PERSONALITIES IN THE WAR ON THE AIR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 27, 29 December 1939, Page 23

PERSONALITIES IN THE WAR ON THE AIR

HE war on the air has given strange jobs to strange people. From Germany, three Frenchmen talk to France. From England, a German talks to Germany. From Germany, report says that the Zeesen announcer is a German who taught school in England through an exchange system, and schoolboys are said to have recognised his voice. Pupils of Coatbridge secondary school in Scotland have given the name of "Lord Haw-Haw " to the German propaganda announcer. He is supposed to be Dr. Helmut Hoffman, German teacher, who visited Scotland two years ago on teachers’ exchange and taught German at Hamilton Academy, Dalziel High School (Motherwell), and at Coatbridge. Walter Rilla, one of pre-war Germany’s best known film and stage stars, announces German news bulletins for the BBC. Rilla played with Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon in " The Scarlet Pimpernel." With his family, Rilla left Germany some years ago. Young Rilla is at present at school in England. An English version of a French film, "Hell’s Cargo," gives Rilla senior another opportunity to make himself known to Englishspeaking film fans. He has the lead. Count Hans Huyn, formerly Press Attaché of the now defunct Austrian Legation in London, is another member of the BBC staff. From Stuttgart come Germany’s propaganda broadcasts in French. In charge is Paul Ferdonnet, a French journalist, who began an_ interesting career by "cooking" a university examination: and having himself stood down. In 1914, when the Germans entered eastern France, Ferdonnet produced for them the Gazette des Ardennes, a High Command publication ‘intended for the benefit of French population behind the German lines. Several minor convictions for fraud made his life interesting after War No. 1, but he managed to hold a job as Berlin correspondent for Action Francaise until the editor, Maurice Pujo, found that his copy came straight from the Wilhelmstrasse. Small, heavy, placid, but insistent, of peasant origin, but without culture, rather like a third-rate commercial traveller suffering from literary fever: this was Pujo’s description of the Ferdonnet who came back to France after the Berlin correspondent job to stand for election in the constituency of Poitou. He failed, so started writing books. Shortly before War No. 2, Ferdonnet returned to Germany and now supplies the brains for Zeesen while an Alsatian, Saint Germain, alias Obrecht, who now wears a Hitler moustache and remembers his dishonourable discharge from the French Army. of Occupation, for misappropriating regimental funds, supplies the voice. Obrecht has also been interested in films, but mainly as an extra for Berlin studios. His last job was in Quatre de L’Infanterie, a German film intended to tell France how peaceful were Germany’s intentions. Here he

worked with the Czech actress Lida Barova, once a favourite of Dr. Goeb= bels.