SCHICKELGRUBER

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 August 1941, Page 5

SCHICKELGRUBER

JOURNALIST’TiNDICTMENT

RUGBY, August 10. Mr. Quentin Reynolds, the American journalist whose recent broadcast to Dr. Goebbels from London was widely quoted abroad, to-night spoke to Herr Hitler in the same vein. Mr. Reynolds throughout addressed Herr Hitler as Schickelgruber—the Fuehrer’s original family name. After saying that it might be wise to change back to the name of Schickelgruber because “no one can really be angry at anyone named Schnickelgruber, and so many are really angry at the name of Hitler, Mr. Reynolds made a telling indictment of “Mein Kampf.” He said: “I find one paragraph in it very interesting. It is your estimate of the value of propaganda. Your actual words are: ’By propaganda, with clever and permanent application even Heaven can be palmed off on the people as Hell, and, the other way round, the most wretched life as paradise.’ I wonder if you believe that now. Let us consider the propaganda you send outside Germany. Honestly, it doesn’t fool anyone these days. Oh, it fooled Britain and my country for years, and it fooled Belgium, Holland, Czechoslovakia, and Norway. It didn’t fool Russia, though did it? “When you made that pact with Russia in 1939 you declared joyously to the Reichstag: ‘Russia and Germany fought against one another in the World War. That shall not and will not happen again.’ Then, on December 10, 1940, in a broadcast, you paid a nigh tribute to the people of Russia and you declared: Tn a terrible struggle the Russian people rose and freed themselves from the clique of the power-thirsty magnates of finance, trade, raw materials, and industry.’ The Russians remembered what you had said years before on page 538 of ‘Mein Kampf’: ‘The present rulers of Russia are blood-stained criminals, the dregs of humanity.’ The silent man in the Kremlin said nothing, but he remembered and prepared. “On page 539, you said: ‘Bolshevism is an infamous crime against humanity.’ The silent man in the Kremlin said nothing, but he ordered more aeroplanes and more tanks. “No, your propaganda doesn’t fool people any more, Mr. S. Every, trick your little Gabby man has tried to work in France has failed. You’ll recall that on June 15 last in an effort to popularise the once respected but now despised Admiral Darlan he ordered every newspaper in both occupied and unoccupied France to print a likeness of Darlan on the first page. The order was obeyed, but didn’t your agents notice that somehow most of the pictures in shop windows happened to fall face downwards? Did your agents tell you proudly that every paper in France published Darlan’s picture on page one. But did they add, Mr. S., that almost half of the papers printed the picture in the fifth column?” PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN Mr. Reynolds then dealt with a new German propaganda campaign which, he said, “starts to-morrow dn America.” He said: “You know, Mr. S. Britain has eyes and ears all over Europe, even in Germany, and here we know all about your new peace offensive. It. has died before it was born.” Mr. Reynolds finally told Herr Hitler that his greatest mistake was to “awaken the dead” in England. “When you bombed Plymouth, Fran-

cis Drake came out of his legendary past to live once more in the city from which he so often sailed. And when 'slap-happy Germans, futile fusiliers, bombed and machinegunned lightships, do you think that Nelson slept? Once more Nelson was roused and to-day his spirit rides on the bridge of every ship that flies the British flag. It is dangerous to awaken the dead, Mr. S. Do you think, then, that Wellington ( slumbers in his grave or that Allenby sleeps? Old soldiers never die, Mr. S. Do you notice that thousands of naval officers wear, their caps at a jaunty angle, half covering one eye? You know that Admiral Beatty lives. “It is dangerous to awaken the dead. They live again in the hearts of men and they know they died not in vain. They know that tnis island is as unassailable as truth. These gallant ghosts of the past know that they will be joined soon by thousands of their countrymen and women who are alive to-night. But who in this island fears death if he may then walk with Drake and Nelson and Beatty and the other immortals? It is dangerous to waken the dead.”