THE SECRET PRESS

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 June 1937, Page 10

THE SECRET PRESS

ITS WAR IN GERMANY Cable messages from Berlin recently stated that the secret police in Germany are mystified by the extensive circulation throughout the country of a pamphlet issued by a secret organisation which describes itself as the German Freedom Party, says a writer in the Melbourne “Age.” The pamphlet is an emphatic denunciation of the tyranny of the Nazis. The programme of the German Freedom Party, which includes men and women of all conditions and creeds, is proclaimed in the pamphlet as: “Freedom of speech, free elections, religious liberty, and peaceful understandings with all nations, particularly France and Czechoslovakia.” Under Hitlerism freedom of the Press has been suppressed, and as an inevitable result the most active spirits who are opposed to Hitlerism and its tyranny have been, driven to the adoption of underground methods of circulating their views and organising support. The pamphlet issued by the German Freedom Party is but one illustration of the secret propaganda against Hitlerism which is being carried on in Germany. According to Ernst Henri, the author of “Hitler over Europe.” many secretly-printed papers are being published in Germany, and in the aggregate hundreds of thousands of copies arc distributed daily throughout the country.

“Sonic 30,000 copies of (lie weekly edition of the Communist ‘Rote Fahnc’ .are secretly issued,” states Herr Henri. “This centrally-printed edition is reproduced throughout Germany by small local groups of from five to 30 men, with duplicators, typewriters, and by hand; often photographic copies of whole newspapers are made in miniature, very easy to conceal, and read with the help of magnifying glasses. “More difficult than the printing are the- distribution and circulation of this Press inside German towns, which are swarming with armed and suspicious Nazi storm troops,” continues Herr Henri. “For these purposes a special art and science has been developed to meet the new conditions. The streets, the underground railways, the restaurants, the parks, the unemployment exchanges are often full of this literature; it is in the hands of passers-by; it gets into private houses. But how is this managed without the entire organisation being discovered in a couple of days? The organisation is so dividefl that one man does not know another. The different distributors and sellers of the newspapers and leaflets have their particular ..collecting stations, but they do not know who brings the newspapers there. If such a distributor he caught, the police can hardly find out anything from him. Still less can the police run after all the children who distribute, empty match boxes and cigarette cards in the streets, inside which anti-Fascist messages are concealed. Nor can anyone know that anti-Fascist literature is being sent in the official postal envelopes of various authorities. Not lone ago the Berlin police discovered that the Post Office had for weeks been transmitting al the expense of the State, revolution ary matter in envelopes which bore the imprint of the head office of the city electricity works. One day the police, discovered a large ‘astrological’ business in Berlin with 15.000 ‘horoscopes,’ consisting of anti-Fascist literature, ready for dispatch.”

“There tire hundreds of methods of this sort employed, and new ones tire constantly being invented.” states Herr Henri. "A good deal of this literature is masked outside in the most careful manner. For a long time a MLpage film advertisement of ‘The .Sign of the Cross' was widely distri

bated i/i Germany. The first few pages of the pamphlet chatted amiably about Nero and ancient Rome, but then suddenly jumped to the burning of the Reichstag, and revealed Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels as the real incendiaries. FACTORY NEWSPAPERS “Revolutionary factory newspapers (little handwritten or typewritten sheets, which are published for a single workshop), hand bills, leaflets, small paper strips with .a few fighting slogans or bits of news, are stuck up daily in the factories, pasted on the walls, on the machinery, in the lavatories, on the doors of the workers’ homes, before they leave in the morning. The whole fronts of houses in the working-class areas are covered with revolutionary slogans in paint, which is difficult to wash off. The Nazis have caught' dozens of people, especially youths, at this job, and

have sent them to concentration camps or penitentiaries, but the walls of the houses and the fences continue their protest against Hitlerism.” During the Great War, when Belgium was occupied by German troops and was cut off from the outside world, secret newspapers were printed and distributed by patriotic Belgians with the object of strengthening the spirit of resistance among the civilian population. The war news published in the German newspapers

which circulated in Belgium was so misleading that it had a disheartening effect on the Belgian people, who were

looking forward to the victory of the Allies, and the expulsion of the German troops from Belgian territory. The secret newspapers were able, to give the Belgians a more truthful account of the progress of the struggle, and to restore confidence in the ultimate victory of the Allies. The German military authorities in Belgium made many attempts to suppress these, secret newspapers, but whenever they did succeed in discovering a printing press used to print one of them, the paper made its appearance a few days later from another quarter. Mr. Oscar Giojean. writing about Belgium’s secret newspapers in the London “Times" after the end of the war, said: “If the Belgian people gave to the world so magnificent an example of patriotism and of faith in

their future, if they awaited so stol

idly the hour of liberation, it was in part due to the secret. Press. Belgium was, so to speak, cut. off from the rest of the world. Can anyone wonder that at times discouragement filtered into the souls of the people? Bui the secret Press appeared! It took every form. It penetrated everywhere.

“You found it in your letter-box, on your desk, even in the pocket of your overcoat, wlmre surreptitiously, without you ever knowing how, it had been placed. It was passed to you by a newsboy, your barber, or the messenger in tile street, it v.as discuss ed at street corners, in cafes, and wherever men met to organ:'” resistance. At evening the wh'dr family read it. gathered round the lamp. And the little flam- 1 of hope and enthusiasm. almost snuffed out by enemy propaganda. Hared up anew and Imrn- < d b’-ighier than ever." The first of these secret newspapers was La l.’bre I ’,<dgi<|uc.’ which produced its first issue on February I. I!tl5 six months after the war began. “It called itself a bulletin of patriotic propaganda, appearing with ‘irregular regularity.' but despite countless tribulations. despite incidents more often tragic than comic, it never ceased to appear almost weekly up to the day of the Armistice." states Dr. Grojean. P gave the location of its offices as an ••automobile collar.” and its telegraphic address as "Komrnandani urBriixellcs. Die title itself sullh.es

to give an idea of the raciness ol the sprightly humour of the editors,” continues Mr. Grojean. “But its leading matter beggars description. The German was held up to scorn and ridicule, bis hair pulled his nose tweaked, with inexhaustible versatility. He ceased to be terrible and became tunny. Everybody knows the story ot how the Polizei, to arrest a dangerous patriot, ‘Andred Vesale,’ who had been denounced as the editor of the paper, deployed considerable forces and searched every house in the Place des Barricades, only to discover that the famous anatomist stood cast m bronze in the middle of the square.

THE WEAPONS Ol‘ SATIRE People chuckled as they pictured to themselves the fury of General Baron von Pissing, the German Governor General in Belgium, when he found in his own dispatch-box a copy of La Libre Belgique,” in which was published a portrait of himself reading the valiant little sheet. Belgians laughed themselves sick over the pranks played on the enemy. Satire used all its weapons, not neglecting mere invective, which alwayst appeals to the masses. Its racy audacity explains the enormous success which ‘La Libre” met with among the people. Created by M. Victor Jourdain, former editor of the. Catholic paper “Le Patriote.” with the assistance of two Jesuits, Father Dubar and Father Paquet, and also of Eugene van Doren, Dr. Schoofs, M. Leconte, and Albert van Kerckhove, it won everyone’s heart, irrespective of party or class. It inspired men and women to admirable sacrifices —and this is so true that neither raids nor seiz-

ures, arrest nor imprisonment, nor even sentence of death, were able to prevent, the paper from appearing. New contributors immediately took the place of those who fell. For months and months the Germans did everything they could think of to suppress it, but “La Libre Belgique” joyfully kept, up its invigorating publication till the Armistice. Freedom of the Press has neen abolished in Soviet Russia, but few, if any, secret newspapers are printed in that country. The Soviet authorities, and in particular the dreaded Ogpu. or secret police, have completely cowed the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, and therefore opponents of

the Bolsheviks prefer to suffer in silence rather than attempt to subvert 'the Soviet by underground propaganda. But the changes that have been brought about, in the Russian Press since the Bolshevik- revolution of 1!H 7 are of interest. There are more

than .<•<! daily newspapers circulating

in Russia. but only 450 of them are printed in the Great Russian tongue. The otheis appear in the languages of national minorities. The aggregate circulation of all daily newspapers in Russia is about 13.0011, but before the war it was 'c:-s than 3.0H0,000. I he contents "■ all Russian newspapers are mainly propaganda. Very little about Dm outside world is published in the Russian Press, unless it can be made to seme the purpose of the Communists.

"The newspaper censorship does not tm-rely suppress news whose publication would be disagreeable to those in power. Inn actually sifts out and rejects cvcryl king which is not of positive value io the regime," states Herr Theodor Seibert, in his book. “Ren Russia." ' P'-w ami far between, therefore. in the Soviet Press, are news items and articles of general interest. but devoid oi political content, liven the by-laws of the Press, such as feuilletons. sporting columns, the accounts of technical matters, artistic criticisms, etc., are crowded with political traffic. You may >ook through nine or 10 issues of a Soviet newspaper without finding a single article devoid of political .end. What has

happened beyond the Red frontiers is only recorded in the Soviet Press it the news can be turned to useful account by the Bolsheviks. It is true that the great Russian newspapers are made up in such a way as to give an appearance of variety, and those published rather for intellectuals than for the broad masses are readable and well arranged. Rut when you look into details you w,.i find little more than a mass of" verbatim reports of speeches, interminable resolutions, texts of new laws, party programmes. Ninety per cent, of those newspapers are in actual fact composed exclusively of State documents, the minutes of party proceedings, reports and articles relating to numberless congresses, sessions, meetings, and memorials concerning the schemes for future developments, which play so t large a part in the public life of con- 1 temporary Russia."