WORKING OVERTIME

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 September 1940, Page 2

WORKING OVERTIME

GOEBBELS’ CAMPAIGN. Dr. Goebbels is lying like the very devil. There is nothing new in that. He has been doing it for years and years. It is his particular part of the Nazi technique, writes W. N. Ewer, the London “Daily Herald” diplomatic correspondent. All the same, it is interesting, and maybe significant, that just now he should be working overtime. All across the world —quite literally “from China to Peru” —he is trying to spread the story that the war is finished; that Britain is down and out, ready for surrender; that Hitler has won.

Desperately, he wants to have that believed in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in America. I don’t think even Goebbels hopes to kid the Australians. . . . But he has hopes of all the rest. Anyway, he is trying hard. A day or two ago his radio told the world (Europe and the Far East in particular) that the London correspondent of the “Chicago Daily News” had wired to his paper that Southampton is a wrecked and ruined port. Now, in fact, what the “Daily News” correspondent had cabled that day was a bit different. He had not mentioned Southampton by name at all.

He had just said that, by all the reliable evidence he could collect, the German bombers in all their raids had not even seriously damaged one aerodrome or port, oi’ shipyard or munition works of any military importance. They had just put one factory out of operation for 24 hours. And that is all. /

That’s the truth. But Brother Josef Goebbels badly wants to tell the world that Britain is down, out, terrified, starving and on her beam ends. It is his old technique of attempting to win campaigns by bluff and intimidation.

He is trying to persuade the Americans that it is no good trying to help these British. He is trying to kid the European neutrals that Germany has won the war already and that they had better come to terms with her quickly. He is trying to kid the Japanese that if they want to back a winner they ought to back Hitler. As to the Italians, he doesn’t worry. Mussolini has to do what Hitler tells him, anyway.

KIDDING STALIN. It is interesting to watch this Ananias-campaign of Goebbels. Because he often gives things away without meaning to. His trouble is that he has to keep saying different things to different people. And it is so hard to remember them all. That elaborate business of the “documents” found in a train in France was to convince the Soviet Government that Russia’s real implacable enemy is Britain, that Germany’s victory is the first condition for Russia’s security. Quite different is the story being sedulously broadcast in the East — both near and far. The Balkans are being told this tale: “Your danger is from Russia. You suspect Germany because she is the ally of Russia. “You think that because Hitler has let Stalin take Karelia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Bessarabia he and Stalin are friends. “Not a bit. Between ourselves, we are fooling these Bolsheviks. Just as we fooled the British at Munich. “We are simply kidding them along. “It is going,” say Goebbels’ whisperers, “to take us a month or two to deal with Britain. After BritainRussia. •“You Balkan people, remember we are the big noise. We’ve smashed France, we shall smash Britain, then we shall smash Russia. Don’t you rely on Stalin and the Comintern and the Soviets and all that. We are going to deal with them next. “We are the great big masters of everybody. • Better keep in with us. “By the way, we would like some grain and some oil and some, fats and a few other things. Better give them while the going’s good. “Don’t think Stalin is going to save you after we’ve finished with the British.” To the Japanese thus: — “Just help us in our war with Britain and then we will help you against the Soviet Union. “We want the Ukraine and the Caucasus. You want Mongolia and Eastern Siberia. Yes? So it goes on, this Goebbels propaganda. All across the world, trying to fool everybody, from China to Peru. All very ingenious, all very clever. Must one thing wrong with it all. It all depends on convincing everybody that Germany is going very quickly and very thoroughly to smash the British Empire. And, somehow or other, everybody, from China to Peru, is beginning to think that this is rather more than doubtful, that it may be just the other way round.