Your enemies are human, too
How John Steinbeck's unexpected contribution to the Allies' propaganda effort inspired Nazi resistance.
“No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.”
—John Steinbeck
In late June 1940, as Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels was printing articles describing the Nazi’s defeat of France as vindication of their racial and national superiority, across the ocean, John Steinbeck was penning a letter to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt encouraging him to ramp up the U.S.’s own propaganda efforts.
That spring, while working on a film project in Mexico, Steinbeck became concerned with the pervasiveness of Axis propaganda in Latin America, specifically that it outweighed that of Allied powers.
“In the light of this experience and against a background of the international situation,” he wrote to Roosevelt, “I am forced to the conclusion that a crisis in the Western Hemisphere is imminent, and is to be met only by an immediate, controlled, considered and directed method and policy.”
His proposal was the creation of propaganda office and the “method” of which he spoke was “to make for understanding rather than friction.”
Shortly thereafter, Roosevelt met with Steinbeck, kicking off what would become the author’s ongoing involvement with the Allies’ war effort. Beyond working for two government organizations — the Office of Coordinator of Information and the Office of Strategic Services (both precursors to the CIA) — Steinbeck’s greatest contribution to the Allies’ cause was a book called “The Moon Is Down.”
Published just before Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the book is informed by Steinbeck’s interactions with displaced citizens from countries occupied by Germany. The work of fiction describes the occupation of an unnamed European country by a foreign invader and their ultimate resistance — clearly resembling Germany’s occupation of the likes of Norway, Denmark and France.
Steinbeck’s approach, however, differed from many others of that time. He chose to depict the invaders not as stereotypical, one-dimensional villains (or demons, dragons or skeletons), but as dynamic human beings facing conflicting feelings about their mission and desirous of the comforts of home. Critics of the book cited this portrayal, claiming it imparted a fairy tale atmosphere and accusing Steinbeck of naiveté.
But Steinbeck stood resolute in his decision, writing:
“The war came on, and I wrote ‘The Moon Is Down’ as a kind of celebration of the durability of democracy. I couldn’t conceive that the book would be denounced. I had written of Germans as men, not supermen, and this was considered a very weak attitude to take. I couldn’t make much sense out of this, and it seems absurd now that we know the Germans were men, and thus fallible, even defeatable. It was said that I didn’t know anything about war, and this was perfectly true, though how Park Avenue commandos found me out I can’t conceive.”
Despite this denouncement, “The Moon Is Down” received its fair share of praise, but more important was the book’s reception in Nazi-occupied Western Europe, where citizens venerated it and Nazis banned it. It was translated, printed, distributed and passed from person to person — with some copies even dropped from planes — across Norway, Denmark, Holland and France. Hundreds of thousands of copies were ultimately disseminated across Europe, with many individuals taking great risk to distribute them. (It’s said that in Italy, the mere possession of the book was a death sentence.)
Sales of the book helped fund the resistance in France, Denmark and Holland. And beyond Axis countries, it’s said to have had an impact in other occupied nations across the world, including China, which at the time was occupied, in part, by the Japanese. Since its publication in 1942, “The Moon Is Down” has appeared in 92 editions across at least 28 countries.
As author Donald V. Coers wrote in the Introduction to the 1995 edition of the book, “Few literary works in our time have demonstrated so triumphantly the power of ideas in the face of cold steel and brute force, and few have spoken so reassuringly to so many people of different countries and cultures.”
It was not in spite of but specifically because of its method of not dehumanizing the enemy that “The Moon Is Down” was so effective, particularly among nations facing occupation. For all Steinbeck’s literary ability, it was his empathy that made the book so successful.
Following the war, when questioned by Norwegians about his perceptiveness — why he believed his approach would work — Steinbeck replied:
“I put myself in your place and thought what I would do.”
Recommended reading
If you haven’t yet, I recommend picking up a copy of “The Moon Is Down” or reading this free online version.
To learn more about Steinbeck’s involvement in the Allies’ propaganda effort, pick up a copy of Coer’s book “John Steinbeck Goes to War: The Moon Is Down As Propaganda.”
"Humans are caught — in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity, too — in a net of good and evil."
— John Steinbeck, “East of Eden”
Really nice piece, Alex! Very interesting!
Good to see Steinbeck's always relevant & important words spotlighted !