NAZI CENSORSHIP

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 189, 13 August 1940, Page 5

NAZI CENSORSHIP

U.S. COMMENTATORS RADIO MEN'S EXPERIENCES [ British Official Wireless, j RUGBY, Aug. 11. An American who spent the first eight months of the war in Berlin engaged in broadcasting commentaries irom a united radio chain describing his expediences in a 8.8. C. broadcast. He is Mr. Warren Irving, who was one of four Americans working in Berlin as radio commentators for different United States systems, and is now on a visit to London. He 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,” he said, “our position was 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. "In reality, however, not even the newspaper correspondents were entirely free. If they said anything to displease the Nazis, the chances were that when next they left the country on holiday they would be refused a visa to return. And the 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. Favourite Nazi Dodge. “They were for ever trying to plant fresh rumours on us, and if in our commentaries we had criticised the speech of some important Nazi official they resorted to a favourite Nazi dodge—that was to leave all the quotations from the speech intact but to 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 Office was insisting on taking a larger portion. “When I first arrived in Berlin soon after the start of the war,” he said. “American radio commentators were subject to only two censorships—one by the rtiilitary authorities and the other by the Propaganda Ministry. But the Foreign Office decided that it. too. should 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 being bound to exercise a gravely demoralising effect on the German public. Mr. Irving said: “I v have 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 of her stations were actually coming from Berlin, and I should not be surprised if this were also the case with some programmes that are supposed to be broadcast from the front, because the Nazis are past masters in the art of faking.”