Rumour-Mongers

Southland Times, Issue 24161, 25 June 1940, Page 4

Rumour-Mongers

THE MANNER in which the most stupid rumours about the war are being circulated and, in some cases, believed does the community little credit. Almost every day some new story* is going the rounds at tea-parties and on street corners: there seems no end to the persons who “know it for a fact” that some wildly improbable thing has happened. Many of the rumours are attributable to careless listening to the radio and careless reading of the newspapers. The mere mention of the name of a neutral nation in a broadcast appears to have been sufficient, in at least one case, to start a rumour that the nation had entered the war. Other rumours have been the result of wishful thinking. Others again have come from nowhere and have vanished into nowhere. The classic example was the story, circulated throughout the Dominion, that the Berlin radio had announced the date of departure of the Ist Echelon. This story was widely believed, but not a single person heard the announcement first-hand, for it was never made.

Those who concoct, believe or repeat such rumours, no doubt innocently enough, should reflect that in doing so they are playing Hitler’s game. They are helping to bring about just what Hitler wants to bring about —the destruction of the morale of the British peoples. They are helping to encourage a defeatist attitude, to distract the community from its war-time tasks, even to create panic. If Hitler can destroy the British morale, as he has destroyed the French, he will win the war. While the British morale remains high and the will to victory is strong, he can never win. The wai’ is becoming more and more a contest of discipline and spirit between two peoples, and the Nazis will use every means in their power to create in Britain and the Dominions the atmosphere of distrust and uncertainty which is essential to the success of their plans to overthrow the Empire. Since the outbreak of war the German radio has been devoted solely to this purpose. “The great mass of the people in the simplicity of their hearts,” wrote Hitler in Mein Kampf, “are more easily taken in by a big lie than by a little one.” The technique of the “big lie” is used continually in the Berlin broadcasts; it is heightened by the repetition of loose, silly talk heard at second, tenth, or fiftieth hand. There are limits to what New Zealanders can do to help Britain through the next critical months until the winter; but one thing they can do is to keep their spirits high, theii’ minds free from the contamination of rumour and their mouths shut.