Propagandists in Trouble
For the Nazis propaganda has always been so important an element in war that- we are justified in finding some significance in its recent somersaults and confusing contradictions. However varied it may have been during the first three years of war, it was always marked by assurance and arrogance. Latterly it has jumped from jubilation to mourning, from offensive megalomania to appeals to defensive patriotism, and has alternated between candid admis- sions of disaster and reiterated assertions of strength. Germany has, been shown no longer as the dominant race, but as the forlorn hope of culture defending Europe against aggression. The German people have been called upon to wail for the martyrs of Stalingrad and the suffering face of the Fiihrer. There have been quick changes of front as mistakes in the reading of mass psychology have been realised. Only last Saturday Goebbels admitted that the sacrifices of the " flower of our youth on the battlefield " were almost equalled by those due to the air raids at home, and talked of the shambles of Essen, Dortmund, Bochum and other towns in the west. A day or two later the German News Agency, seeking to discount the effects . of Goebbels' speech, asserted that air war has only damaged the fringe of the German war-potential. Again, General Dittmar, put up to broadcast his weekly review, has been insisting on the purely defensive strategy now to be pursued in Russia. But immediately the propagandist tactics changed. General Dittmar is declared to be expressing his own opinion only. Yesterday the U-boat policy was failing ; today it is triumphant again. Thus the propagandist machine turns from one contradiction to another. There is uncertainty, fumbling, vacillation. The psychology department is not working well.
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