This is continued from the previous article. It was getting a bit long, so I divided it into two parts.
Some time ago Lord Haw Haw offered a playlet called "Lloyd's of London." Lloyd's famous Lutine Bell kept ringing to announce to the underwriters that ship after ship had been sunk. Englishmen just laughed. Every Britisher knows that the Lutine Bell is not rung every time a ship is lost, but only to announce news of special importance, such as word that a ship long overdue has been heard from.
For a time the Hamburg station broadcast a series of threats against English factories. Each night one plant would be named, its war products enumerated, its camouflage described, and its air-raid shelters listed. Nazi bombers would soon blow it to bits, said the voice. The raids did not materialize, but the accuracy of the information was demoralizing.
Chief Nazi broadcaster to France is Paul Ferdonnet, whom the French call "The Traitor of Stuttgart." Day after day he reiterated the quip: "Britain will fight to the last Frenchman." "Frenchwomen, where are your men?" he will ask. "All at the front, fighting for the bankers and the British. And where are the British? Poilus, tell me, have you ever seen a British soldier at the front? Where are they? I'll tell you. They're back with your wives and daughters!"
One night Ferdonnet introduced a "French prisoners of war," Raymond Hervé, gave details of Hervé's unit, then his home address, and finally allowed him to send his love to his wife. The real Raymond Hervé happened to be spending a week's leave at home and heard the broadcast. He has no idea how the Germans got details of his identity. Ferdonnet's campaign to split the Allies has been a complete failure, and the French don't think he is funny.
So far the Germans are firing five times more broadcasts in English than the BBC sends in German- but the British are scoring more hits. Any German willing to risk listening to a British broadcast is ripe for anti-Nazi programs. And despite severe penalties- several years' hard labor for listening to foreign broadcasts, possibly death for repeating what you hear- Germans continue to listen. One radio may be blaring the output of a Nazi station, while a concealed set is softly tuned to a foreign broadcast. Various subterfuges are used to spread the information recording. One German will ask another what he "dreamt" last night. The second will reply that he had a peculiar dream... that, for instance, the Ark Royal had not been sunk. "That's odd," the other answers, "I dreamt the same thing!" The ruse is not very subtle but is much used.
The British Broadcasting Corporation stresses the fact that the Nazis forbid listening to foreign stations. "Himmler tells you that it would be bad for your nerves to hear foreign broadcasts. But it is not your nerves he is afraid of, German people. It is your thoughts. You are being lied to. We in England listen to the Nazi broadcasts with no fear that a policeman eavesdrops at the window.
British news broadcasts in Germany are extremely matter-of-fact, carefully building up a reputation for accuracy. BBC often plays a few bars of "Ich hatt' einen Kameraden," the old German Army song of mourning, then reads a list of recently captured German soldiers, sailors and airmen. This is excellent bait for listeners, since the Nazis do not always reveal such information at home.
A woman in East Prussia received official word that her son had been lost in a submarine sinking. A memorial service was arranged in the village church. Then the BBC announced the boy's name as a survivor. Secretly the woman was visited by the town grocer who told her the good news. Four other friends similarly risked their lives to tell her the same story. The memorial service was held, but afterward there was a wine party behind closed shutters.
Broadcasts which deal with shortages of food and material strike home. Sometimes the British announcer will put on a "program for housewives" and casually read off recipes which call for "four eggs, a quarter of a pound of butter, and two tablespoons of sugar," which makes Germans think of their own menus."
The British frequently rebroadcast items picked up from the "German Freedom" station, supposedly operating inside Germany, flitting about from place to another in a truck. Radio engineers say that it would take five or six trucks to carry equipment for such a station and that more probably it has been operating from the French border all the time. Wherever it is, it is a constant headache to the Nazis.
French broadcasts to Germany are quite similar to the British- including annotated sections from Hitler's speeches, with emphasis on his broken promises. "Hitler insisted that he was saving Europe from Bolshevism," the announcer will begin, "and now he is a bosom companion of Stalin. Just listen to what he said of Russia on page 346 of Mein Kampf."
Chief Nazi broadcaster to the U.S. is Fred Kaltenbach, a former Iowan and veteran of 1918 who went to Berlin four years ago, married a German girl and joined the Nazi propaganda organization.
Once a week Kaltenbach reads a letter to "Dear Harry," a former schoolmate named Harry Hagemann, a Waverly, Iowa, lawyer. "Man, what a picture it is to see Hermann Göring's war birds overhead!" he declaims. "Boy, are they fast! Now, don't let the British drag America into this thing, Harry. Don't pull Britain's chestnuts out of the fire again."
Kaltenbach does little harm, but he continues to embarrass his one-time friends in Iowa.
On the home front, radio is the chief weapon for bolstering German morale. Every effort is made to stir up hate against the British. The British Empire is always "blood-stained." Its navy is manned by "blood-crazed maniacs" and "bloodthirsty pirates." No accident in Germany is allowed to pass without the comment, "A number of suspicious strangers with English accents were noticeably at the scene and are now being sought by the police."
No day is complete without its broadcast of what is apparently a visit to the front. There are broadcasts from from airplanes out on reconnaissance work. German raiding parties comment into a handy microphone on their return from No Man's Land. Submarine commanders pop their heads out of their conning towers to describe the scene as their latest victim goes to the bottom.
These broadcasts are written and acted by German "propaganda companies," made up of former newspapermen trained in a school at Potsdam. The reception of these programs has been excellent. Many German families listen to them as enthusiastically as youngsters in America listen to the Lone Ranger.
It may seem strange that neither side tries to jam the other's air waves and thus stop the propaganda at its source. But jamming brings retaliation, and to both sides radio has proved its value as an offensive and defensive weapon. The generals are apt to snort their contempt, but historians will not. Radio is the powerful fourth arm of a nation's fighting force.
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