NEW GERMAN JOKE

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 December 1940, Page 7

NEW GERMAN JOKE

ANTI-AIRCRAFT ARTILLERY LONDON, October 8. Messages reaching London from neutral sources in Berlin indicate the lack of success attending the German anti-aircraft fire. The Schwarze Korps, the organ of the Black Guards, protests against the wave of jokes at the expense of the German anti-aircraft artillery which has flooded the country since the Boyal Air Force began its present extensive series of bombinvs of the Reich. The anti-aircraft artillery joke has, in fact, taken the place of the pre-war jokes concerning ersatz (substitute) “raw” material and other political jokes, the article points out. The. Schwarze Korps disclaims any intention of defending the honour of the anti-aircraft artillery. No such defence, it asserts, is necessary. It does, however, devote two full columns to an explanation of the virtues of these guns and their crews, their achievements, their importance and their general excellence, and makes a vitriolic attack on citizens so ignorant or so evil as to seek to discredit this arm of the Service by telling jokes at its expense. Soldiers who understand these matters appreciate the value of the anti-aircraft artillery, the article states, but the civilian at home is too ignorant to do so.