158
PARTISAN REVIEW
outbreak of war the Germans have done hardly any direct propaganda in
England otherwise than by wireless. The best known of their broadcasts,
indeed the only ones that can be said to have been listened to to any appre·
ciable extent, are those of William Joyce. No doubt these are often extrav·
agantly untruthful, but they are a more or less responsible type of broad·
cast, well delivered and giving news rather than straight propaganda. But
in addition the Germans maintain four spurious "freedom" stations,
actually operating on the continent but pretending to be operating illegally
in England. The best known of these is the New British Broadcasting
Station, which earlier in the war the Blackshirts used to advertise by
means of stickybacks. The general line of these broadcasts is "uncen·
sored news," or "what the Government is hiding from you." They affect
a pessimistic, well-informed manner, as of someone who is on the inside
of the inside, and go in for enormous figures of shipping losses, etc. They
urge the dismissal of Churchill, talk apprehensively about "the Communist
danger," and are anti-American. The anti-American strain is even stronger
in Joyce's broadcasts. The Americans are swindling us over the Lease
Lend agreement, are gradually absorbing the Empire, etc., etc. More inter·
esting than the New British is the Workers' Challenge Station. This goes
in for a line of
red~hot
revolutionary talks under such titles as "Kick
Churchill Out," delivered by an authentic British working man who uses
plenty of unprintable words. We are to overthrow the corrupt capitalist
government which is selling us to the enemy, and set up a real socialist
government which will come to the rescue of our heroic comrades of the
Red Army and give us victory over Fascism. (This German station does
not hesitate to talk about "the menace of Nazism," "the horrors of the
Gestapo," etc.) The Workers' Challenge is not overtly defeatist. The line
is always that it is probably too late, the Red Army is done for, but that
we
may
be able to save ourselves if only we can "overthrow capitalism,"
which is to be done by means of strikes, mutinies, sabotage in the arma–
ment factories, and so forth. The other two "freedom" stations are the
Christian Peace Movement (pacifism) and Radio Caledonia (Scottish
nationalism).
You can see how each strain of German propaganda corresponds to
one existing, or at any rate potential, defeatist faction. Lord Haw Haw
and the New British are aimed at the anti-American middle class, roughly
speaking the people who read
Truth,
and the business interests that have
suffered from the war. The Workers' Challenge is aimed at the Com–
munists and the Left extremists generally. The Christian Peace Movement
is aimed at the P.P.U. I don't want to give the impression, however, that
German propaganda has much effect at this moment. There is little doubt
that it has been an almost complete flop, especially during the last eighteen
months. Various things that have happened have suggested that since the
outbreak of war the Germans ha.ve not been well informed about internal
conditions in England, and much of their propaganda, even if listened to,
would fail because of simple psychological errors on which anyone
with
