Libro: How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler: BBC R4 Book of the Week

From one of our leading experts on disinformation, a dazzlingly inventive biography of the journalist and WWII propagandist Thomas Sefton Delmer which confronts all too relevant questions about the nature of the information wars now.

In the summer of 1941, Hitler ruled Europe from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. Britain was struggling to combat his powerful propaganda machine, which crowed victory and smeared its enemies as liars and manipulators. British claims that Hitler was dangerous had little impact against this wave of disinformation.

But there was one notable exception, Der Chef, a German whose broadcast skilfully questioned Nazi doctrine. He had access to high-ranking German military secrets and spoke of internal rebellion. His listeners included German soldiers and citizens, as well as politicians in Washington DC who were debating getting into the war. What no-one knew was that Der Chef was a fiction, a character created by the British propagandist Thomas Sefton Delmer, a unique weapon in the war.

As author Peter Pomerantsev follows Delmer's story, he is called into a wartime propaganda effort of his own to fight authoritarian propaganda: the global response to the invasion of Ukraine. In flashes forward to the present day, Pomerantsev weaves in what he's learning from Delmer as he seeks to fight against Putin's tyranny and lies.

This book is the story of Delmer and his modern day investigator, as they each embark on their own quest to manipulate the passions of supporters and enemies, and to turn the tide of an information war, an extraordinary history that is informing the present before our eyes.