1934. Nazi Germany's Propaganda Campaign in the United States

Nazis Aim to Manipulate American Opinion

"German American Bund parade in New York City on East 86th St. on October 30, 1939" (source)

These articles are part of a series of posts on how The New York Times covered the rise and fall of fascism. Soon after taking power, the Nazis fueled propaganda campaigns across Europe and the Americas in an effort to improve Germany's image abroad. Times correspondent Frederick T. Birchall wrote about the new regime's audacious plans to win over American public opinion.

From The New York Times, January 8, 1934, p. 9:

NAZIS BUILDING UP PROPAGANDA HERE

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American With Great Success in Manipulating Opinion is Seen as Directing Genius

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COSTLY MACHINE SET UP

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Publication Issued in Suburbs of the Big Cities to Convert Us to Hitlerism

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By FREDERICK T. BIRCHALL

BERLIN, Jan. 7 — The confidence with which the German Government expects American opinion to swing American officialdom to the German viewpoint in the matter of German debt manipulation and indeed all matters of controversy between the two countries is somewhat puzzling to an outsider.

It is in line with the confident assertion of Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, not long ago that it was not Germany that would change her attitude toward the Jewish question but Germany's foreign critics who would change theirs, and his further prediction that the tide of Nazi-ism which he saw rising beyond Germany's borders would soon sweep over other countries, not excepting the United States.

Such an attitude leads foreign observers to wonder on what the Nazi confidence is based.

The answer is likelier to be found in developments in the United States and other countries, news of which is to be seen from time to time in the foreign press but which is naturally lacking in the rigidly controlled organs of Nazi opinion, rather than here.

Silent on Spanknöbel

The American uprising against Heinz Spanknöbel, for instance, and his swift eclipse under the indictment that was not served because of his disappearance are quite unknown to the German masses, as is the appearance in New York with official credentials "from the Stahlhelm" of Captain Georg Schmitt of the Rhineland as Spanknöbel's successor.

Spanknöbel is understood to be safely back in Germany. That statement can be made on good American authority.

What the German public does read frequently is news of what is represented to be the spontaneous tendency toward Nazi-ism in America. Thus it sees portrayed in story and picture what appear to be huge Nazi meetings in New York and elsewhere, where "Heil Hitler!" is represented to be the watchword and anti-Semitism the keynote.

Nobody who really knows America is seriously taken in by this sort of thing, but it does raise the question, as do occasional copies that reach here of Nazified German-American publications issued in obscure suburbs of great cities such as New York and Chicago, as to what organization is behind such propaganda, who is financing it and who is guiding its efforts.

Propaganda Outlay Denied

Inquiries at official propaganda headquarters in Berlin and Munich invariably produce the official response, in line with the public declarations of Chancellor Hitler and other leaders, that Germany is not interested in any efforts to spread the Nazi gospel in other countries—except perhaps Austria—and is spending no money on it.

Nevertheless, this hardly gibes with missions like Spanknöbel's—although he was officially disowned when detected—and that of Schmitt following him. It also scarcely accounts for the steady stream of minor American publicists and college professors of German antecedents and sympathies to Berlin last Summer, their enthusiastic welcome in Nazi circles and their speedy and wholehearted acceptance of Nazi pretentions. Nor does it harmonize with the equally steady stream of Nazi propagandists to the United States. Such movements do not occur unorganized and unaided.

But whose is the guiding hand and whose brain is directing the movement is quite another matter and is not so easy to determine. The best opinion is that these must be sought in the United States rather than in Germany, no matter whence come the financial sinews of this propaganda war.

The movement also has the earmarks of more skillful direction than can be expected from the old-time newspaper warriors whom imperial Germany enlisted, although many of these are still stoutly doing their bit.

Two Visit Hitler

A former consul who swung a valiant pen for Germany in wartime and an expatriated Irishman, who together are now running a propaganda sheet on the outskirts of New York, were both here this Summer looking for funds for it. They descended upon Chancellor Hitler at Berchtesgaden amid a phalanx of Nazi propagandists and were well received. But whether they went back empty handed or not is a Nazi secret.

The movement to convert the United States to allegiance to the swastika, however, is a bigger and more skillfully directed one than the older war horses can be suspected of engineering. Expert opinion is inclined to attribute it to an American of wide experience and immense success in manipulating opinion, who paid a flying visit to Germany in the late Spring and departed leaving behind a trusted associate who is still here taking tea and mixing readily without an ostensible occupation. Naturally however, there is no public evidence of his activities.

Such professional aid is commonly rated as the most expensive that could be enlisted, but money is the smallest factor in Nazi calculations when there is a real object to be achieved. However poor Germany may be when it is a matter of paying commercial debts, German resources for propaganda and political purposes are apparently unlimited.

That is one of the paradoxes of the German situation which first puzzles and then enrages foreign creditors who believe their claims to be good and are now finding themselves mistaken.

"A crowd of approximately 20,000 attends a German American Bund Rally at New York's Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. At center is a large portrait of George Washington, claimed as an icon by the Bund, who called him 'the first Fascist,' claiming Washington 'knew democracy could not work.'" (source)

From The New York Times, March 12, 1934, p. 4:

NAZIS NOW STRIVE TO PROPITIATE US

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Heed Experts' Advice to Placate American Big Business by Dropping Propaganda Here

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MINISTRY LEARNS LESSON

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Goebbels's Department Will Concentrate on Reconciling World Opinion to Regime

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By FREDERICK T. BIRCHALL

BERLIN, March 11 — On Tuesday the German Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda will be one year old. It was created on March 13, 1933, by a decree of President von Hindenburg, who, on the recommendation of Chancellor Hitler made Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels its head. He was then the Nazi leader for the Berlin district, the party's most popular spellbinder and one of Herr Hitler's closest friends and collaborators.

Next to the Chancellor, Dr. Goebbels is now the strongest force in Germany. More than on any other single factor does the success of the Nazi regime depend upon his efforts. His ministry might truly be termed "the power house of the Third Reich."

The development of this ministry, a novelty in official government departments, until its influence is now almost boundless is highly important to the outside world and to the United States in particular for a special reason.

Were Ignorant of Outside World

It is now fairly well known that when the National Socialist regime assumed power it was manned almost wholly by men who knew nothing of the world outside Germany. There were Ministers—not Nazis—like Baron Constantin von Neurath and Dr. Alfred Hugenberg and officials like Dr. Hjalmar Schacht who did not labor under this handicap, but their influence in emergencies was not great against the sweep of triumphant Nazi theory and unlimited Nazi power.

So naturally mistakes were made. The effect of their sum was to array the outside world solidly against the new Germany. To all intents the rest of the world is still so arrayed.

But if there is one notable characteristic of this regime it is its efficiency, which naturally implies some willingness to learn. The Nazis, and particularly the Department of Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment, are learning. As proof there is the recent decision to devote a very large share of the Ministry's activities to reconciling world opinion to Nazi dominance.

In that effort the United States looms as the most important nation. As a preliminary to action there the Ministry has obtained the best expert advice, and then, having obtained it, action is being taken to put into practice. The Berlin correspondents have seen evidence of this in the past few weeks in many quite notable instances.

The Advice That Was Given

The burden of the good advice, there is reason to believe, was that the first step in reconciling American opinion to the established fact of Nazi dominance would be to drop all attempts to Nazize the American people. As long as the Spanknöbels and their minor adherents were encouraged or even permitted to operate there, Germany, it was indicated, might be sure of continuing hostility. The real task before the German Nazi regime as far as the United States was concerned was to reconcile big business to that regime, and nothing would be more deterrent to that job than an implied intention to extend the Nazi doctrines to America.

German economic success is actually bound up with American interests here. To say nothing of the German private debt to America, there are operating in Germany on a large scale some of the largest American business corporations, ranging from the Standard Oil Company, the United States Shipping Lines and the Woolworth Stores to innumerable specialty manufacturers and some of the great American banks.

The hostility of these institutions would be a highly important factor in the absolutely necessary revival of German industrial welfare, compared with which the chance of converting the United States to Hitlerism pales into significance.

The advice has been heeded and the new regime starts its second year upon a fresh and more wholesome line of endeavor. Henceforth it seems probable that less will be heard about Nazi propaganda in the United States.

Publications Here Likely to Go

Such childish efforts as the publication of little clipsheets glorifying Hitlerism and abusing its critics are likely to disappear for lack of German nourishment, and while that will have a certain effect upon the earnings of several worthy young Americans who maintain a precarious existence on the edge of journalism, it will help bring about a better understanding of the new Germany where the most good can be achieved.

The power of Dr. Goebbels's Ministry may be realized from the fact that it controls all political propaganda, both at home and abroad; the German radio, in which it has a complete monopoly of national broadcasting and exploits it to the limit; the entire German press, which has been regimented and brought into complete harmony, both as to personnel and material, with the requirements of the government; the entire film industry, which is under complete censorial supervision, directed always with an eye to propaganda; and the theatre, music and art, which are ruled by thirteen subministries, all coordinated under its direction.

It has a special section devoted to combating the "campaign of lies" abroad, especially the "monstrous Jewish agitation" alleged to be inspired by émigrés. And recently it has taken upon itself the direction of the new campaign to reconcile world opinion to the new Nazi Germany.

Remarkable Efficiency

Its efficiency in all these matters thus far has been something at which even a trained newspaper man might well marvel. For example, it can reach the entire German press within two hours with an order commanding the publication of a certain piece of information or, conversely, for the suppression of a certain piece of news.

It dominates the stage and the movies absolutely regardless of any agreements to which the producers may be committed and gets its wishes fulfilled regardless of public opinion but with a minimum of disturbances and friction. In organizing its power displays it has proved itself the world's superlative showman.

The personality of Dr. Goebbels, who some two years ago was virtually unknown outside Germany, dominates the Ministry's every activity, and his possession of what amounts to genius in mass appeal is the chief factor in its success. Incidentally, his oratory, next to Chancellor Hitler's, is still the National Socialist party's most valuable asset, and he is never chary about contributing it to give a little additional savor to a notable celebration.

1969. President Nixon's Vietnamization Program

"Vietnamizing the War"

President Nixon meets with soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division at Dĩ An in South Vietnam, July 30, 1969 (source)

From The Christian Science Monitor, December 17, 1969, p. 1:

New Nixon Formula

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Expectation of military success by South Vietnam replaces the old-time optimism for U.S. victory

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By SAVILLE R. DAVIS

The United States Government has exchanged one kind of optimism for another in conducting its policy on Vietnam. It used to be very hopeful about its military prospects. But these proved delusive last year, for anything more than keeping the enemy at bay.

Now it is showing fresh optimism about the military prospects for the Army of South Vietnam, which the United States is training and equipping for self-defense. The Nixon policy for withdrawal chiefly depends on the success of that program. Success is taken for granted in the highest official circles.

Optimism seen

In the past few days, these statements have been made:

By President Nixon:

"I have a much more favorable report to give you . . . with regard to the training of South Vietnamese forces.

"Mr. Thompson's report, [made to the President by the British expert on Southeast Asia, Sir Robert Thompson], which I would describe as cautiously optimistic, is in line with the reports I have received from other observers and from our own civilian and military leaders in Vietnam."

By a White House source who cannot be quoted directly:

The President himself can be described as "cautiously optimistic."

By Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird:

"We have had great success this year in Vietnamizing the war.

"We are very pleased . . . that this program . . . is ahead of schedule.

"We are moving forward with our program to train pilots and helicopter crews; we are turning over artillery at an ever-increasing rate . . . We have a program to turn the logistic [operations] over to the South Vietnamese, and these programs are moving forward."

Question, by Bill Downs of ABC: "What happens if this Vietnamization program of yours falls apart?"

Mr. Laird: "I can assure you that this will not happen. Our program is a reasoned program. It is based on what our military leadership feels can be done, and what the South Vietnamese [forces] can do.

"I am confident on the basis of the best military advice that I can receive, from General Abrams, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and from the Vietnamization task force, which I meet with every day, that this program can succeed."

Rebuttal indicated

These White House and Pentagon statements were obviously made to rebut recent statements of doubt about the prospective success of the Vietnamization program. These were made by various spokesmen for the political Left, but especially by the senators who have opposed both the Johnson and Nixon policies. The division of opinion generally falls along ideological lines.

Since the White House has had a considerable success in the past two months, according to supporters and adversaries alike, in rallying support for the President's Vietnam policy, the President and his advisers have felt free to press their advantage and to argue their confidence in the Vietnamization program on which it depends.

The White House source, who may not be quoted directly, was the most restrained of the various administration spokesmen. After saying the President himself was "cautiously optimistic," the source continued: We are eager to avoid overoptimism. Any insider knows that events can upset plans.

In particular he said that if the present rate of infiltration—which is several times greater than a few months ago but still substantially short of a year ago—should continue for several months more at the present rate, it would be clear that the enemy was building his forces up and not merely replacing losses. In that event the United States would take a fresh look at the intentions of Hanoi.

But this source made it clear that Hanoi had not, as of now, taken any steps which would cause the president to interrupt the withdrawal of 50,000 more troops that he has scheduled between now and April 15. When the President warned Hanoi not to carry either the infiltration or the fighting too far, the White House source said that we are talking about a very great effort by the other side, far beyond what now exists.

This source rejected all efforts to pin the President down to a particular timetable for withdrawal, beyond April 15. We have a group constantly analyzing the situation, he said, and we will keep modifying our judgments as events develop.

Then he came as close as anyone in the administration has to moderating the prevailing optimism with a dash of realism. The problem does not depend on a hypothetical timetable, he said, but on how the policy works.

1949. Debate Over Cardinal Mindszenty's Sentencing in Budapest

Basic Political Debate in Berlin

Cardinal József Mindszenty, Archbishop of Esztergom, is freed at the end of October 1956 after eight years in prison (source)

Bill Downs

CBS Berlin

February 9, 1949

The sentencing of Cardinal Mindszenty in Budapest has provoked this morning a basic political debate in Berlin.

The German Communist press asks: "Why is everyone so excited . . . it is not because thousands of innocent fighters for freedom were shot in Greece without proper trials . . . but because one man, who confessed his guilt, now has to serve a prison term."

Cardinal Preysing, the Bishop of Berlin, charges that the Mindszenty case is an attack against the fundamental rights of humanity, against the rights of conscience and against Christianity.

In Frankfurt yesterday someone painted a sign on a Catholic church there saying: "Free Max Reimann." Reimann is a leader of the Ruhr communists who last week was sentenced to three months imprisonment for threatening Western sector politicians working with the occupation powers.

Last night someone added a note on the church wall: "What about freeing Mindszenty?" the sign said.

The main committee of the constitutional convention in Bonn has agreed to propose that Berlin become a separate province in the new West German state now in the making.

West Germany already is divided up into eleven Länder, or provinces. A proposal, if adopted by the constitutional convention, to jump over one hundred miles of Soviet zone and designate Berlin as the twelfth province presents a delicate diplomatic problem to the Western powers.

German politicians reason that since blockaded Berlin is under the control of America, Britain, and France—just as the three zones of Western Germany—that it is logical Berlin be incorporated into their new government, subject to the same constitution and sending delegates just as do the other provinces.

And some German politicians see the move as another way to further commit the Western powers in their anti-Communist stand in Berlin, a stand upon which the survival here of democratic politics depends.

This is Bill Downs in Berlin. Now back to CBS in New York.

1939. State-Sponsored Press Controls Public Opinion in Nazi Germany

The Nazi Press Mobilized in the Service of a Totalitarian Regime

"'Gleichgestaltet'—The Nazi Press, like all other avenues of information in Germany, has been mobilized in the service of the totalitarian regime."

This article is part of a series of posts on how newspapers covered the rise of fascism.

From The New York Times, January 15, 1939, pp. 4, 23:

CHANNELING THE NEWS FOR NAZIS

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How the Government, Through the Press, Influences Thought in a Common Direction

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By JUNIUS B. WOOD

Germans are avid newspaper readers, and their "newsboys" are many. On city street corners one sees men and women, each in uniform and cap supplied by some newspaper selling the latest editions. Day and night and in any kind of weather other "newsboys" make their rounds, trudging on foot or cycling from one cafe to another and finding customers.

But Germans, eager as they are for news, have difficulty in satisfying their curiosity about what is going on in the world outside. For their government, through its controlled press and radio, tells them only what it wants them to know and in a way to influence their thoughts in a common direction.

A set formula is consistently followed. Every day the newspapers are informed on government policy. They receive and follow instructions on what to print about it. In addition, they get the report of the official news agency, the Deutsche Nachrichten Bureau, whose version must be used—in part, if the editor chooses—for decrees, speeches and many other things. A speech by Adolf Hitler, for example, cannot be reported freely; it must be transcribed, approved by the speaker, and then released by the official agency.

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As that agency recently put it, in a time of international crisis the German press, radio and all avenues of information should be mobilized, like the army and industry. It should not, by any indiscretion, embarrass the home officials responsible for negotiations. In brief, the Fuehrer must at all times be depended upon to decide what is to be printed, and how, and when.

In the Third Reich, therefore, when a citizen is unsatisfied with his morning paper account of an important political happening he does not—as he might in a democracy—rush out to find what a rival paper is saying. He can be certain that all German papers are printing the same thing.

He may wait until noon, when foreign newspapers arrive from London, Paris, Switzerland, Holland or the Scandinavian countries, to get a less stereotyped version and form his own estimate of happenings. But this method has limitations. The citizen may find that street sales of the foreign paper he wants to buy have been banned, either temporarily or permanently.

At least two papers from New York, four from Switzerland, two from England, three from Paris, one from Sweden and possibly others are under the permanent ban. If the citizen asks for one not on this list, a whispered "verboten" from the newsboy may inform him that it has been suppressed because of an article in that day's issue.

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The usual method, then, of satisfying one's curiosity is to talk with neighbors or, in a more cautious way, with strangers in a restaurant or street car. "What have you heard?" has become a substitute for the "I saw in the paper" of most other countries. The amount of news that circulates by word of mouth is amazing and, as might be supposed, so well embroidered in the repeating that it is nearly impossible to distinguish between fact and fiction.

"What does the Strasbourg radio say?" may be safely asked if one knows one's informant fairly well. That station across the border broadcasts its news report in German as well as French.

Or, "Did you hear the Moscow radio?" may even be asked among close friends. The Moscow sender talks to the world in many languages, its messages varying accordingly. Science has not found a away to keep it out of the air over Germany, nor has it been possible to enforce completely the law punishing anyone who listens to it. How it gets its information is a mystery, but it often is up to the minute with names, addresses and timing on incidents that have happened in Germany only a few hours past.

There is one other method of getting uncensored accounts of political happenings. It is to accept the clandestine newspapers which uncaptured Socialists and Communists run off in secret printing plants.

Germans who depend entirely on the regular press for their news get a great deal of staid and serious information. Some dailies specialize in finance and trade. Nearly all devote much space to editorials and to a wide variety of subjects including such as books, architecture, the theatre and the latest fashions.

A Berlin newspaper will have about eight department editors, who also do the reporting. It may have several times as many correspondents abroad or in cities. The sports editor covers the best sports event of the day and the official news agency covers the others. Other editors will cover courts, city affairs, police and other "runs" in much the same manner.

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No single subject, however, gets as much space as in a large American newspaper, and details are often lacking. A report of an airplane accident, for instance, says six were killed but gives no names. And some of the news appears to come from odd places. On a recent day a "cable" giving Argentina's reaction to the Pan-American Conference at Lima came from Milan, in Italy. On the same day the funeral of Kemal Atatürk in Turkey was described in a telegram from Paris. A dispatch from London told of a fire in California. A dispatch ostensibly from New York told of a lynching in Mississippi under the caption "Humanity"—a suggestion of the official agency which was carried by all newspapers.

One might get the impression from the papers that German Government and party officials devoted all their time to dedicating new buildings, receiving tributes from the populace or their colleagues, or issuing decrees and making speeches.

The Völkischer Beobachter, the Hitler and party organ published by Alfred Rosenberg, and Der Angriff, the Goebbels publication, may be taken as the most official of Berlin newspapers. (The Beobachter is published also in Munich, Vienna and Cologne.) On a recent morning more than one-fifth of what was classed as news in the Beobachter consisted of speeches by party leaders, and more than a quarter of all the reading matter was about Jews, the principal topic at the time. In the Angriff, on the afternoon of the same day, two-fifths of the news was a speech by Propaganda Minister Goebbels, and there were reports of other speeches.

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Two methods frequently used, in the interest of Nazi policy, are the suppression, delay or distortion of important news and the directing of a bitter press campaign against some foreign nation.

The editors often direct their wrath at the newspapers of republics, referring to them as the "Hetze-Presse" (baiting press). Thus, in the issue of the Angriff just referred to, the headline across the front page over a cable from New York was "Murder Baiting in the U. S. A. Against the Third Reich." Yet the German press itself almost always seems to have a "Hetze" on about happenings in one foreign land or another.

Russia, with its communism, is standing material for a German "Hetze." Czecho-Slovakia, at the time of the Sudeten issue, felt the "Hetze" in extreme measure. So did Great Britain a little later. After a group of Rumanian Nazis, called the Iron Guardists, were killed by their Rumanian guards, the direct "Hetze" was withheld for political reasons; instead the press reprinted only foreign comment attacking the shootings—a sort of reflected "Hetze" for which Germany was not primarily responsible. At the present time the "Hetze" is turned against the United States.

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For an understanding of how the German press works let us trace some events beginning with the Czech-Slovakian crisis.

The first of two messages from President Roosevelt during that crisis, containing a general admonition for peace, was delayed from twenty-four to forty-eight hours in Germany. Before it appeared, "in part," Chancellor Hitler at a Berlin mass meeting declared his hopes for peace. The delay deprived Mr. Roosevelt of any "scoop" in Germany on the peace idea—as Minister Goebbels later explained was intended.

The second message, in which Mr. Roosevelt laid on the Fuehrer the responsibility for peace or war, was not published in German papers, although it was in the foreign papers that entered Germany.

Moreover, the mobilization of the British fleet toward the end of the crisis, which might have dampened the German ardor for forcible measures, missed press mention.

After the Czecho-Slovak crisis came the concerted outbreak through Germany of window-smashing, store-wrecking and synagogue-burning on Nov. 10, following the shooting of a German diplomat in Paris by a young Jew named Grynszpan. Newspapers in other countries gave great space to the details, but the Berlin papers printed only vague accounts.

The next morning a ninety-word statement from Minister Goebbels appeared, together with a 175-word official news agency explanation of the reasons for the "spontaneous national uprising." These statements were unaccompanied by any details or summary of what had happened in the country. Outside of Berlin a few newspapers carried local stories, and the official agency sent out a report for use abroad—but not inside Germany. In the official New Year's summary which every newspaper printed of history-making events in Germany in 1938 there was no mention of the outburst; the event recorded for German history on Nov. 10 was the death of the President of Turkey.

Every one in Berlin had seen some part of the property destruction, and in the absence of adequate newspaper accounts the news traveled swiftly by word of mouth. Within twenty-four hours after Field Marshal Hermann Göring had decreed a 1,000,000,000-reichsmark penalty against the Jews for the Grynszpan crime every one who had ventured out of doors had heard the latest.

"Who is the greatest alchemist the world?" was the question.

"Göring," was the answer, "because he made a billion in gold out of Gruenspan." (Gruenspan, the German spelling for Grynszpan, as a common noun means verdigris.)

•     •     •

Some German newspapers attempted to connect Winston Churchill and others with the Paris assassination. The British Minister to Berlin made a formal protest. The papers did not report it. Instead, they turned their guns toward America, and the "Hetze" against the United States was on in a mild way. The reaction of American newspapers toward the Nov. 10 "uprising," expressing sorrow or horror at what they regarded as a German lapse from civilized law and order, was attributed to Jewish influence and, it was said, justified further repression.

The departure of the American commercial attaché from Berlin, following the return home of the American Ambassador, went unreported. Several American Congressmen who had criticized the "uprising" came in for a baiting, however, although the German readers were not told what they had said.

Then Secretary of Interior Ickes made his Cleveland speech in criticism of the affair and the "Hetze" reached its boiling point. A large scrapbook could be filled with attacks on Mr. Ickes made by the press in recent weeks. These may have puzzled German readers, for the reason that Mr. Ickes's sharpest digs were not printed.

•     •     •

The facts that the German Embassy in Washington made a protest against the Ickes remarks, and that this protest was promptly rejected by the State Department, were not printed here until ten days later, and then without the most pointed comments in the rejection. The newspapers contended that if Mr. Ickes had stayed in his office at Washington instead of making speeches the recent drug company and smuggling scandals in New York could not have occurred. Just how the Secretary of the Interior could have stopped these activities which did not fall in the jurisdiction of his department was not explained.

Both scandals got a big play in the German papers. The fact that several Jews were named in the smuggling case was always kept in the headlines, while the fact that the principals in the drug-company swindle were of Italian ancestry was ignored—for news must harmonize with politics.

Press sermonizing, it seemed, was sometimes more important than the facts. One could read in a German newspaper that Mr. Ickes is a United States Senator, or that Benjamin Franklin was a former President. Senator Pittman, who recently said that the American public did not like the German or Japanese Governments, was advised in the German press to go West to get the sentiment of real Americans—although he could not move many miles in that direction from his State of Nevada without reaching the Pacific.

•     •     •

Along with the "Hetze" on the Jewish issue has gone a campaign against American efforts to build Pan-American solidarity against totalitarian encroachment. Before the Lima conference the German newspapers devoted space to the reputed sinister intentions of the United States in the western continent. The outcome of the conference was described in the German press as a fiasco for Washington.

Unlimited theorizing is possible on the effect of all this on the German people. In a country where newspapers express different views the people think and argue and are free to form their own conclusions. In Germany the older generation—among trusted friends—expresses and argues its opinions quietly. The younger generation is being trained to follow the party line and never to question. Nazis believe that this is the only method to create a united nation which will fulfill the slogan: "One leader! One people! One Germany!"