'Every exhibit raises fascinating links between war and the mind'

War and the Mind explores war through a psychological lens. The exhibition interrogates some of the ways people think, feel, and act during the extreme circumstances of armed conflict. The objects, film, oral histories, art, photographs, and posters on display – alongside compelling testimony – offer visitors a starting point to explore this vast, and seemingly ever-relevant, subject.  

You can find our preview here. Here, the exhibition's lead curator Laura Clouting and two of its academic advisors, Dr Edgar Jones and Professor Stephen Reicher, highlight objects from the exhibition that illustrate some of its major themes. You can view them in the exhibition, or find them via the website.

Laura Clouting is a Senior Curator Historian at IWM London and the curatorial lead on War and the Mind 

'German Crimes' Calendar (IWM reference LBY K. 71815)

War can be understood through social psychological concepts of 'us' versus 'them'. Waging war on others has been justified as a virtuous endeavour: the defence of honour, freedom, and protecting the vulnerable from aggressors. It has also been framed as a moral imperative to defeat a barbaric, amoral enemy. Reports of German atrocities during the invasion of Belgium caused widespread outrage during the First World War in Britain. The threat of the same fate befalling their families and communities encouraged British men to voluntarily join the armed forces. War propaganda – whether official or privately produced – fed a public appetite for sensationalist stories, reinforcing hatred of Germany - and the German people. A propaganda calendar for 1918 featured one wartime act of German aggression per month. May's entry described the deaths of nearly 1,200 civilians following a German torpedo attack on the ocean liner RMS Lusitania in 1915 as 'a masterpiece of frightfulness'. Each side used propaganda to shape hearts and minds in support of their war effort. 

Medical Instruction Plate (IWM reference SUR 788)

The psychological effects of weapons show how the mind, as well as the body, are a target during war. Information is weaponised to manipulate emotions and behaviour, with the aim of demoralising the enemy. Certain weapons elicit particular dreads, from concealed explosives, pounding artillery, to lurking drones. Poison gas was first used as a weapon in the First World War. This teaching aide was one of a series used to inform medics about the dangers of mustard gas. It shows a 'Severely Burned Eye'. Although chemical warfare caused less than one percent of total deaths in the war, fear of its effects – choking, suffocating, burning and blinding – made gas a constant source of anxiety and panic. This was famously described in Wilfred Owen's poem 'Dulce et Decorum Est'. One officer described the psychological effects of a gas attack upon his men, who acted 'as though they had temporarily lost their reason'. 

Ear Defenders (IWM reference SUR 742)

Battle is a sensory assault. War's weapons have evolved, both in terms of their lethality as well as their psychological impact. Noise is weaponised, whether through intense, sustained artillery barrages on the Western Front in the First World War, or the terrifying shriek from the 'Jericho Trumpet' fitted to Stuka dive-bomber aircraft in the Second World War. The noise of explosions and gunfire causes intense stress and damages hearing. The label for these privately purchased Mallock-Armstrong ear defenders declares 'GUN FIRE and SHELL BURST rendered harmless to the ears'. The British Medical Journal tested a pair of this type in 1915. It unfavourably concluded that they were 'as much a possible source of injury to the ears as the gun firing'. War and the Mind explores the mental effects of combat upon the senses, upon sleep, perception, and information processing. 

Professor Edgar Jones is Professor of the History of Medicine and Psychiatry at King's College London. He is a member of the War and the Mind academic advisory panel

Report of the War Office Committee of Enquiry into "Shell-Shock" (IWM reference LBY 65509)

The War Office Report into the "origin, nature and remedial treatment" of shell shock was published in 1922. It set the policy agenda for the next 25 years. However, the inquiry was circumscribed. All committee members and witnesses who served in the armed forces were officers. Only four veterans treated by the Ministry of Pensions were interviewed and their evidence was not quoted. The committee concluded that shell shock was a legitimate consequence of war but wholly preventable by selection, training and leadership. One witness, Lord Gort, argued that shell shock was "practically non-existent" in units with high morale and should be framed as "a form of disgrace to the soldier". The committee's error arose from their failure to collect "any reliable statistics". American research conducted in the aftermath of World War Two and identified an enduring association between the killed and wounded rate and psychological casualties. Their findings showed that the rate of shell shock could have been reduced by protective factors, such as group cohesion, but not prevented.

'Air Raid' by Warner Cooke (IWM reference Art.IWM ART 17604) - main image above. © The artist's estate.

This oil painting executed by Warner Cooke in 1941 is entitled 'Air Raid', it depicts a civilian lying in a basement shelter looking upwards as three bomber aircraft cross a darkened sky. A sense of menace is created by the pilot of the lead bomber bearing his teeth in aggressive triumph. Whilst there is no panic on the face of the person in the shelter, it does convey apprehension. Rightly so as 29,890 Londoners died from air raids during the war. Research conducted in Hull by Russell Fraser, a psychiatrist, showed that bombing often led to enduring trauma for those who had lost their homes and family members. Air-raids had a malevolent quality created by the knowledge that these were not random acts but the intentional killing of civilians and destruction of their livelihoods. Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, acknowledged the British government's success in lionising stoical determination by making "a legend of London" to counter feelings of despair.

Coming Home magazine

The cartoon magazine, Coming Home is the result of a cooperative project between UK veterans, professional illustrators and the 'Arts in Health' organisation Re-Live. Many veterans learnt about military service as children and teenagers from comics such as Commando and The Victor, which told stories of adventure and heroism. Invited to develop their own narratives working with a professional cartoonist, the project brought together veterans suffering from mental ill health in a creative collaboration. Launched in October 2022, Coming Home reflects the principle that psychological therapies need to fit with the wishes and personality of the participant.

Professor Stephen Reicher is Bishop Wardlaw Professor of Social Psychology at the University of St Andrews, and a member of the War and the Mind academic advisory panel

It is an almost impossible task to whittle down my focus to three objects when every item in the exhibition raises fascinating aspects of the link between war and the mind. I have tried to deal with this difficulty in two ways. First, I took the Desert Island Discs approach of choosing items that had most personal resonance (alongside social significance). Second, I cheated (a little) by taking two items as one.

Wenn Juden Lachen (IWM reference Art.IWM PST 8352)     

I have little extended family. Most were killed by the Nazis. My parents escaped to Britain. I grew up, fixated on the holocaust, trying to understand how people could be reviled and murdered, not for anything they had done, but simply by who they were. But also insistent that jews were not just victims but fighters as well (my father, an RAF fighter pilot during the war, was a case in point). So when I encountered Henri Tajfel at Bristol, and was introduced to his ideas about group identity processes as central both to creating and to challenging discrimination, I knew instantly that I had found my vocation.

Falklands T-shirt (IWM reference EPH 6688)

In early 1982 I watched the film Gallipoli and was struck by the scenes of wildly enthusiastic crowds cheering the troopships taking men to the slaughter – a sight I thought I would never see again. Less than three months later, I witnessed exactly the same. This time it was on the news, as ships set sail for the South Atlantic – over islands we previously hardly knew existed and islanders who evoked no sympathy when their citizenship was diluted in the 1981 Nationality Act. But now, we were told, they were prototypically British and their British way of life was under threat. It demonstrated the power you unleash when you engage events with identities and, consequently, the centrality of identity construction in the political process. These are things that have been central to my research ever since.

Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt

Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram 

Many people regard Arendt and Milgram as one, the one using the historical record, the other, psychological research, to sustain the notion of 'the banality of evil'. But in fact, Milgram tragically misrepresented Arendt. He suggested that Eichmann and his ilk were so fixated on their task that they lost sight of the evil they were doing. Arendt, however, insisted that perpetrators are fully aware and fully committed to what they are doing. Indeed, they believe that they are doing the right thing. What they lack is the imagination to understand how their actions are viewed by others. This has shaped my recent work with Alex Haslam and Megan Birney on toxic behaviour as 'engaged followership'.

War and the Mind is supported by UK Research and Innovation through the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council. War and the Mind runs until 27 April 2025 at IWM London.