Collecting German Air-dropped Leaflets on Britain

MILITARIA COLLECTING

Through a series of air-dropped pamphlets, the Nazis attempted to reason, threaten and even befriend their enemy across the Channel from 1940 until 1944. Austin J Ruddy looks at the variety of German air-dropped propaganda publications that chart the increasingly desperate nature of their message.

As this smiling civil defence worker shows, Hitler’s attempts at air-dropped propaganda were unsuccessful, his leaflets being auctioned to raise money for war funds or simply used as scrap paper.
The most commonly found leaflet, A Last Appeal To Reason by Adolf Hitler, was air-dropped by Luftwaffe aircraft in August 1940.
(ALL IMAGES VIA AUSTIN J RUDDY)

Although Germany used propaganda leaflets on other fronts in the Great War, surprisingly, they did not orchestrate any such campaign during the course of their 78 air raids over Britain. All this was to change with the more propaganda-focused Nazi regime during the Second World War. Though not widely known, some 25 different leaflets were disseminated over Britain from 1939 until 1944, proving collectable today.

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