GERMAN PROPAGANDA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 26 October 1939, Page 7

GERMAN PROPAGANDA

TO IMPRESS NEUTRALS A striking example of the attitude to Dr. Goebbels nnd his propaganda of neutral opinion is provided by comment in a recent issue of the American newsmagazine “Time,” which describes the Nazi propaganda chief as “novelist, author (at 24) of •Michael,’ probably as bad a book as has ever been published, and operator (at 41) of the most powerful. most smoothly organised publicity machine “the world has ever seen.” A fortnight after the outbreak of the war Dr. Goebbels’ machine, which even in peacetime spends more than £25,000.000 a year and employs 25.000. had been “whipped to full speed.” Twenty-four hours after the German troops entered Poland neutral journalists had photographs of German troops on the march Tanks, big guns, bombers, ruined villages, prisoners, wounded, mutilated bodies, charred houses, refugee children, smashed bridges, all added up, continues “Time,” to create an impression of overwhelming strength, dramatised the speed of Germany’s advance. Forty-eight hours after the Poles announced that the “holy city” of Czestochowa had been bombed, high-speed operators had photographs of Polish women and children worshipping at the shrine in the presence of a German soldier. This piece of propaganda hit three ways: Defensively, it gave the lie to Polish charges; appealed to neutral opinion: was an attempt to convince Poles that Germans were really their friends who respected their relics. Basic Nazi technique of systematically shocking and sickening the population, making it apathetically submissive to totalitarian control, was worked hard, continued “Time.” Germans took United Press correspondent Fred Ccchsner on a tour of captured Polish villages, showed him the bodies of 25 villagers, claimed they had been multiiated and killed by retreating Poles. Third great line of German propaganda was to prepare for a peace move after the conquest of Poland. If peace did not come, the gambit had another usefulness. Germany had no way to escape the guilt of firing the first shot of the war, but the Nazis hoped to create the impression that the British and F-ench could stop it.