HEAVY PENALTIES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21716, 26 July 1940, Page 3

HEAVY PENALTIES

SECRET RADIO LISTENERS Widespread secret listening in Germany to 8.8. C. German broadcasting is causing anxiety to Dr Goebbels and his propaganda department. Evidence of this listening is contained in letters often written at great personal risk, which reach the 8.8. C from neutral countries. To counteract these attacks on Germany’s home front there arc already severe penalties, including capital punishment, states an exchange. The extent to which Germany and the rest of the world are listening to the 8.8. C. was revealed in a series of programmes broadcast from studios in the home service. They are called “The ear of Britain,” "The wcrld hears London,” and "London calls the world.” Mr Robert Kemp, the author, gave examples of the letters received by the 8.8. C. A German soldier who smuggled his letter across the Belgian frontier on the outbreak of war wrote: "I am the father of four children Despite heavy penalties, I listen in my quarters every evening to your news, and the objective tone of your transmission stands in pleasing contrast to the other broadcasts, consisting of nothing but propaganda. Twenty-four hours of freedom of thought in Germany and the whole ‘spook’ would be wiped out.” Other correspondents reveal that Germans, Poles, and Czechs resort to many novel expedients to escape the vigilance of the Gestapo. One writer

said that his set was muffled in a hearthrug; many listened with earphone sometimes under the sheets in bed. When passing on from mouth-to-mouth information picked up from foreign radio the usual formula is: "I dreamed that the English did so and so last night” Another common crick is to turn on an official German broadcast at full blast or to play a record of the "Horst Wessel” song as a blind while surreptitious listening goes on in an attic or a cellar.