NAZI DISTORTIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 18, 22 January 1940, Page 6

NAZI DISTORTIONS

TEDIQUS TECHNIQUfe

i FEW PGWIMENTSJON

GJOEBBELS

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, January 30. There is practically no comment in the morning newspapers on the speech in which Dr. Goebbels—standing on the very ground the invasion of which by the German armies "set Europe alight with the flames of war—quaintly described' the Allies' reluctance intaking up arms' in defence of the liberties of small and great nation* alike in the following ternis:—"They - went into this war with loud trumpet blasts and threw a declaration of war*' at our feet with the pride of** • Spaniard." „ ~ _• The cool, calculated impudence with which Nazi speakers pervert facts and distort purposes did, in ,the early days, - - call forth an unwilling . tribute of amazement and amusement from observers here. But by repetition the > technique has lost its power to evoke either surprise or argument. It is felt to have become merely tedious. The only parts of the Poznan speech >■ which aroused a modicum of. interest are passages which betray that the chief Nazi propagandist is taking serious notice of the possibility, of the German public being divided as a reisult of a realisation of where Nazi, leadership has taken them, and of the fact that the Allies have declared that ~, lit is Hitlerism and not the German I people which is the enemy. Dr. Goebbels obviously thinks it necessary to counter that danger, 'but it occurs to some commentators here that his method of doing so may not 1 have been well chosen. The effect of a period of quiet reflection by the German people under wartime conditions |in Germany on the Propaganda Minis- * ter's remark that "Germany today-has political and military leadership of 1 such excellence as she never possessed ! before" is thought to be less predictable than Dr. Goebbels, in the enthusiasm of his oratory, may hay« realised. _■ [_