychological warfare. While bending every effort to break the internal resistance of France by setting faction against faction and party against party, Hitler and his Nazi spokesmen were giving solemn assurances to the world that Germany held sacred the neutrality of Belgium and inviolate the soil of France. Totally unprepared for this kind of verbal snare, France was psychologically trapped and morally strangled before a single shot was fired. It is part of Nazi theory that psychological warfare, if properly conducted, can win bloodless victories, as indeed it did in a number of instances. Report has it that the High Command was somewhat surprised that France put up any fight at all, for the assumption was that another victory had already been won before the troops started to march. It was also part of the plan of Nazi tridimen[»4]

sional warfare to break the morale of England and then send the troops across to mop up the remains. But here the Nazis made a mistake, as did the Japanese in the case of our own country. There are limits to what propaganda can do, and one of these limits is created by falling bombs, destruction of property, and slaughter of innocent citizens. Those who were making a study of Nazi propaganda in England have reported that its effect ceased almost simultaneously with the dropping of bombs on London. English unity, which the Nazis had almost succeeded in destroying by means of the third dimension of total warfare, was restored just in the nick of time when Hitler gave orders to operate against London in the first dimension. T h e same sort of thing happened right here. American disunity and internal dissension were the source of grave and widespread concern. If anyone had argued in the first week of December, 1941, that a practically unanimous declaration of war would come out of Congress within a few days, that person would have been regarded as a lunatic. With the aid of bombs on Pearl Harbor the Japs did in a [*5]

few minutes what months of internal propaganda had failed to do. Before bringing this brief sketch of military psychology to a close, it may be well to attempt to correct one or two fears that have grown up with respect to what some regard as the misuse of psychology, especially of propaganda, in a democracy. In the first place, the discovery or, rather, the suggestion that propaganda has many points in common with rationalization leads many people of good will to fear that every defense which a country makes of its motives in time of war must be interpreted in terms of a basic lust for power. If the motives are said to be love of honor, truth, decency, liberty, freedom, democracy, and Christian principles, these phrases must be taken for what they are worth, to wit, mere verbal sublimation and froth designed to conceal the underlying motive of economic struggle. This conclusion does not necessarily follow. Effects are derived from causes, but causes and effects are not the same thing by any manner of means. Romantic love may have its causal roots in the [26]

physiology of sex, but love and sex are not the same thing, and anyone who says they are is talking arrant nonsense. Love and sex are related, to be sure, but they are not identical. An aggressive personality may be the result of some deep-seated constitutional inferiority, but aggressiveness and inferiority are not identical psychological traits. Some of the roots of democracy may descend into the economic soil of Wall Street, but the soil of that thoroughfare and the hopes of a democratic community must not be confused, even if they have certain elements in common. T h e morale of our own people, particularly that of our younger generation, has been badly weakened by being exposed so often to the statement that when Wilson said in 1917 that we were fighting to make the world safe for democracy, what he really meant was that we were fighting to save our money. This naive misinterpretation of intricate economic and sociological relationships would be too simple-minded to bother about, were it not for the fact that so many people have come to believe it. One important task in strengthening American morale might be to dis[*7]

pel this simple but dangerous delusion. Christianity has upon occasion been spread with the aid of the sword, but only a fool would try to identify the teachings of Jesus with the thrusts of steel blades. Secondly, we must be ready to welcome every effort to clarify the principles of democracy by means of good propaganda. T o o many people have learned to think of propaganda as the concentrated essence of everything that is false. On the contrary, propaganda may serve the cause of truth just as well as the cause of falsehood and evil. Propaganda is a principle of selection by means of which "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report" may be singled out for special reference and attention, while those things in a democracy which are bad and in need of correction may be left unsaid for the time being. Strange, how in time of war so many of our good citizens see nothing but the bad things about America! It is just those very things, and those alone, that Nazi [28]

psychological warfare wants us to see. Finally, let it be said that there is no a priori reason to suppose that fighting fire with fire, propaganda with propaganda, and totalitarianism with a total three-dimensional war of our own will turn us into the very evils we are trying to destroy. W a r is a social disease, and to get rid of it may require drastic restrictions in freedom of thought and action in much the same way that a "sick person must accept curtailments of his liberties such as he would never submit to in a state of health. W h e n a man is sick, it is best for him to obey the total orders of his doctor. If we wish to regain national health, it would be best for everyone for the duration to obey the rules of total war. If and when the blackout and nightmare are over, it will then be time to indulge in dreams of a better democracy.

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