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D Day- The Public Record vs the Historical Record

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Weighing the Evidence

Primary Source Spectrum: Representing War

War can be documented and remembered in very different ways. Consider D-Day: the government curated and distributed some photographs, film reels, and documents to present a public narrative of success, heroism, and victory. Other sources were created simply to be part of the historical record. These historical documents can offer a more complicated picture of war: brutal and heroic, horrifying and inspiring, revealing both the worst and the best of human behavior.

Your Task:
Arrange the primary sources along a spectrum:

Creates a specific and purposeful narrative of events (propaganda)  ||   Meant to fill in the historical record  (propaganda-free)

As you place each source, consider:

  • What story does this source tell about war?
  • Who created it, and for what audience?
  • Does it emphasize a collective view of victory and heroism, or the personal realities of war (which could also be heroic as well as traumatic)?
  • Where does the source fall on the spectrum, and relative to other sources and why?

 

  • Please NOTE: Major Stanley Bach’s account of events of D-Day has four pages, but use it as ONE source; just stack them together

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View the full activity: https://docsteach.org/activity/d-day-the-public-record-vs-the-historical-record/

When studying D-Day, WWII, or any conflict, for that matter, does looking at private accounts of events, AS WELL AS administration-sanctioned (propaganda-driven or otherwise), serve to give us the fullest version of the time period? Or does the administration-sanctioned version of events only serve to cloud a full or “more true” understanding of the time period?

 

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To the extent possible under law, Renie Sotiropoulos has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to “D Day- The Public Record vs the Historical Record”