A VIENNESE SLIP

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 91, 19 April 1939, Page 18

A VIENNESE SLIP

SPEECH THAT WAS TOO SOON

In days before they were overwhelmed by the Nazis the Viennese were always supposed to be a rather happy-go-lucky people; even the tribulations of the post-war period were understood to have left their capacity for taking things easily more or less undisturbed, says the "Manchester Guardian." Perhaps that explains the report from Vienna that two newspapers published in that city have managed to "jump" (as it is technically known in this country) the publication of a set oration by Dr. Goebbels, with the result that reports of the speech were read several hours before it was delivered. The diligent and effective Minister of Propaganda for the Third Realm had sent out advance copies of the speech that he was to deliver; two newspapers bungled the business, with the result that the oration was in print before the orator had opened his mouth.

It might have been worse. It would have been rasher, of course, to have anticipated the obituary notice of either Dr. Goebbels or his Fuhrer (and obituary notices as well as speeches have occasionally been printed in advance of their legitimate occasions). At the same time, if there is to be any sort of bungle in the matter of advance copies of public addresses, it may well seem just about the most unwise example of all to select a speech made by the Minister of Propaganda himself. And such a Minister of Propaganda— one who has the whole of the original German Press toeing the line with the liveliest sense of discipline arid decorum and whose whole machinery of propaganda must be running, in his own country, with the most wonderful smoothness and efficiency by this time! What a come-down, not only for the Minister but for the machine, when two tiresome newspapers in haphazard Vienna go and make the great man's speech hours before he has had time to make it himself. No wonder the offending papers were confiscated and i their editors put on the carpet!