PSYCHOLOGY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 177, 29 July 1941, Page 5

PSYCHOLOGY

HITLER'S SECRET THE FAMOUS WEAPON AMERICAN REVELATIONS (By IRA WOLFERT) NJBW YORK, July 2. A "committee for national morale," which includes many of the bestknown social scientists in the United States as well as German refugees Who have knowledge in special fields —for instance, a former private sectary of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi -vunister of Propaganda—finally has isolated, examined and worked up a complete description of and an antidote to Adolf Hitler's famous "secret weapon. ttwu is according to Dr. Arthur upnam Pope, chairman of the comm nO vh(J reveal .cd to-day:— i« t A.- wea Pon is psychology and thl ♦ , s War wna t the invention of ?™ was t0 the last war. ' the f{ About 30.000 specialists wield \vavl apon for Hillc ' r in complicated ZtZn' ? an Sing from hiring women to aV.l ln f Araerkail railroad stations train!* flrst dl ' aft soldiers left for S?g camp to daily samplings of fa£!"can mass opinion on a wide (I Tv, subjects. Daw f, v Y ea Pon was stolen in great tist* in I V^' nited Slates social scien- " United <^ as been lKsecl against the (4) Ai^ ates s l ead 'ly «ince 1933. isbpH tw ough its success has aston"invLl, Wolkl u still i-emains an militav, e wea Pon" to the guiding eS£t S mmCls of most of Hitler , ! answe^f^ 11 scientists have the HitW Tv?,! 11 ' and cau tul-n il against had SVQMcv success than he Th Flo,>lpn, Of Mola,e • :#4t^n d^ SClip ' k . )n of this secret ■ •700-rnvn, hl,h snm manses about -^~—. ° ul U)l German buuks

and documents are secret, and were! smuggled out of Germany on microfilm. The brochure was edited from these publications by Ladislas Parago with the co-operation of four] Harvard professors—Gordon W. All-i port, John G. Beebe-Center, Edwardi G. Boring and Stanley S. Stevens— I as well as Dr. Floyd L. Ruch. of the I University of Southern California. ] and Professor Kimball Young, of . Queen's College. Dr. Pope said his committee was formed privately by "men who had] had some experience with psycholo-j gical warfare in the last war (among] them himself), and knew of the tremendous strides made in the field since then. The history of war from 1870 to 1918 was written by tech- • nological science. The history of war > from then on has been written b.vj social science. America has the besti 'social scientists in the world and] 1 Germany has borrowed the most: -, from us. That is why Germany has ', been the most successful so far." ! The committee began work last i July, after the collapse of France.! \ but did not disclose its existence] ? until to-day. In its year of operations it has prepared about 20 memoI randa on technical subjects for the 1 United States Government. :• "The problem of morale —under] - mining the enemy's, building up your own." Dr. Pope said, "is run' ]'!n Germany by social scientists who flcollect material, information and (approaches, and funnel them out 1 through appropriate agencies to the! 1 people. ■"I "We have tremendous morale, s ]problems in this country and GovUernment agencies to handle it, biu Mthere is no mobilisation of science to - diagnose the problems and prescribe for them. That is what our committee has been trying to make a start 'lon unofficially and privately and on 3 a volunteer basis." J Hundreds of Different Ways li Among the committee members ? : are the leading authorities in psysicholog'y, psychiatry and neurology, imedicine and physiology, opinion and s attitude-testing, education and Insttorv, industrial relations, social slscience and even' art and music. I Among the important morale probjlems at present in the United States tand already diagnosed by the comelmittee. Dr. Pope said, are "the psytichological reasons behind the mdus-.-trial tensions that flare w> in strikes sand the extraordinary anci_ ill-

! difference in large areas of the • country to human suffering. It is unprecedented in the United States that ; a man like Charles Lindbergh, a •|nationa] hero in so many minds. •j population without once having to! limention the human catastrophe in! • tion the human catastrophe in , .'Europe in a human way and with-j . out being hooted down for failing toi 'mention it." German psychology in the United ; States has been ineffectual so far. MDr. Pope said, "but they keep at it ■ everlastingly in hundreds of differ-i ;|ent ways every day. Their agents and spies are all over the country by 1 the thousands—not stealing docui ments or committing sabotage—but ■ just talking to Americans and find-] • ing out what they are thinking! jabout, what their psychological! imalaises are. ■ ,1 "The weeping women in the Penn-| ;isylvania station (New York) that L 'jknow of particularly and, no doubt,i in many railroad stations all over! : the country the day the first draft .contingents went to camp, are an ex.'.ample of a stunt that failed. Some - of these women were paid to weep • and start tears among the mothers. • The pictures were published in the newspapers, but only once, and the reaction to the pictures was not "worth the cost. So the stunt was (dropped. — "Auckland Star" and In.a-.n.a. 1