It does not matter how watertight the Reich endeavours to maintain the German boundaries with regard to news of developments within that country, illuminating reports do occasionally leak out which show that all is not for the best in the Nazi paradise. Thus it is reported that there is at present current a parody of the "Hoerst Wessel Song" that anthem designed to commemorate the young man who had highly unorthodox ideas on the subject of earning a living, but who nevertheless is a Nazi saint. That such a parody should be circulating in Germany is highly significant, and suggestive of the fact that there is already in Germany a deep rooted opposition to the Nazi regime, and the war they have plunged the country into. It will be remembered that the first verse of the song may be translated as follows:—
With banners high In serried ranks and even The Brownshirts march With steady stride and sure.
The parody changes Fahnen into Preise, Reihen into Grenzen and S.A. into die Not, with the result that the same verse comes out as:—
With prices high And frontiers closed to freedom Ruin stalks on With steady stride and sure Subsequent lines contain a reference to Hitler and Goebbels, nach iminer nicht erschossen (still waiting for a bullet). It is quite possible that, were he to have the opportunity, Dr. Goebbels would not hesitate to aver that this also is the work of the terrible British Secret Service. which seems in the German view to have been guilty of everything from inspiring Cain to ki!' Abel and onward to every crime which has happened since. The British Secret Service ha: done excellent work since the beginning of the war, but it has still far too much work on its hands to be devising parodies of German songs. The Germans can be left to do that for themselves, and the more of this sort of thing they turn out the better will the Allies be pleased.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.