Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, MARCH 31, 1941. NAZI AND BRITISH WAYS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 March 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, MARCH 31, 1941. NAZI AND BRITISH WAYS.

TN a. broadcast, talk not long ago, Mr J. B. Priestley made a vigorous demand for a more, robust note in British wai pn )- licity? He did not, of course, advocate any exaggeration or distortion of facts, but suggested, amongst other things, that it s about-time we had a few articles hinting at the. strange, unpleasant things we have prepared for Hitler’s dejected, mooncalf louts scattered between the Arctic Sea and the Pyrenees it thev should attempt conquest of this island (Britain).

Mr Priestley.denounced also some newspaper articles which, he said, always presented the Nazis as “mysterious, power!u wizards conjuring up new spells of doom.” This idea ol Nazi power, he added, “which their propaganda has encouraged, lias done them more good so far than all their dive-bombers and armoured divisions.” It is probably true that Britain has lost and is losing something by a ruling tendency to under-state what her own people and fighting forces have accomplished and to over-estimate the power of the enemy. . This sort of thing is to be traced in most instances to an ingrained habit ol caution, characterising, very often, those who are unsurpassed m the toughness of their resolution. In many statements, Air Churchill and other outstanding leaders obviously have been much mere concerned to put the nation and its fighting forces on guard against any possible slackening or neglect than to make out as good a war balance sheet, as might have been well warranted at a given time.

On numerous occasions, indeed, the potential power ol the Nazi war machine has been emphasised only less strongly by British statesmen than by “Truthful Joe” Goebbels and those who share with him the task of explaining to the world that Hitler and bis gang cannot be beaten. Reasonably as it may be criticised and resented on such grounds as Mr Priestley has stated, the ruling tendencies of British war publicity are not without their advantages and merits. The tendency to pass lightly over achievement and to paint, the enemy, always as formidable serves very well indeed so far as the British people themselves are concerned. The reason of course is that the British people are quite capable of speculating rather gloomily about, what, the enemy will do next and of preparing at the same time to smite that enemy as hard and heavily as possible at every opportunity.

There is not much doubt, however, that in foreign countries, not excluding the United States, the habitual moderation of British publicity and propaganda.'has done something to create false impressions regarding the relative strength, standing and achievements of the forces opposed in the ■war. M ith her admitted faults of under-statement in publicity and propaganda, however,.Britain has fallen into no such error as have the Nazis and Fascists in their propaganda policy of extravagant and unlimited falsehood. All the world today is alive to the staggering contrast between Mussolini’s bombast and the shattering and overwhelming defeats into which ho has led the Italian people. It is at least beginning to be believed that a. similar contrast will be made manifest before long between the pretensions and the performance of the principal Axis partner,

It is already one of the great and overshadowing facts of the war that the leaders of the, totalitarian dictatorships dare not let their people hear the truth and that their power is erected on. a cleverly-constructed, but precarious structure of lies. The weakness and perils of this policy, as if operated in the last war, have been exposed and condemned trenchantly by no less a person that Adolf Hitler. In “Alein Kampf,” after pointing out that Britain prepared her soldiers for “the terrors of war,” while German propaganda scoffed at the enemy, be wrote: —

Thus the English soldier could not even for a moment have the impression that his country had taught him the wrong facts, something which was unfortunately the case to such an extent with the German soldier that he finally rejected everything that came from this side as “swindle” and “bunk” —("Mein Kampf,” p. 235. Reynal and Hitchcock edition).

Hitler has not merely repeated the blunders of lying' propaganda made by his (predecessors of the' Great War, but has extended these blunders to an almost incredible degree. Anyone today who accepts at anything like its face value ait average sample of German war “news” or statement by Hitler or one ol his fellow-gangsters must be classed either as being considerably below the normal standard of intelligence, or as being cut off from access to accurate sources of information.

The difficulties by which the Nazis are faced in their attempts to suppress the truth are increasing from day to day. The disastrous defeat by the Greeks of the Italian counteroffensive in Albania has been followed by the capture of Keren and Harar —each event marking a long step towards the final and complete overthrow of Mnsolini’s African Empire —and now by another shattering defeat inflicted on the elusive Italian fleet by the British naval and air forces in the Mediterranean. At the same time the power of the British air offensive, strengthened not a little by increasing aid from the United States, is growing apace. Mr Churchill, too. cautiously as he avoids unduly optimistic prediction, has said that he hopes before many months are over to be able to declare that the Battle ol the Atlantic has been Avon decisively. There is much besides that makes the outlook gloomy for the Nazis,

It is against this background that Herr von Ribbentrop has had the hardihood to affirm that: “Germany and Italy have already won the war and the world will know it by the end ol I flit.”' Could there be any better example of the “swindle” and “bunk” of which Hitler wrote in “Mein Kampf”.’ If anything, British moderation and under-statemen! in war publicity will give added weight and effect everywhere to the actual events of the war, but the Nazi structure of lies is beginning to collapse upon its builders. There surely must be comparatively few people even in Germany today who do not know that the reported boast of the Nazi Foreign Minister has no reference whatever to the truth.