Cultural Exchange in a Time of Global Conflict

Letters from Chempa Karam Pillai in Amsterdam to the Indian Independence Committee in Berlin

In August 1915, the British Indian revolutionary and German agent Chempa Karam Pillai (image 1) wrote several reports from Amsterdam to the German-sponsored Indian Independence Committee in Berlin. He…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Mobility; Letter; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy
Tags: Berlin Indian Independence Committee, colonial intellectual, Dutch East Indies, Ernest Douwes Dekker, Imperial identity, imperial strategy, India, Japan, Java, nationalism, Neutrality, pamphlet, Siam

Jan Vermeulen - The Miller from Flanders

A poster for a German propaganda film about a Flemish miller who becomes convinced about the kind-heartened and generous nature of the Germans.

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Themes: Propaganda; Neutrality; Imperial Strategy; Film
Tags: film propaganda, Germany, Neutrality, The Netherlands

'Is India loyal?'

The Dutch translation of the pamphlet 'Is India loyal?' was originally written in English and published by the German sponsored Indian National Party in 1915. To read fragments of the original source…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Language; Imperial Strategy
Tags: anti-colonialism, Dutch, English, German Revolutionary Program, Great-Britain, India, Language, nationalism, Neutrality, orientalists, pamphlet, Propaganda, revolution, The Netherlands

Bei uns in Deutschland

Cover and extracts from Bei uns in Deutschland (Brussels, 1919), First World War memoirs of the Flemish author Ernest Claes, based on his time in a German POW camp in Erfurt.

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Mobility; Memoirs; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy; Diary; Captivity
Tags: Belgium, Camp, Flamenpolitik, Flemish, France, Germany, Memoir, Muslims, Personal Encounters, Soldiers, writer

L’Echo du Camp de Rennbahn: Rennbahn-Münster’s prisoner camp newspaper

Collection of the newspaper L’Echo du camp de Rennbahn from issue 1 (10 June 1916) to the issue 85 (15 June 1918). Each issue contains 3 sheets (6 pages) with both texts and cartoons. The articles…

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Themes: Newspapers & Magazines; Captivity
Tags: English, French, newspapers, POW, pow-camp, western front

Percival drawing own photos (formal digitisation happening but using this in short term OK).jpg

Drawing of a horse and mule sale in Belgium after the war

This is a drawing of a market scene in a Belgian town. It shows Australian soldiers involved in a horse and mule sale, which is taking place in a marketplace full of civilians, children, and animals.…

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Theme: Mobility
Tags: Anzac, Australia, Civilians, Drawing, France

German propaganda in support of Islam in the Dutch East Indies, 4 May 1916

The first fragment contains the report of 4 May 1916 written by the French envoy to The Hague Henri Allizé to the French Ministry of Colonies regarding German incitement of Indonesian Muslims. The…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy
Tags: anti-colonialism, Dutch, Dutch East Indies, France, French, German Revolutionary Program, Jihad, Muslims, newspapers, pamphlet, pan-Islamism, revolution, The Netherlands

Camp Weinberg near Zossen

The first picture shows a group of prisoners sliding a rack wagon full of parcels in the camp.
The second picture shows a group of prisoners, probably Tatar, practising gymnastics.
The third…

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Themes: Propaganda; Photograph; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, Craft, German Revolutionary Program, Labour, POW, pow-camp

Royal Stearine Candle Factory in Gouda (1918)

Documentary film showing production processes in the Royal Candle Factory in Gouda in the Netherlands…

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Themes: Propaganda; Neutrality; Film
Tags: film propaganda, nationalism, Neutrality, The Netherlands

Film as a medium of political advertising

Brochure about the political potential of film.

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Themes: Propaganda; Film
Tags: film propaganda

Neutral Holland. The Army and Navy film

Dutch official propaganda film, showing the readiness of the Dutch army and navy to defend their country's neutrality.https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/collection/film-history/film/leger-en-vlootfilm

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Themes: Propaganda; Neutrality; Film
Tags: film propaganda, Netherlands, Neutrality

De Toekomst Ieren Finnen en Vlamingen 22.06.1918.jpg

'Irish, Finns and Flemings'

In the June 1918 article 'Irish, Finns and Flemings', an anonymous journalist from the German sponsored, Dutch journal De Toekomst [The Future] criticises the lack of Dutch support for the Flemish…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Language; Imperial Strategy
Tags: Dutch, Fins, Flemish, German Revolutionary Program, Great Netherlands, imperial strategy, Irish, Language, newspapers, Pan-Germanism, Propaganda, Race, revolution

Collection of Poems: Message from the East

Payam-i-Mashriq [Message from the East] is a collection of poems in Persian and Urdu by the twentieth-century Muslim poet and intellectual Mohammed Iqbal. Published in 1921, the collection was…

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Themes: Poem; Intellectual Exchange
Tags: British India, Moslem world, Poem

Photo album, Halfmoon Camp, Wünsdorf

The album contains around 40 vintage print photographs taken by Hans Schmidt in the Halfmoon Camp in 1917. They depict daily life in the propaganda camp, such as class hours, craftmen in the workshop,…

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Themes: Photograph; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, Craft, German Revolutionary Program, Halfmoon Camp, imperial strategy, Labour, Music, Muslims, Personal Encounters, POW, pow-camp

Second plan of work for Bangkok by Ernest Douwes Dekker

In this report addressed to the German Foreign Office, the anti-colonial Indonesian writer and politician Ernest Douwes Dekker (image 1) describes his secret mission to travel from Rotterdam to…

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Mobility; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-British, anti-colonialism, Berlin Indian Independence Committee, colonial intellectual, Dutch East Indies, Ernest Douwes Dekker, German Revolutionary Program, Germany, Imperial identity, imperial strategy, India, Java, nationalism, Neutrality, The Netherlands

Hindostan and El Dschihad

Hindostan and El Dschihad were propaganda newspapers for South Asian, Caucasian, and North African prisoners of war in the Halbmondlager in Wünsdorf and the Weinberglager in Zossen. These periodicals…

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Themes: Religion; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Language; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy; Captivity
Tags: anti-British, anti-colonialism, Arabic, Colonial soldiers, Colonial Troops, German Revolutionary Program, Halfmoon Camp, Hindi, Jihad, Language, newspapers, official documents, orientalism, orientalists, Ottoman Empire, pan-Islamism, POW, pow-camp, Propaganda, religion, revolution, Russian, Tatar, Urdu

Report on French propaganda in the Netherlands, May 1916

In May 1916, the French propaganda official Maurice Gandolphe wrote an extensive advisory report to strengthen French cultural propaganda in the Netherlands. He had conducted a secret mission to the…

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Themes: Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Language; Intellectual Exchange
Tags: cultural propaganda, French, newspapers, official documents, public intellectual, The Netherlands

The East and the War

Open letters from the Egyptian revolutionary Dr Rifat to the German Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg published and commented on by an anonymous anti-colonial journalist in the Dutch-Indonesian weekly…

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Themes: Religion; Race; Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy
Tags: anti-British, anti-colonialism, Dutch, Dutch East Indies, Egypt, German Revolutionary Program, internationalism, Netherlands, newspapers, pro-German, Propaganda

German film propaganda

German advertisement for Messter-Film GmbH, which was part of the government-sponsored Ufa concern. The advertisement was published in the Dutch film magazine De Bioscoop in early 1918.

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Themes: Race; Propaganda; Neutrality; Intellectual Exchange; Imperial Strategy; Film
Tags: film propaganda, Germany, Neutrality, Race, The Netherlands

Personal Information Form 812-813: The swallowed fish bone

This story narrated by the Indian soldier Faijaz Ali, born in Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan), was recorded on 30 March 1917 in the Wünsdorf camp. It tells of a sick king, who has a fish bone stuck in…

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Themes: Recording; Language; Captivity
Tags: Colonial Troops, Fairy Tale, Halfmoon Camp, Hindustani, imperial strategy, Mobility, POW, pow-camp, Punjabi, Race, Sound Recording

Beautiful Holland

Promotional film from 1915 commissioned by the Dutch Tourism Office, showing the beauty of Dutch landscapes and traditional occupations of its…

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Themes: Propaganda; Neutrality; Film

The Discovery of Germany (by the Martians)

A clipping from the German newspaper Weltspiegel that was kept by the German embassy in Pera (part of Constantinople).

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Themes: Propaganda; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Film
Tags: film propaganda, Germany, Neutrality, newspapers, The Netherlands

The Great French Advancement at the Somme

French propaganda film which was screened in the Netherlands and in the Dutch East Indies. Film clipping and newspaper adverts from colonial…

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Themes: Propaganda; Neutrality; Film
Tags: film propaganda, France

To my Friends in the East and in the West

In this pseudo-mystic poem originally written in German, the Dutch writer and famous internationalist Frederik van Eeden expressed his belief in the rise of a new internationalist world from the ashes…

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Themes: Poem; Newspapers & Magazines; Neutrality; Language; Intellectual Exchange
Tags: French, German, internationalism, Netherlands, newspapers, Poem, Rolland, Switzerland, Translation, Van Eeden