TOTALITARIAN PROPAGANDA
By WILLIAM TEELING
THERE are today so many forms of propaganda issuing from Totalitarian States that I will confine myself in the limits of this article to radio propaganda and to the activities of two countries only, Germany and Russia. The world at the moment, from a radio point of view, can be divided up into the haves and the have nots, those who have the opportunity of listening in to any country they like and those who cannot even if they would.
It seems to me ridiculous to think that the average Arab or Chinese is really affected by the talks from Berlin or Moscow, since none of them could ever afford a short-wave set. Nevertheless, both Germany and Russia find it very useful to have special stations and special organisations for propaganding their news abroad, and they would not do so if they did not consider it worth the expense.
In 1933 the International Broadcasting Union passed a resolution condemning wireless propaganda from any one country that might attack the institutions of another country. Germany and Italy are both members of this union, but Russia is not. In spite of that in 1933 Germany carried out a most intensive propaganda against Austria. In 1936, the International Convention for the use of broad- casting in the cause of peace was signed, though it has not yet been ratified. This was part of the League of Nations campaign for moral disarmament and has been agreed to by Russia, but not by Germany and Italy. In both the Resolu- tion and the Convention I have mentioned are a number of Clauses designed to render propaganda harmless. But in actual fact, the two countries, Germany and Russia, carry on'their own programme without worrying very much about conventions.
After the Nazis came into power and after they took control of German broadcasting, they decided first to concentrate on internal propaganda. I found at that date many of the officials in the broadcasting centres to have been Germans who had lived most of their lives abroad, usually in Java or the Far East. They have seemed to me to be very much of a similar type. One man had felt miserably unhappy, in the white communities of the East, at the humiliating position of Germany. He had read the papers Germans sent out to him and had followed Hitler's career and his speeches with an ever increasing interest. He told me he was looking for God, and he felt there was something of the spirit of the prophet in Hitler's speeches and in his programme. He gave up everything and returned to Germany, where he soon found himself losing position after position because of his advocacy of the Brown Shirts. Now that he has an influence in broadcasting he is determined to instil his enthusiasm into the German public, and he intends to instil it on almost religious lines.
Another broadcasting director did not come back to Germany from Java until after the regime was in power. But while in Java, he told me he had felt miserably alone, surrounded by natives on an inland property. He could no longer believe in Christianity and at the same time he told me he was searching for God. Today at least he has found what he wants in the teachings of the Fiihrer, and again he is trying not only to give this teaching to the Germans in Germany, but he wants it to go out to his fellow Germans throughout the world, and at least to have it understood by others. He says he is not intekested in what the coolies or the Arabs think, but he is iiiterested that the type of person who can afford a short-wave set abroad should understand the New Germany.
There is nothing to prevent you visiting the centre near Berlin, where the Ministry of Propaganda broadcasts regularly to different parts of the British Empire. They tell me that they frequently correspond with Australians who write in for further information, and to whom, if they are willing, the Berlin station will even broadcast personal messages. They are perfectly frank and open about their propaganda. A fortnight or so ago, a friend of mine listened to the British Broadcasting Company announcing the plain facts of Mr. Eden's statement in the House of Commons that Mussolini had no right to tell England what to do with her colonies. Not more than five minutes later, my friend was listening in to Munich, where the statement was made that Mr. Eden had said in the House of Commons that it is perfectly legitimate for Mussolini to support Germany's claims for colonies. The end quite blatantly justifies the means.
It is interesting to note that the German Propaganda Ministry does not attempt very seriously to do propaganda by radio in Russia. There is in fact no Russian programme from Germany. The short-wave broadcasts are divided into six areas, for Northern Asia, Southern Asia, Southern America, Central America, Northern America and Africa. The broadcasts to Asia are in German, English and Dutch ; they consist of a number of talks on the wonderful achieve- ments of the Nazi regime, interspersed with good music, readings of old authors, economic news and sports informa- tion. There is nothing particularly exciting or very virulent about these talks. The nearest approach to an anti-Russian propaganda for Russia is a series of broadcasts given in German, in which it is announced that " this is the Soviet Union speaking," and the talks are calculated thoroughly to muddle any enthusiastic pro-Communist who might pick them up.
The German Government protects its followers in other ways from foreign propaganda. To begin with, there is only one kind of cheap set favoured in Germany ; it is specially advertised and people are " encouraged " to purchase it. This set is so arranged that it makes it almost impossible to pick up any foreign station. On the other hand there are a number of people who have short-wave sets, though nobody much under the shopkeeping class. These people listen-in to almost any station, but they must not invite their friends to be present at any talk. Though it is legal for them to listen-in alone, it makes them suspect with the Govern- ment and the Government usually cuts in with its own powerful stations. The Gestapo is always on the lookout, and doctors, when they visit their patients, are expected to report afterwards on the type of programme the patient is apt to listen to. In view of the fact that Nazi officials are not only in charge of districts or groups of streets, but are given in the last resort no more than six houses, for which they are completely responsible, it is natural that the Government knows almost exactly what is being listened to throughout Germany ; and sensible Germans realise this.
The Russian propaganda broadcasts are listened to frequently in Berlin, and I have heard an attack made on both Goebbels and Hitler for sending money out of Germany to be invested in Switzerland. The Russians broadcast in no fewer than fifty-five different languages. But they and their friends realise that even so, many of the Germans are unwilling to have short-wave sets and the only thing to do is to work inside that country. As a result for many months this year, the German authorities have been much harassed by a travelling transmitting set, said to have been sent from Prague, which broadcasts, from a different place each night, some very effective Communist propaganda, aided and abetted by the many Communist supporters still at large in Germany; in recent weeks it has been silent.
If it is difficult for the Russians to broadcast to Germany, it is ten times more so for the Germans to broadcast to Russia. The system used in the Soviet Republics is not unlike that of the wireless exchanges in England. Russian groups subscribe and receive, as a result, an instrument which can only listen in to one, or at most two stations. These stations are entirely controlled by the Government and it is impossible to listen to foreign countries at all.
The type of broadcast heard in Russia is very similar to that heard in Germany, a series of paneiyrics of the present regime and of the wonders of Social Reform, together with hatred of the Opposition country. It may be said that Totalitarian broadcasting and propaganda is a danger to the world ; but it is only a danger to the world that is willing to listen to it. As soon as nations decide to cut out foreign propaganda from their shores, the menace will cease and we will be back to the positiOn where we have all been for hundreds of years, that we think the system of government in our own country the best in the world. And after a bit, to my mind, each country will get so disgusted with hearing about itself that radio propaganda will fall off very materially. In the meantime, however, we must face the fact that Germany and Russia will go to any lengths to put their case before those people who have time enough to waste in listening to their one-sided tales ; we, too, then must keep the letter- writers of the Near-Eastern bazaars informed of at least our version of the daily news.
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