---
title: The Work in Scandinavia
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/33-the-work-in-scandinavia/
description: The Work in Scandinavia, from How We Advertised America by George Creel.
section: FRAME
---

![Illustration: an interwar radio-and-newsreel intelligence collage with a 1930s map of Europe and propaganda poster proofs.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-interwar.jpg)

[Library](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/) · Book · [How We Advertised America](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/)

# The Work in Scandinavia

This text

- **Work:** [How We Advertised America](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/)
- **Author:** George Creel
- **Published:** 1920

Full details

- **Rights:** Published in the United States in 1920, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States; the Internet Archive lists the scan as not in copyright. Creel died in 1953, so the text is also in the public domain in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years.

Chapters

1. [Dedicatory](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/01-dedicatory/)
2. [Foreword](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/02-foreword/)
3. Part I: The Domestic Section
4. [The “Second Lines”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/03-the-second-lines/)
5. [The “Censorship” Bugbear](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/04-the-censorship-bugbear/)
6. [The “Fourth of July Fake”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/05-the-fourth-of-july-fake/)
7. [The Committee’s “Aircraft Lies”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/06-the-committee-s-aircraft-lies/)
8. [Relations with Congress](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/07-relations-with-congress/)
9. [The Division of News](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/08-the-division-of-news/)
10. [The Four Minute Men](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/09-the-four-minute-men/)
11. [The Fight for the Mind of Mankind](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/10-the-fight-for-the-mind-of-mankind/)
12. [The Battle of the Films](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/11-the-battle-of-the-films/)
13. [The “Battle of the Fences”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/12-the-battle-of-the-fences/)
14. [The War Expositions](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/13-the-war-expositions/)
15. [The Speaking Division](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/14-the-speaking-division/)
16. [The Advertising Division](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/15-the-advertising-division/)
17. [The “Americanizers”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/16-the-americanizers/)
18. [Work among the Foreign-Born](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/17-work-among-the-foreign-born/)
19. [A Wonderful Fourth of July](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/18-a-wonderful-fourth-of-july/)
20. [The “Official Bulletin”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/19-the-official-bulletin/)
21. [Division of Women’s War-Work](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/20-division-of-women-s-war-work/)
22. [Other Divisions](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/21-other-divisions/)
23. [Showing America to the Foreign Press](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/22-showing-america-to-the-foreign-press/)
24. Part II: The Foreign Section
25. [The Fight in Foreign Countries](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/23-the-fight-in-foreign-countries/)
26. [America’s World News Service](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/24-america-s-world-news-service/)
27. [The Foreign Mail Service](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/25-the-foreign-mail-service/)
28. [Fighting with Films](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/26-fighting-with-films/)
29. [Breaking through the Enemy Censorship](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/27-breaking-through-the-enemy-censorship/)
30. [France, England, and Italy](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/28-france-england-and-italy/)
31. [The Work in Mexico](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/29-the-work-in-mexico/)
32. [The Work in Switzerland](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/30-the-work-in-switzerland/)
33. [The Work in Holland](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/31-the-work-in-holland/)
34. [The Work in Spain](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/32-the-work-in-spain/)
35. [The Work in Scandinavia](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/33-the-work-in-scandinavia/)
36. [The Work in the Orient](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/34-the-work-in-the-orient/)
37. [The Work in South America](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/35-the-work-in-south-america/)
38. [The Russian Campaign](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/36-the-russian-campaign/)
39. Part III: Demobilization
40. [After the Armistice](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/37-after-the-armistice/)
41. [“Americanizing” Mittel Europa](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/38-americanizing-mittel-europa/)
42. [Confusion and Neglect](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/39-confusion-and-neglect/)
43. Appendix
44. [The American Newspaper Publishers’ Association](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/40-the-american-newspaper-publishers-association/)
45. [“Savagery” vs. Sanity](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/41-savagery-vs-sanity/)
46. [Publications of the Committee on Public Information in the United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/42-publications-of-the-committee-on-public-informat/)

[← The Work in Spain](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/32-the-work-in-spain/) [The Work in the Orient →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/34-the-work-in-the-orient/)

**Content note:** Quotes wartime anti-German language, including "Hun", and period terms for racial and national groups. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

FROM the very beginning of the World War, Sweden was a paradise for the German propagandists, many natural causes creating a very intense sympathy for the Kaiser's cause both among the people generally and in the government itself. Norway, by reason of the destruction of her shipping by German submarines, was strongly pro-Ally, but in Denmark the situation was almost as bad as in Sweden. In the first place there was the delicacy of Denmark's position proceeding from geographical considerations that made her absolutely helpless. When Denmark lost Schleswig, and the Kiel Canal was built, there disappeared the last hope of successfully defending Copenhagen from attack by the Germans. A fleet of airships sailing from Warnemunde, the German Baltic port, could lay Copenhagen in ruins in five hours. German big guns could bombard Copenhagen from the Baltic. They could also sweep the peninsula of Jutland from one side to the other. Therein was the secret of the Danish fear.

The Germans had been unloading propaganda on Denmark for three years, working through a strong organization that included a number of young authors who had been unsuccessful in having their works published. The Germans tempted them by telling them they would see their names in print and offered free publication for the books they wrote. In among these books were cleverly sandwiched others full of German propaganda. These books were issued from a large publishing-house and later another smaller firm was added. They had a clientele of from one hundred thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand. The Germans also tempted newspapers which were known to be in financial difficulties, by offering them paying advertising contracts and a supply of printing paper at considerably less cost than they were able to get it from Allied sources. This paper was to be delivered free at the plant, and ink and printing-machines were also offered. The leader of the German propaganda was Louis vom Kohl, of an old Danish family, and a clever author". He and his associates bought up a chain of eight Danish magazines, and while none of the more influential ones fell into their clutches, the publicity influence wielded by the group was very real.

To Denmark we sent George Edward Waldemar Riis, an able newspaper man himself, but possessing added values by being the son of that great Danish-American, Jacob Riis. When Mr. Riis arrived in Denmark he found no adequate conception of America's motives of the goal we sought to attain, of what we were capable of doing under pressure of great necessity, and what our participation and final triumph would mean to the small nations of Europe. When his work ceased Denmark understood us as never before. America's work had been carried into every nook and corner of the kingdom. The spirit of America had been photographed for the Danes by word of mouth, by written article, and by picture, so that they saw us clearly and comprehended us. Mr. Riis found them looking through glasses darkly. He left them with a new vision of our people, our activities, and the lofty principles which governed us. Our material appeared in every publication of any importance in the land and our pictures were displayed in towns which had never seen American war film. He won powerful newspapers to our side; he made people our lasting friends, for he taught them that our fight was for Denmark as well as ourselves; that America had no ax to grind; that we sought gain of neither land nor gold; that we strove to attain only peace and universal justice. An idea of the activities may be gained by these extracts from the report of Mr. Riis :

Denmark was tired of propaganda when I came and if we had attempted to put out material plainly tagged as such it would have gone into the waste-basket. I adopted a new line of endeavor. I went to the editors and told them frankly what we were aiming at. I hid nothing. I said we were conducting a news bureau. Before I did that I went to the chief censor, Mr. Marinus Yde (one of the fairest, ablest men I ever met), and was perfectly frank with him. I showed him our files and said he might come back and look at our office at any time. We strove to, and we did, convince the people that we were there not so much to advertise our wares as to bring about a better relationship, a mutual understanding between our country and theirs as to the aims, objects, and purposes of each. Frankness on our part begot frankness on their part.

We did not feed the Danes cut-arid-dried propaganda. We carefully selected those articles which we knew the Danish publications would be eager for. In this I had the invaluable aid of Mr. Herman Bente, my assistant director, who knew the likes and dislikes of the Danish press all through the land. We let the Danish editors know that we were running a straight news bureau — that we had news of interest about America and what was going on behind the scenes there. We did not urge it on them. They could take it or leave it, as they chose. They took it and called for more. At first we went to them. Then they came to us. We put the breath of life in dry material. We put an American journalistic punch in it. We aimed to tell the story of the pictures in short, crisp sentences so that they would hit the reader between the eyes. When we were sending over three hundred thousand troops a month I figured out how many men that would mean departing from our shores every minute, and wrote a short story stating that every minute so many men were going out from the States to serve under the flag. There was need of this. The Germans had said that we were not able to send an army. They said that such troops as we had were ill equipped. We were able to convince the Danes to the contrary.

When the great American offensive at St. Mihiel began we received, just in time, a picture of Pershing, but no written matter with it. The people of Denmark were unable to visualize Pershing. What manner of man was he? What was his previous military experience? What had he done that he had earned the right to lead the American armies? From my material I wrote a column story which appeared, along with the picture, on the first page of the second largest newspaper in Denmark, Berlingske Tidende, the time of the publication fitting in with the beginning of the offensive.

When I found, on first coming, that nobody knew just what was going on behind the scenes at home, I sat down and wrote an article telling what I had seen of the strength and power of our war preparations, letting them know that we did not want this war, but when we found that it had to be fought we became one great workshop in which all the people were working unitedly to end the war as quickly and as effectively as possible. When I found that the Danes had only an imperfect idea of President Wilson, how he rose to fame, what he meant in the life of the people, how he was trying to interpret the spirit of his country, just what he stood for and what he strove to attain, I wrote a three-column story, "Wilson, Hope of the World,'* in which I endeavored properly to interpret him and his principles. Along with it I tried to mirror the spirit of my people. That story was favorably commented on all over Denmark. It was not only printed in one of the largest of the Copenhagen newspapers, Berlingske Tidende, but ran the rounds of the provincial press. It was published in four provincial papers, four of the leading papers, and among others in the leading newspaper of Ribe, three miles from the German border. That was just where I wanted to get it.

I made several speeches in Copenhagen and in the provinces after they had asked me to do so. I delivered one at a large concentration camp for soldiers at Sandholm. I was asked to, and did, deliver one in the auditorium of the chief Copenhagen newspaper, Politiken, just before I left. I made myself a personal friend of the editors. I called on some of them almost daily. I went to the provinces, and to the editors there I explained what we were trying to do. These calls were followed by an encouraging result in the greater use of our material.

We kept careful track of what the newspapers were saying, either to our detriment or to our credit. When they said anything which was incorrect, and we knew it to be incorrect, we went after them. When one newspaper, which had been printing erroneous reports about us, wrote vicious subheads on a news article dealing with an address delivered by the President and referred to him as the "Trustland's President," I called them to account, and the second editor came to my office and apologized. He did more. A two-column article was written praising our work. The newspaper swung over so that it took with eagerness articles sent out by us, attributing them to our Committee. This newspaper published two columns of Justice Clark's important decision on the eight-hour law and credited it to our Committee. The story went the rounds of the Social Democratic papers.

Every magazine of any prominence using pictures published ours. We had more pictures in the magazines than any of the other Allied bureaus were able to show. Sometimes half a dozen such pictures would appear in an issue of a single magazine having a circulation of 200,000. Many hundreds of pictures were sent out by us through the Pressens Illustrations Bureau, which serves between 200 and 300 publications in Scandinavia, and this material, sent out in Copenhagen, was published in Norway as well.

Copenhagen was filled with our pictures. They were posted in places conveniently located. The Germans afterward followed us up and put up pictures where we did. We put them up on side-streets where pictures had not been shown before and in outlying districts. We sent them to provincial towns, such as Aarhus, Esbjerg, Ribe, Kallundborg, Roskilde, and other places. We grouped them so that people could see the gradual development of small-arms manufacture, of the progress of the Browning machine-gun, of the flying-machine, and we put red-lettered captions and stories under them which conveyed a ready lesson to the man in the street. These pictures were viewed daily by thousands.

We gave pictures to the British Legation to be used in their illustrated booklets, and to lecturers. We even paid for lantern slides for such men as Winding, one of the prominent journalists on the staff of Poiitiken, who had been a correspondent at the front and who afterward delivered lectures telling what American troops were doing in the war, what they were like, and the spirit which actuated them.

We furnished school-teachers with printed material in the shape of articles or pamphlets, likewise writers. We sent a volume of President Wilson's messages to a large publishing-house, which got them out in Danish.

We took up the Schleswig question at a time when scores of persons came to see me to ask that the United States help to adjust the Schleswig problem on a basis of justice to the Danes, and I sent home cables, articles, and pamphlets dealing exhaustively with the entire Schleswig question. I wrote home about it, and even sent a letter to the President, pointing out that the people of the small neutral nation which had suffered so grievously looked to him in the wistful hope that he would right an ancient wrong and strike off the shackles of the Danes in Schleswig who for fifty long years had felt the tyranny and oppression of Prussian rule.

When Mr. Edgar Sisson's Bolshevist disclosures first reached Denmark by cable, I got the complete text, and that night I called a meeting of my staff and instructed them to go get out the entire text on our duplicating machine first thing in the morning. I invited the chief censor to sit in on our talk. It was not necessary for us to get it out on the duplicating machine, for the newspapers were impressed with its extreme importance as news and the next day all the Danish newspapers gave it all the space that was possible. The Social-Demokraten, the strongest organ among the Socialists of Denmark, alone published eight columns of the revelations. The newspapers continued to publish the story for three days. Later we got rid of between ten thousand and fifteen thousand copies of the disclosures printed in pamphlet form, part in Danish and part in Russian. The Russians who were combating Bolshevism snapped them up eagerly.

We published three pamphlets in Denmark. One was by Booth Tarkington, dealing with our awakening; another was by Ernest Poole and described the spirit of the army; a third was an appeal to the reason of the German people written by a Captain Helwig, born in Germany, but an American serving as a captain in our army.

The last-named pamphlet was published in German. It was distributed in the last months of the war. From one place alone we received reports that it had been given into the hands of about three hundred Germans. Copies of that pamphlet were left at all hotels and restaurants frequented by Germans. We sent many into Germany.

I suggested and helped to arrange the visit to our country of the twelve Scandinavian journalists. That visit did much to cement the friendly relations between ourselves, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. When they returned they wrote many admirable articles showing a ready understanding of our people and our spirit and correcting such impressions as that we were a dollar-chasing land engrossed merely in our own selfish considerations. Emil Marot, one of the Danes and a member of Parliament, gave, on his return, a series of twenty-five lectures in which he explained us to his people.

I have seen a change of feeling come over people who had not understood us before. I have seen a new understanding of President Wilson come into the minds of the Danes, so that they placed him on a plane beside their greatest national heroes. I have known them to cut out the photographs of him sent out by us, which appeared in Danish papers, and place them in a sort of family shrine. Yes, I have known the rough farmers to do that on the lonely heath lands. I know that the people of the small neutral nations of Europe, soul-sick with war, yearning for an enduring peace, have looked to him in the hour of trial as the great deliverer, the Moses in a wilderness of trouble. They looked to him to lead them to the light, to lasting peace, to bind the nations in the great brotherhood of which so many millions dream. They believed in him and in us when I left.

Mr. Eric Palmer, the Committee's news representative in Sweden and Norway, won to success, as did Mr. Riis, and from first to last enjoyed the powerful and intelligent support of the American Minister, Mr. Ira Nelson Morris. Finland also came within the scope of Mr. Palmer's activities, and the following tribute from Thornwell Haynes, our consul at Helsingfors, is not without its own interest:

So far the results in Finland of the work of the Committee on Public Information have been most gratifying, especially considering the irritating obstacles to be overcome in the way of pre-existing German propaganda. In whatever direction the faces of the Finns were turned, there flourished German articles and maps and pictures, German books and newspapers, even little Finns toddling in and out of newly established German kindergartens. Bookstore windows contained more German literature than Swedish or Finnish, and such superior German war maps were broadcasted that even Allied consulates bought them for reference. A daily paper, printed in German and receiving financial support from the Finnish Treasury, made its appearance in the capital every evening. German uniforms were seen everywhere, Finnish-German clubs were formed and German banks established. In fact, as far as propaganda was concerned, Finland was a German vassal state.

The work done by the Committee on Public Information, though single-handed and alone, has contributed wonderfully toward saving the situation. In this respect I consider the discrimination shown in the selection of the news by far the most deserving. It has been done so as to create no irritation, and yet quietly demonstrated its force in supplanting William by Wilson and Militarism by America.

While of course the turning of battle on the western front was the immediate cause of the turning of public opinion in Finland toward the Entente, the work done by the Committee has most effectively cleared the way and prepared a suitable soil wherein the unwillingly changed public opinion can reasonably and conscientiously grow.

Guy Croswell Smith, just out of Russia, was left in Stockholm by Mr. Sisson in 1918 and given charge of film distribution in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. This brief extract from his report will indicate the manner in which he handled his problem:

Upon investigation of the situation I found that an immense amount of German propaganda and drama films was being presented in the picture theaters throughout these countries. The Scandinavians like films very much and to the large attendance at the five hundred-odd theaters was constantly being conveyed a broad influence — always, of course, for the German point of view. The propaganda films showed the success of the Germans and Austrians, scenes in German cities, munition-factories, etc., all tending to demonstrate how Germany was winning the war. And there was absolutely no representation as to what the United States was doing. In Sweden particularly the German film propaganda was especially damaging toward the existence of any ideas of fair neutrality for the reason that the Swedes were practically all inclined to be pro-German and the influence of these films was a constant stimulus in the same direction. I foresaw that our films would have to be forced upon the theaters and distributing companies in the same way.

The supply of American drama films in the country was limited on account of the embargo that had existed, which for a time had excluded the possibility of importing films from the United States. This condition had made it easy for the German film-producers to get in their product, but they sold only with the provision that some German propaganda subjects would be taken with the drama films.

Shortly before my arrival in Stockholm, the export prohibition on American drama films had been provisionally raised and shipments again began to come, addressed to the American legations in the various countries. Before releasing these to the consignees, they signed agreements that the films would never be shown in any program with a German drama or propaganda film and that one reel of American "war stuff'* would always be shown with them. This agreement they in turn made with the theaters before distributing. The largest three companies controlling theaters in Scandinavia further agreed that they would never permit any films previously received to be shown in the same program with German subjects. Inasmuch as American films were much more popular with the public on account of their superiority, the effect of these agreements was quickly evident. German films were gradually forced out to such an extent that in three months after my arrival it was difficult to find a theater showing German drama films, and the German propaganda films had been completely driven out and replaced by our official films. I kept close check on the programs throughout the three countries and in the few instances where theaters did not keep their agreement and showed a German film their ability to get American film was discontinued. During the eight months I was in Scandinavia I distributed about one hundred thousand feet of official films. This included American industrial subjects; Hearst-Pathe and Universal weeklies showing the Allies' war activities and events in the United States; "Pershing's Crusaders" and the Allied War Review. These pictures were first shown in the best theaters of the capitals — Stockholm, Christiania, and Copenhagen — and then went in rotation to the smaller houses in these cities and afterward throughout the other cities and towns of the three countries. Thus, where previously this immense number of theater-goers had seen the war news only through German eyes, they now saw America and Americans — at home, at work, and under arms, laying aside the pursuits of peace to fight in defense of freedom. 24

[← The Work in Spain](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/32-the-work-in-spain/) [The Work in the Orient →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/34-the-work-in-the-orient/)

How We Advertised America, George Creel. Published in the United States in 1920, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States; the Internet Archive lists the scan as not in copyright. Creel died in 1953, so the text is also in the public domain in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years. [Provenance and rights](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/).