ART OF FAKING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 218, 13 August 1940, Page 8

ART OF FAKING.

GERMAN PROPAGANDA. TREATMENT OF AMERICANS: (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Aug. 10. An American who spent the first eight months of the war in Berlin, engaged in broadcasting commentaries from a united radio chain, described his experiences in a 8.8. C. home service broadcast. He is Mr Warren Irving, who was one of four Americans working in Berlin as radio commentators for different United States systems. He is on a visit to London and had some interesting things to say about the working of the German propaganda machine.

These American radio commentators, he explained, were in Berlin, as neutral observers. “In all respects save one our position is identical with that of the foreign newspaper correspondents.” The one exception was that while the correspondents had no censorship we were subject to three. It was not generally known that the Nazis were exercising a censorship. We were supposed to “soft pedal” on that fact, because the Nazis wanted to give the impression abroad that Germany was a country where every correspondent was free to express his honest opinions. JOURNALISTS DISCIPLINED.

“In reality, however, not even the newspaper correspondents were entirely free. If they said, anything to dis-i please the Nazis the chances were that when next they left the country on holiday they would be refused a visa to return. And Nazis had numerous other devices for bringing pressure to bear on them. A hostile correspondent was almost certain to be disciplined. When his competitors were taken on trips to the front he would be left behind, or, worse still, he would learn to his dismay that important stories were being given to his competitors. “They were for ever trying to plant fresh rumours on us,- and if in our commentaries wc had criticised the speech of some important Nazi official thev resorted to a favourite Nazi dodge—that was to leave all the quotations from the speech intact but delete all, criticisms. They would then withhold the script till a few minutes before speaking time and return it to us just in time for us to go on the air. On such occasions, however, we usually refused to speak.” The commentators, Mr Irving said, received most of their news at the daily Press conferences. The principal feeder was the Propaganda Ministry, but increasingly the German Foreign Offico was insisting on taking a larger portion. THREE CENSORSHIPS.

“When I first arrived in Berlin soon after the start of the war, Americano radio commentators were subject to only two censorships—one by the military authorities and the other by the Propaganda Ministry. But the Foreign Office decided that it, too, Sfioutd have something to say about censorship.” Mr Irving expressed scepticism as to the authenticity of many Nazi feature programmes, including broadcasts from the front, which in their brutal and unashamed exultation of power and vivid representation of mechanical and ruthless might taking toll of flesh and blood have impressed many outside listeners as bound to exercise a gravely demoralising effect on the German public. Mr Irving said: “I always suspected that many Nazi propaganda programmes were faked. I had good reason to believe that some of the programmes supposed to emanate from Hamburg and other stations were actually coming from Berlin and I should not be surprised if this were also the caso with some programmes that are supposed to be broadcast from the front, because the Nazis are past masters in the art of faking.”