Reissued WW2 news papers

[svandamme]

In belgium we had these reissued news papers from the WW2 era.

I Just got the bunch of em and it's very strange to read them , considering I know all the aftermath intel, as it was written in the history books.

This is the way the people got their info as it happened. A lot of it was propaganda, or just not true, rumors.

Am just starting to read, the 18 day campaign when Germans overran Belgium (Holland capitulated in 6 or so days) we resisted a lot harder also because we knew Brits and French were getting involved to back us up, the Dutch had no such hopes because they were further up north.

The news papers then report all the reactions from abroad, about Roosevelt, Churchill, Argentina pledges it's sympathies to the brave Belgian people, all in all very comparable stuff you see in the news today when something bad happens to some country.

But it clearly shows a different story then what you get in the history books .
For instance this, Pacha Chicorei (it was some coffee replacement based on roasted plant, bitter taste, my grandma used it, and most people drank that instead of coffee during the war years)





The story goes that they thought the German paratroopers had secret instructions behind the metal advertisements.. so the news paper called up to take those advertisements away. Pretty interesting stuff to read how that all went down.

My question to the Pelican Brain trust : Does anybody know of any similar reissued War time News paper collections, for WW2 in either US or UK?? I'de be very interested in getting some of those to put next to the Belgian reissued for a complete multi side picture..

[sc_rufctr]

Fascinating... This is the first I've heard of anything like this.

If they ever reprinted news papers from WW2 in Australia I'd buy them in a second.

[svandamme]

They did it first for the WW1 papers, back in 2014-2018
But at the 75 anniversary they did it for WW2 as well.

I'll be honest, I can't be arsed to read the full papers, it's in an old dutch , hard to read..
I just glance through them , the titles are more telling then anything else. occasionally i get a full article out of it, but again it's hard to read.

to be clear, these are not exact copies of the news paper of that day, they are redacted as an 8 page paper with the more relevant articles and headlines in them to capture the mood of the day.
And then a more modern sleeve around them with some more historical annotations and clarifications

[Rick Lee]

Couldn't happen here. There'd be too many words that offend people these days - Japs, Huns, Negroes, etc.

[svandamme]

well, they are somewhat redacted here, as in they condense the articles to get the best ones , but i guess in WW2 the bulk of the titles were probably quite strong in the us

[recycled sixtie]

I have not seen any republished WW2 newspapers but am currently reading another Churchill book. Churchill held back much of the bad news in early WW2 as it would have discouraged the British peoples spirit. Not until lend/lease and the US military involvement did the UK and its allies make headway.

One of my favorite comments when the Americans were based in the UK came from the Brits. The problems with the Americans they said "they were overpaid, over sexed and over here". All in good humor in those days!

In regards to chicory coffee. I worked in France in the early sixties on a farm/chateau. It was the Chateau de Montculot near Dijon. The Count and Countess did not have a lot of money and could not afford real coffee. We had chicory coffee which was a poor substitute and it did not taste great.

[svandamme]

Man called intrepid explains how the BSC was working in the US to sway popular opinion into pro british, because for a long time the US was fed news by Ambassador Kennedy that well, the Brits were done and dusted anyway.. It's really a good book.. explains how the British got leverage with the use of French gold in the Caribbean which Ian Fleming then later turned in the book Goldfinger, 007 books came out because Fleming couldn't tell the real stories due to the Official secrets act and what not And are based in part on Fleming and on Bill Stephenson


Chateau de Montculot ?? Castle my under pants ?? bwahahahah


EDIT, that would have been mon culotte, not mont culot

[recycled sixtie]

Originally Posted by svandamme

Man called intrepid explains how the BSC was working in the US to sway popular opinion into pro british, because for a long time the US was fed news by Ambassador Kennedy that well, the Brits were done and dusted anyway.. It's really a good book.. explains how the British got leverage with the use of French gold in the Caribbean which Ian Fleming then later turned in the book Goldfinger, 007 books came out because Fleming couldn't tell the real stories due to the Official secrets act and what not And are based in part on Fleming and on Bill Stephenson


Chateau de Montculot ?? Castle my under pants ?? bwahahahah


EDIT, that would have been mon culotte, not mont culot

That is funny svandamme. Never thought of that translation. The Count was a real
pr-ck. At sixteen years of age I had my eyes wide open to a foreign family that had huge issues. You never know what goes on behind closed doors of families but I digress....

[pwd72s]

These days, I'd be suspicious of "reissued"...revisionist history.

[GH85Carrera]

Most newspapers are indeed available at the local library on microfilm. It would require a trip to a library to read them, but they are indeed available in the entirety on microfilm. No editing possible, and unredacted.

[mjohnson]

Many of the British papers were doing the "100 years ago..." columns daily a few years back for the WW1 centennary. It was all very interesting.

Perhaps they've revived the tradition? (stupid 'rona - no bimonthly trips to London for me anymore)

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by mjohnson

Many of the British papers were doing the "100 years ago..." columns daily a few years back for the WW1 centennary. It was all very interesting.

Perhaps they've revived the tradition? (stupid 'rona - no bimonthly trips to London for me anymore)

I think it's similar, except that here they packaged em seperately with the news paper.
It's basically a big outer cover in modern paper, explaining the context, and then 2 A3's in older paper look . In some of them they added posters of the time.. advertisement or propaganda posters, or War time occupation noticed by the Germans.





Then after a while you could get binders for em with gold letters "war papers". It's a nice idea really.. columns are nice, but this made it collectible.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

These days, I'd be suspicious of "reissued"...revisionist history.

I think you are over thinking it.
There are plenty of real history books and they already did plenty of revisionism in some of them, history is always written by the victors..

The point of these reissues is not to rewrite any history, it's meant to bring back some sentiment of how people experienced it in the media in those days. To remember that the war happened and try to remember because the entire generation is slowly dying out. (and in Ww1's case, already has died out save for some that were a baby then)

Them news papers aren't going to re-write old articles in old dutch language, they are barely able to write modern new articles without spelling mistakes.
Are they picking selective articles , sure, but that's not revisionism at all.