“This 1917 book entitled “German War Practices” provides eyewitness accounts including excerpts from the real diaries German troops and the official report on the horrific massacres and atrocities inflicted by the German forces during World War One. This book with tales of torture and genocide, describes methods by which the Germans sacked and burned villages; throwing civilians into burning homes, torturing, and routinely killing innocent men, women and children. Detailing a campaign of systematic brutality, this work provides a grim record of the German onslaught;

With the horrendous atrocities committed against the Belgian, French, Russian, Polish, and English peoples, it describes in one German soldier’s words “the beautiful sight of burning villages illuminating the night sky in every direction.” With details of mass Deportations and Forced Labor, this book describes wholesale, wanton destruction of entire cities and villages, along with the terrorizing and brutal crackdowns of collaborators, sympathizers, and innocent alike. Describes fines levied against local towns, leaders, and civilians who interfered, told are the various methods of reprisal; and the near certain consequences of those who dared to confront this murderous lot.” (etc.)

The infamous “Bryce Report of Alleged German Atrocities” came out in 1915 and fueled the rage against Germany, fomenting world war. Translated into 27 languages, it contained gruesome and hate-inspiring illustrations of Germans spearing babies and eating their flesh. Even though thoroughly debunked later by Belgium, the USA and even Britain for not having even one major allegation ever corroborated, its lying author maintained his sterling reputation and it is still being treated as fact:

In “Gems (?) Of German Thought: Kultur Self-Revealed. An Anthology of the German War Scriptures,” 1917, British news writer and drama critic William Archer translated a mess of alleged quotations from famous historic German figures out of context and restructured them in such a way that proves that all past and present Germans, from poets to farmers and physicists, are militant, blood-thirsty savages eager to rule the world.

During the war, Archer wrote on behalf of Wellington House’s insidious propaganda mill, arguing that Germany started the conflict and the innocent Allies were forced into defending the world against German inhumanity and militancy. German “Kultur” was the target of the busy propagandists in both Britain and the USA. More history perverted into hate poropaganda

One of the Hate Gang’s most successful tactics was the “in their own words” gimmick. They would simply make up a character with a silly sounding German name, give “him” the title of Duke, Prince or General and “quote” him as he spouted off infuriating diatribes calculated to make the reader hate the Hun. The 1917 book “Christine” by “Alice Cholmondeley” was one of the most successful propaganda books because it gave people an “inside look” at the bad character of the average German. Published by the Macmillian Company in 1917, it presented a compilation of letters from a young English girl studying in Germany just before the outbreak of the war. The British promoted the fictional book as fact. The author was actually British novelist, Elizabeth Russell, who was once married to a minor German noble, apparently not too happily. Revenge is sweet.

Known as Mary Annette Gräfin von Arnim, after she was widowed she married Bertrand Russell’s elder brother in 1916. She also had an affair with H. G. Wells. In the book, “Christine” explains her experience with German culture in detailed letters helped to portray an unflattering picture of the supposed state of mind of the German public: how the Germans all conform and develop bloodlust at the thought of getting rich through war. “[The] Germans have gone mad… [The streets] seem full of drunken people, shouting up and down with red faces all swollen with excitement.” Christine tells of the incessant marching and the callousness of the “greedy, and pitiful” Germans. It was a big hit, and when it was found to be a hoax, the pundits still oozed out their blessings on the bound pack of lies.

Germans had a lot of English nannies for folks who were supposed to regard the British as mortal enemies! Sometimes they even entrusted an “English-American” (?) governess to rear their young.

US millionaire, Fritz von Frantzius cranked out “The Book of Truth and Facts” in 1916; The public loved the tell-all accounts of the wicked German character and these books were eagerly promoted. We had “Degenerate Germany” by Henry de Halsalle, “The Peril of Prussianism” and “My German correspondence; concerning Germany’s responsibility for the war and for the method of its conduct, being a letter from a German professor together with a reply and foreword” (whew!) by Douglas Wilson Johnson and “Germanism from Within” by A. D McLaren.

Academic historians like Professors William Roscoe Thayer (“Germany vs. Civilization : notes on the atrocious war”), Munroe Smith, Charles Downer Hazen and Albert Bushnell Hart gave an aura of “scholarly” respectability to this vulgar, coarse, emotional, Germanophobic propaganda. Thayer (1859–1923) was, for example, a Harvard educated American author elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1914, and he received honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, Brown, and other universities. A guy like that would never lie! Neither would J.H. Morgan in 1916 in “German Atrocities: an Official Investigation” which explains the viciousness of the German character.

Almost like the myriad of UXBs from the last war that lethally hide under German soil today, it will take decades for this stuff to go away. Meanwhile, it still poisons young minds. But, back to the books. Now, this missive must be the truth. It’s written by a REAL German secret agent!! Oh, there are two..no, at least twenty. One even has the German Eagle on the cover! “Up for bids is this ABSOLUTELY GREAT looking vintage hardcover book entitled: THE SECRETS OF THE GERMAN WAR OFFICE. It was written by DR. ARMGAARD KARL GRAVES-SECRET AGENT-WITH THE COLLABORATION OF EDWARD LYELL FOX and was published by A.L. BURT COMPANY, NEW YORK. Copyright 1914.”

Our friend Arthur Conan Doyle is back. He’s here a lot. He really enjoyed hating Germans almost as much as he once hated Belgians. Actually, he hated anyone not British. Old Nurse Cavell visits us again, too, in another tidbit: “The full title of this 15-page piece was published in London in 1915 is ‘Correspondence With the United States Ambassador Respecting the Execution of Miss Clavell at Brussels.’ On October 12, 1915, Miss Clavell was executed by German firing squad. A fascinating piece about a little known aspect of WWI.” (The only thing “little known” is the story of the two German nurses who were executed by the Brits!)

Who can forget France? Published in 1917, also by George H. Doran Co., Arnold Toynbee’s book relates the suffering and agony being inflicted on the French by the “brutal, bloodthirsty and uncivilized German soldiers.” Hodder & Stoughton’s 1917 London book about France pops up again: “Frightfulness in Retreat; Proceedings of the French Senate, March 31, 1917; German Atrocities in the Liberated Districts (Official Report of the French Commission Appointed to Investigate Acts Committed by the Enemy in Violation of the Law of Nations). Stunning, disturbing, filled with anecdotal information.”

Even a better description surfaced for another copy a mere week later: “For auction is a copy of Arnold J. Toynbee’s THE GERMAN TERROR IN FRANCE, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1917. This book describes unbelievable German devastation to French villages and French civilians. It makes the butchering in Iraq look like a pleasure cruise.”

Who could forget the ‘German terror’ in Africa?! Not anybody soon. It’s really rather duplicitous since the propaganda was put out by a colonialist government that at one point in history had almost a quarter of the earth’s darker-complected people squarely under its own bloody thumb.

A sticker attached to the front of the fear-mongering pamphlet “The New German Empire” states: “This Pamphlet is sent you by the War Committee of the Union League Club of Chicago. After you have read it, please pass it on in order that the message it carries may reach the largest number of persons.” This was typical of the publications of George H. Doran Company, the major publishing source for the British Government’s propaganda. They published a number of other books on the War including two by James W. Gerard, the former fat, spoiled American Ambassador to Germany who was wined, dined, feted and fawned on by the Germans during his tenure there only to return home and become a German hater-baiter when politically expedient.

And We Love Lucy: “The Lusitania Massacre is one of the great landmarks in history, not alone in American history but in human history, because it ensured German defeat in the World War. FIRST EDITION, 1915.”

Iowa had a lot to fear from a German invasion. The book called “The Peril of Prussianism” contains maps and observations about the imminent danger of “Prussianism” creeping across the globe to rule the world. It was created at the request of “some Iowa bankers” and “contains the substance of an address delivered by the writer before the annual convention of The Iowa Bankers Association at Des Moines on June 14, 1917.” The bankers in turn later distributed it among the large and scary German-born Iowa population in certain districts.

Another 1918 Creel booklet talks about “The Kaiserite In America – One Hundred and One German Lies.” Contents include a list of 101 German whoppers. When Germans weren’t lying, and only Germans lie, they were planning the next war. “German Plans for the Next War” by J.W. Gardiner; Doubleday, 1918, was another scare book detailing various nefarious plots and intrigues for German world dominion. The seller says it is a “boldly prophetic and highly informative read.”

German business was a primary concern. Baby-eating Huns apparently had faulty economies, and slews of economists, professors and business leaders issued their perspectives on the Germans from the monetary angle. But it then erratically escalates from the Mark to mayhem and we progress from German economic atrocities to more gore as semi-hysterical sellers take regular old German books and pervert their meanings to fit their own personal prejudice:

An old German medical book is described by an “expert”: “Ultra Rare 1919 GERMAN GRAPHIC MEDICAL BOOK. BRUTAL DISTURBING PHOTOS! FREAKS! DISEASES! PINHEADS! It is a fact that Germany and virtually all the German-speaking lands have a long history of displaying physically challenged people in Carnivals and Circus Sideshows as “Freaks.” The German fascination with grotesqueness and deformity is starkly evident in this unforgettable German book from 1919.” (Guess who the freak is?)

For a mere shilling one could buy the 1916 ‘Scraps of Paper’ with genuine, bona fide German Proclamations in Belgium and France, complete with a foreword by Ian Malcolm, M.P. who tells us: “The following pages contain reproductions of a series of inhuman documents, the careful perusal of which may do something to supplement our exiisting information concerning the actual conditions under which hundreds of thousands of our gallant Allies are now living (if “living” be the appropriate word to denote so precarious an existence). Such documents require no explanation and no comment. They are reduced photographic facsimiles of posters and placards, pasted by the Germans on the walls of cities, towns and villages in invaded France and Flanders. The originals are in my possession.” Yep. The “originals were right under the author’s bed next to a sneaky Hun.

Some books are just plain fun, like “Malice In Kulturland” by Horace Wyatt. This warped version of Alice joined the 10-feet-tall tale of the anti-German club in 1917. In this 84 page British missive, Europe is tried for not being German and found guilty. It is embellished with graphic cartoons featuring the ever-present German “Kultur” tatooed on slithering kaiser-beastie’s tails.

Thank goodness the Hun was finally “outwitted” by the goofy looking guys on the covers of kids’ books. But do you suppose one would find a book title using any other racially or ethnically insulting epithet on a major internet auction site? Very doubtful. In fact, it is not supposed to be allowed, with one exception..the HUN..no, two exceptions: Hun and KRAUT, both used freely, frequently and with no bad feedback. Actually, that is pretty much an outrage.

Kids got in on the act thanks to government sponsored out-of-work writers. Smart kids could always “baffle” the Germans to death if they couldn’t battle them.

The “Bafflers” had help from a gangly kid who saved the world from the Huns in “Dave Darrin and the German Submarines” by H. Irving Hancock, 1919. This kid (who likely wouldn’t even take out the family garbage) is rounding up Germans masquerading as Mexicans.

“Neutral” America was invaded British tabloid style in 1916 when Henry Altemus Company boosted its profits with H. Irving Hancock’s “The Invasion of the United States,” a four-book series depicting an impending German invasion of the US in 1920-21, with a fantastically huge German navy. The dastardly Germans launch a surprise attack and capture Boston. Of course, H. Irving Hancock’s “Uncle Sam’s boys” put up heroic resistance, but alas, the Huns overrun all of New England and New York, with their pickle helmets parading all the way to Pittsburgh until they are smashed by loyal, brave, pimpley American pubescent boys.

For an author of hundred and hundreds of childrens fiction books and series, very little is known about the shadowy H. (assumed to stand for “Harrie”) Irving Hancock (pictured above) who was supposedly an American chemist born in Massachusetts sometime near 1868 and married to a Nellie Stein. He is described as a “prolific author who liked to work at night” and “it is thought that he was once a journalist for a Boston newspaper who served as a war correspondent in Cuba and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War.” His life is cloaked in secrecy, but his books, including the Conquest of the US series, contained all aspects of the ‘war-preparedness’ movement, whose goal it was to embroil in World War One on the side of the Allies.

Henry Altemus Company and company poured out thousands of propaganda series books for boys throughout the war, indoctrinating an entire generation with a war mentality. Our libraries and schools and online auction houses are keeping up the work.