Propaganda in World War II had the goals of influencing morale, indoctrinating soldiers and military personnel, and influencing civilians of enemy countries. Background By the 1930s, propaganda was being used by most of the nations that join World War II. Propaganda engaged in various rhetoric and methodology to vilify the enemy and to justify and encourage domestic effort in the war. A common theme was the notion that the war was for the defence of the homeland against foreign invasion. The Nazi Party propagandist Joseph Goebbels once wrote in his diary: "The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never again escape from it". Britain Winston Churchill in 1941 created the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) for the distribution of propaganda damaging to the morale of the enemy. Foreign language broadcasts of the BBC World Service were central to gaining influence over the German people. Goebbels, before committing suicide, remarked, "Enemy propaganda is beginning to have an uncomfortably noticeable effect on the German people.... British broadcasts have a grateful audience". The British used black propaganda techniques to deliver subversive messages directly to the German people by dropping leaflets and postcards. The Hollywood film Mrs. Miniver (1942) by William Wyler told the saga of the British home front and ended with a sermon delivered in a church destroyed by Allied bombs: "This is the people's war. It is our war. We are the fighters. Fight it, then. Fight it with all that is in us, and may God defend the right". Germany The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda was established in 1933. Goebbels, who was appointed by Adolf Hitler to lead the ministry, used radio, press, books, films, and all other forms of communication media to promote the Nazi ideology. Germany's defeat in World War I was emphasized to provoke German feelings of rage and anger. Germany's cultural achievements and military accomplishments built up national pride. The Allied armies were cast as butchers, the Soviets as inhuman beasts. The ministry censored opposing viewpoints. Germany's war against the Soviet Union was described by Nazi Party officials as Weltanschauungskrieg (war of ideologies). Soldiers on the front had limited access to information. Often, written materials were the most direct means of propaganda available. By November 1939, the 12th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht was