World War One atrocity propaganda made the Holocaust’s truth widely disbelieved

Evidence

Keeping the `final solution’ a secret did not succeed. But the news about it was usually not believedand it was believed as little abroad as it was by the Jews who were themselves affected by it. There were reservations in the Ministry of Information in England about spreading news of this sort: experience with the atrocity propaganda in the First World War showed that this kind of material would be dismissed as a concocted horror story. Another fear was that reports about the annihilation of the Jews in countries occupied by the Germans would lead to a revival of anti-Semitism at home. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1481

Categorization

• XREF: Causal link between WWI propaganda credibility collapse and WWII disbelief of genocide reports; connects to theories of public trust in institutions. — connects to: Wartime knowledge of the final solution went widely disbelieved, even by its victims.; Psychiatric journals rejected early Holocaust testimony because it was unverifiable and unbelievable — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1619; World War I hate-propaganda films drew record crowds in US cities (+2 more)