POISON GAS LIE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 November 1939, Page 5

POISON GAS LIE

STILL BEING CIRCULATED BY NAZIS IN SPITE OF COMPLETE REFUTATION. "IMPUDENT AND TRANSPARENT FALSEHOOD.” (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.55 a in.) RUGBY. November 17. There appears lo be no cessation of the circulation by Nazi propagandists of the fabricated charge against Britain of having supplied poison yas which is alleyed to have been used against German soldiers in Poland. Although ti complete refutation of what Mr. Chamberlain described as “an impudent and transparent falsehood” has been given in official British statements, reports from various parts of the world show that Nazi agencies are still assiduously distributing leaflets repeating this lie. Their calculation must be—in accordance with Herr Hitler's theory of propaganda—that if a lie is repeated sufficiently often and with sufficient assurance. it will not bo overtaken by denial, however authoritative or convincing. Whatever may be true of Germany itself, that is certainly a miscalculation so far as neutral opinion is concerned. The stringency of the control of arms export by Britain has long been well-known abroad and the categorical statement that the Board of Trade records showed that no poison gas had been sent to Poland has therefore made a profound impression. Equally damaging to neutral credence in the German charge was a statement issued on October 23 by the Swiss professor whose original diagnosis of the condition of German soldiers he was invited to examine was used by the Nazis to lend verisimilitude to the story. Professor Staehelin significantly emphasised that he had “found no evidence indicating in what circumstances the poisoning had occurred."