NAZI "SCARE-, PROPAGANDA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 3, 4 January 1941, Page 5 (Supplement)

NAZI "SCARE- , PROPAGANDA

WHEN the first Stukas (German dive bombers) swooped down on Allied war fronts in Belgium and in France the roar of power-driving motors and the thud and earthquake of bombs were edged with a horrendous shrieking of sirens. Of course the sirens by themselves were as dangerous as so many tin whistles. But their effect on the nerves of anti-aircraft crews was such that many deserted their guns precisely in the few seconds when the Stukas were easiest to shoot down. The Stukas and their work were the creation of the German High Command. The idea of the sirens, on the other han<l, was worked out by quite a different branch of Germany's "total war" machine, the Department of War Psychology (Abteilung dor Kriegspsycholopie), housed in a quiet street in Berlin and manned by professors whose speciality has little to do with guns but is quite as integral a part of modern warfare. From Germany that department is now waging undeclared war on nerves in the Americas, Xorth and South. "Doctored" Photograph A proof and sample of that war ie a photograph, that has been sent to this country from Germany, and which already has appeared in many newspapers. It shows Stuka diving planes on the assenvbly line in a German factory. Even if the photograph were completely honest it would be disturbing, as it was meant to be, with its suggestion of unlimited mass production of these machines. But over and above that, the photograph made me feel that nightmarish crawling of the flesh that I always get at the sight of ceremonial African make-up and from death masks, to which 1 seem to l>e allergic. I wondered why I should get that special effect of eeriness from what wa<», after all, only a photograph of a factory, grave as its implications might be. I looked closer. The photograph had been "passed by German censor." These words are usually an understatement. 'Photographs so tagged are not only "passed by German censor" but often originate in the "Abteilung der Kriegspsychologie" for use abroad. In the photograph I was examining I felt there was something that did not quite meet the eye, so morbid was ite effect on me.

Efforts being made by Nazi agents to undermine morale in America and in other neutral countries are dealt with in this article (reprinted from "This Week" Magazine) by an American writer who has seen the effects of German "scare" propaganda in two wars.

By Joseph Gollomh

Suddenly I saw why, enlightened by an experience I had had in a Paris subway about the time that the present war was passing from the "phony" phase into what someone with grim humour called "a dangerous war." The subway was crowded with Parisians going home from work. From their faces one could hardly tell that many of their kin were at the front, that they themselves had been bombed. "Weeper" Agents But at Rue de Rennee a middle-aged couple got on, dressed in deep mourning. The woman's face was white and looked tense, the man was openly weeping, and from the few words they exchanged it seemed that their son had been killed in action. The effect of the couple on the passengers was so marked that I saw pallor spreading on many faces. I was collecting material on the German technique of ''war on the nerves," and with me was a Frenchman who was in a position to help me. At the sight of the couple in mourning I felt the edge of his shoe touch mine significantly. We were to get off at Piece de la Concorde, but stayed on the train until the couple left at tlie end of the line. Discreetly we followed. In the street where there were few to see them their grief seemed to abate, but when they sat down in a crowded restaurant in a working class neighbourhood, back came the tears in full flood. Later that night my companion, who was in the employ of >« the Government, arrested them. For they were two of several hundred "weepers" paid by Germany to circulate throughout France. Their function was, almost literally, to parade the face of death wherever masses of Frenchmen congregated, to undermine nerves, to suggest by their mien how sensible it would be to surrender to an irresistible enemy before it was too late. And quite literally faces of death were subtly, but on second view unmistakably, faked into the photograph of "Stuka Diving Planes on Assembly Line in German Factory." In the long per-

spective of pertly finished planes the blunt faces of the motors confronted the spectator. Those nearest the camera had perfectly normal, squarish faces. But on the motor faces diminished by distance retouching had been done. The squareness of them gave way gradually to a skull-like contour; small, then larger hollows appeared where eyes would be, and grinning mouth slits completed the effect. They were the faces of Furies, which Stukas are of course; but they would not appear so to the eye of an honest photographer. I investigated and found that the retouching had not been done in America. From Fake to Fact A childish device? Perhaps, but like the sirens on the Stuka bombs, it works, unless discounted. One can discount little, however, in a motion picture made by the Germans during and after their march into Poland. It was shown in Norway ju«t before the German invasion there and took much heart out of Norwegian resistance. Then it mflde the rounds of Denmark, Holland and Belgium and performed the same service there. It is now being shown in this country (and in New Zealand) as part of an American-made film. The intent of the feature film itself is to arouse American patriotism, but the effect of the Polish scenes is such that in some parts of the United States these sequences have been banned for fear they might actually accomplish the mission of intimidation. Even if you turn away from such photographs as "Stuka Diving Planes on Assembly Line in German Factory" and such films as show what happened to Poland, voices under the tutelage of the Abteilung der Kriegspsychologie enter your living room or your bedroom or wherever it is you keep your radio. German broadcasts addressed to the Americas began with the depiction of the honors of war in general. American nerves responded to this largely as to a phonograph record that has hecome tedious with repetition. Whereupon another tyi>e of German broadcast took the form of homey appeals by a former Broadway actor, "letters to Dear Harry" in a typical lowa email town, telling "how swell life is in jGermany" and how fast it is going to the dogs in America. For the great mase of more sophisticated Americans a former professor of Hunter College in New York City, Dr. Otto Koischwitz, broadcasts from Germany plausible-sounding predictions of our economic disintegration unless we co-operate with the "new order in Europe." For those who find such broadcasts dull, the newly-formed "Propaganda Company' , hae put a new feature on the

air, "Hot Shots from the Front." Against a background of purring aeroplane motors, the distant bark of antiaircraft guns and the sounds of bombs below, comes a cheerful voice giving in colloquial Americancse what is presumablv an eye-witnees account of air raids.

"Hold everything, you guvs who are listening, we're within sight of the English coast ... He we are! . . . Now we're over a big nitrogen plant. The view is swell. The day β-liift is just leaving ami the night shift is making one tightly-bunched crowd with them ... Here we go! One bomb . . . two . . . three! Right smack in the middle of the mob! Boy-oh-boy-oh-boy!" And the giant motor drowns the man's voice with a roar of triumph.

Callous as it may sound, what is even worse to a nation than torn bodies is the-effect of such episodes as took place over and over ajrain at the Maginot Line when that front wae still considered formida-ble. A fresh French regiment would be moved up quietly in the night to relieve one that had- eeen service there. Xext morning a loud speaker from across no man's land would blare out to French ears the names of the officers and the rank and file of the newly-arrived regiment, with tlie names and * addresses of tlieir next-of-kin thrown in for good measure. The Biggest "Secret" The climax came when some British military chiefs had to consult with French war chiefs at the front. The secret services of the two nations had taken great pains to keep the meeting under cover. The officers arrived by plane. The conference luncheon was in progress, with the French High Command as hosts, when an agitating message was sent in.

It told the Allied chiefs that along the whole front French soldiers had heard the following come over German loudspeakers: "Social note: Members of the British High Command (names followed) are at lunch with the following members of the French High Command (more names). The menu ie as follows . . .

For dessert they are having .. ." Every course on the menu was correctly named.

It would be childish and dangerous to dodge the realisation that attacks on American nervee of one kind or another will increase with further tension between America and those who have designs on Uβ.

Is there no defence then against this kind of war on us?

The answer is indicated by what happened when the sirens on the Stuka bombs played havoc witn the nerves of Allied anti-aircraft crewe. When the Allied gunners got on to the element of fake that formed part of the German attack they stayed by their guns when the enemy planes were at the bottom of their power divee. Thereafter loieea among the Stukae mounted. When we too learn to distinguish between real attacks and the fakes perpetrated by "Abteilung der Kriegepsychologie" we shall have made a good start toward destroying one of Hitler'* most dangerous weapons—the nerve bomb.