As was expected the bitter comment of the Netherlands' journal "Algemeen Handelsblad" on the subject of wanton German aeroplane attacks on Netherlands' shipping very quickly brought reactions in Germany, and the matter was taken up on Wednesday night by the German broadcast featuring a political review of the past week. Germany, the speaker said, was not willing to put up with the insolent criticism of the German navy, and would not allow anybody to besmirch the honour of its Fuehrer and its forces. The answer to that is that it is not the neutral or Allied commentators who are soiling the German escutcheon. They are merely commenting on a very patent fact, the responsibility for which lies very much closer home. It is to be expected that within a short space of time the German press will be in another state of hysteria over the expression of views which is being made in many countries over the German treatment of neutral shipping, and there is always the possibility that these periodical outbursts may prove to be the forerunner of the invasion of the Lowlands, or, if that does not transpire, it may be accepted as a feature of the war of nerves which the Reich is prosecuting against every neighbouring nation which does not accept its view of the situation. While much attention. has been paid to the German propaganda directed to foreign countries little notice has been given to the manner in which the German press seeks to maintain +|the war spirit in a country already considerably jaded by the hardships which have already been inflicted, and the prospects of more to come. Following the old adage that if a case is bad it is the best tactics to shower abuse on the opponent, the docile German newspapers dredge the vocabulary for every form of language of the gutter for the purpose of showering it upon the Allies but more particularly upon Great Britain. The British are, according to these indefatigable wallowers in verbal filth, criminals, liars, assassins, arrogants, blackmailers, impudents, murderers, rascals, blood-thirty cowards, brutal ex-plaiters, low minded rufüans and thence by progressive degrees of dirt to terms that would not be used in polite German society, assuming such a thing to exist, much less printed.
From all the welter of abuse and tirade emerges the picture of a desperate, dangerous prisoner, cornered, and unable to do more in his despair than shriek an unavailing defiance, of a man who has become aware that the days when he could run amok have been terminated and that he is being brought to an accounting. Consider these three paragraphs taken from separate articles in the "Frankfurter Zeitung"
(1) England the world enemy No. 1, a country of blasphemous liars and murderers whose greedy bloody hand stretches across the world instigating evil everywhere. (2) It is the evil hand which is the cause of all Germany's troubles today (an amazing admission considering the "might" of "our glorious Fourth Reich").
(3) And it is "a band of rich senile old men (the British Cabinet) who are directing this evil."
The logic of it all is typically Teutonic, but for the moment it is apparently swallowed by German readers, though probably' there are many who read the turgid stuff with no small amount of cynicism. Day after day the "Volkischer Beobachter," "Angriff" and the "National Zeitung," the three principal organs of the Nazi party in articles, "news" items and cartoons lift their shrill, hysterical voices in a song of hate against which the "Gott strafe England" of the last war is nothing but a gently-crooned love song. The anthem of hate is reinforced by the fact that it is directed against the British alone, apparently on the ground that it would be inadvisable to dissipate present concentration, the evidence of the existence of the one-track mind. Obviously it is the belief of the authorities controlling the German press that, if sufficient attention can be directed toward the alleged sins of the British, the German peoples will forget the grievous wrong which their rulers are doing them. If it is not that, it must be something in the nature of aboriginal tribal dances designed to stimulate participants into a state of unreasoning fury.
The more generous view of the situation must be that this exhibition of atavism arises from a realization that after all victory will not be so simple of attainment, and that the dangers of defeat are indeed great. This process of stirring up the German war spirit is interesting to outside observers, for if any men know how to sway the masses it is Herr Hitler and his satellites. It proves successful in Germany where the people are deprived of the premises upon which to base a little critical thinking, but when the German propaganda machine seeks to convince other people of the justice of its cause by translating such rubbish into the languages of the countries it is hoped to reach, the result becomes laughable. Lamar Middleton in the "Living Age" makes that point in dealing with the failure of German propaganda literature in the United States to obtain that space in American newspapers it would like to secure. The writer says: "The reason for the blunders by the German Government, in so far as export propaganda to the United States is concerned, is not difficult to trace though it remains difficult to explain. The English language articles...
perfectly suited to the Nazi press this country (America). Their strident tone—the anti-Semitism, the "Aryan" incantations, the deifications of Adolf and all the rest of it—are entirely suited to the German language "Deutscher Weckruf und Beobachter" of New York, the weekly of the same language in Chicago, the "Weckruf" of Los Angeles and other official Nazi organs in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The evident and inane assumption in Berlin must be that if such material in this form is desirable copy for these publications, in literal English translation it is equally suitable for the American Press." It is on such assumptions that Germany is going wrong. Domestically abuse of the enemy might suit the German book, but abroad it only inspires an amused disgust, and helps to strengthen the conviction that even in Germany itself it is but the Government whistling to maintain the courage of a people faced with the disaster of war, and the virtual certainty of defeat. Hence the hysteria. H
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.