It was the Germans who developed world-wide pre-belligerent propaganda to a fine art. They exploited every possible disunity which could contribute to the weakness of an enemy. They were not choosy about collaborators. If the Communist Party of the United States lent a hand (as it did between September, 1939 and June, 1941, terming the war "an imperialist war"; after Russia got in, the war was called "the democratic anti-fascist war"), the Nazis did not object. They willingly listened to men who had fantastic schemes for world peace and later used such men as aids in getting appeasement. They tried to rouse Catholics against Communists, Communists against democrats, Gentiles against Jews, whites against negroes, the poor against the rich, the rich against the poor, British against Americans, Americans against British--anyone against anyone, as long as it delayed action against Germany and weakened the enemy potential. They went to special pains to organize German-speaking minorities in non-German countries, but they never neglected using people who had no open connection with Naziism at all. This work was performed, so far as the open propaganda itself was concerned, through the instrumentalities of the Reich's Ministry for Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment under control of that malignant intelligence, Paul Josef Göbbels. The broader program was not solely a publicity matter, and was operated chiefly through Party channels. The German capacity to learn was demonstrated by the contrast between World War I and World War II. In World War I the Germans lacked political motifs, professionalism, and coordination; in World War II they had all of these. =German Accomplishments.= Three basic propaganda accomplishments were achieved by the Germans. First, in the political warfare field, they succeeded in making large sections of world opinion believe that the world's future was a choice between Communism and Fascism. Since they and the Communists agreed on this the point seemed well taken. Actually, there is no historical or economic justification for supposing that those two forms of dictatorship constitute a real choice in the first place, or that the civilized and truly free countries need ever depart from their ancient freedoms in the second place. Second, in the strategic field, they made each victim seem the last. There was still hope that war would not arise, even while the Spanish Republic was being strangled before the eyes of the world. The British hoped that they could stay out even after Czechoslovakia fell. Astute though the Russians were, they hoped to stay out even after Britain and France fought. And as late as December 6, 1941 many Americans still believed that the United States would avoid war. This suited the Nazis' book; take them on one at a time.