Behind the Headlines in the War News

Waikato Independent, Volume XL, Issue 3764, 30 September 1940, Page 3

Behind the Headlines in the War News

"THE FIFTH ABM"

GERMAN PROPAGANDA MACHINE HOW TO COUNTER IT Here, says an American reviewer of "The Fifth Arm," by Wickham Steed, is a treatment of German propaganda and how to counteract it, by a writer fully qualified to speak because of his varied experience as a journalist and as a leading member of "Crewe House," the organisation responsible for British propaganda during the World War.

Mr Steed shows clearly that propaganda works slowly, and that to be effective it must have a definite objective. "It took three and a half years before Allied propaganda took the offensive as the instrument of a clear policy in the last war; and it was President Wilson's 14 Points which gave the ideal for which peoples on the enemy side had been

waiting." In dealing with Nazi propaganda, Mr Steed rightly emphasizes at the outset that no small part of its success has resulted from so many non-Germans in high places failing to appreciate clearly Hitler's aims and methods. "It is one thing for Ihe Germans to deceive themselves by their own propaganda, but it is quite another thing for British statesmen, politicians, and writers to lend so ready an ear to that propaganda as to confirm the rulers of Germany in their self-deception." The reproduction of the correspondence between Lord Rothermere and the author and the reports of the Rothermere-Princess Hohen-lohe-Walderberg lawsuit, as well as the reticence with which the British press dealt with this sensational case, make interesting reading for anyone who would study the relations of the press and press lords to European foreign policy during the post-1918 period.

German propaganda did not start with Hitler. Bismarck's "reptile press" rendered notorious service to the Iron Chancellor after 1866, and the editing of the Ems telegram is history. But Mr Steed is mainly concerned with counteracting and overthrowing Nazi propaganda. Among the practical suggestions he offers are the setting up of a Thinking General Staff for the strategy of ideas. This should consist of five to seven competent men, not public officials, who would be allowed free access to official information and act as co-ordinators of specialist information from the Ministry of Information, the Allies, etc.

Dealing with the methods to be adopted, the author indicates that successful propaganda will have to speak a language the enemy understands —a language in keeping with his different mental habits and background and that there must be a clear indication as to how the

German problem will be solved when victory is attained. Mr Steed advocates a lasting and controlled demilitarization of Germany, military occupation, removal of Prussian control from the left hank of the Rhine, refusal to allow Germany to get away with the fable of the "stab in the back," and exposure in German press and radio of the abominations of Nazi concentration camps, of Nazi treatment of Czechs, Poles, etc. Europe has changed considerably since these words were written. Flanders and France have been overrun. Details of the future settlement of this Continent may be different from those mentioned by Mr Steed. But few would disagree with his conclusion that "we shall need a higher than materialist inspiration to win our fight for the future of civilisation itself." It is also doubtful whether there is any need to restate the ideal which President Wilson laid down in his Point No. 4: "What we seek is the reign of la,w based on a consent of the governed and sustained by the organised opinion of mankind."