AUGUST 13, 1948
THE    CANADIAN    JEWISH    REVIEW
7
The Man Who Beat Goebbels With Russian Propaganda Wizardry
NAZIS IN POLAND STEAM TO DEATH 2,000,000 JEWS
It began exactly two months and three days after the German army had marched against Russia. A voice cut in on the news broadcast of the Deutschlandsen-der� � the biggest station of the Third Reich. ~ ~
The German announcer had Just reported that a certain number of Russian planes had been shot down on that particular day. And as he paused for breath,. the strange voice broke in with: "All shot down on the desk of the Propaganda Ministry in Berlin".
The Voice proceeded to ridicule every statement the Nazi announcer made. It told the German radio audience that it was listening to lies and that no one In his right mind would believe them.
The staff of the Deutschland-sender betame frantic. They stopped sending news, they put on musical selections. But as soon as the announcer tried to sneak in news again, speaking at top speed, there was that Voice again, cutting in when the Nazi paused for breath, speaking as clearly as ever.
Finally, the Deutschlandsender had to sign off and ask the public to tune in on its local stations.
This was the start. Here, for the first time, was an attack on Dr. Goebbels's own ground, carried out with his own weapons and methods.
The fl^st few days of the Voice, it was /hot even dear where it came from. When Kya* finally discovered that the "Voice came from Moscow, London baptized it *4van the Terrible." Another name was '�Mike, the Mad Russian.0 Still another was "The Ghost"
It would have been more correct to name the Voice Solomon Abramovich Lozovsky* Not that he L      ""   was interfering  every
By Curt HI
ber of other languages well enough to make.. himself understood.
All this helped him enormously when he started his propaganda war with Goebbels. The little Nazi
knows hardly anyming about the masses outside of Germany. His propaganda has always, been shaped according to the very clever theories of Hitler, who in "MeLn Kampf" laid down the most important directives on how to influence people. Goebbels's propaganda, thus, is a propaganda based on theories.
Lozovsky, once he took over, shaped his propaganda according to personal experiences, his personal knowledge of the little people of Europe whom he was addressing. Lozovsky understood that In moments of great stress and almost unendurable tension, the very personal propaganda, the man-to-man Influence, may be more effective than all the cleverly concocted recipes.
Immediately after the war began, Lozovsky and his staff began to gather together all the private papers that were found oh prisoners of war or on the dead in the battlefields. He spent night after night going through these papers and making himself familiar with each type of person in whose pockets they were found: his family, his and their Interests, worries, hopes. He found lots of letters from home, for instance:
"My dear Rolf: Just nowpabout lunch time, I have received your princely gift of 31 eggs. You cannot Imagine how happy I was. I have eaten not less than five at once and gave Monica one, _too. And then we even had salad � just think of It! So for once we had a square meal . .
Or a letter  from Ruhr district:
VW wlrtc* rnfte iMaonths of its eJJMence, hai'alreauf proved that German propaganda is no more invincible than the German army..
S. A. Lozovsky was at that time, and still is, the Vlce-Commlssar for Foreign Affairs, and MolotoVs right-hand man. He serves as spokesman to the  foreign corre*
- spondents for Stalin and Molotov. The correspondents, incidentally, have not always been too happy with him because he knows how to dodge questions he does not want to answer; Uut journalists admit that he's never told them a lie. Furthermore, he is also in charge of censorship of foreign dispatches, which renders him even more unpopular with the foreign press.
Lozovsky is 63 years old, but he doesn't look it. He is of middle height and rather slim. His graying hair Is peeked back over a nigh forehead. His face is dominated by dark, extremely lively eyes and a keen, energetic nose. Mouth and chin are hidden by a tittle Van Dyke beard of which he is very fond.
He Is one of the few prominent Communists who came from the lower tliiafs He had to work hard all his Ufe. When he was a boy of eight he helped support his family.
During the years following the Revolution, he worked almost exclusively in the Soviet trade-union movement He made trips aft over Europe seeking to augment the Influence of Communists In the various trade unions.
This constant contact with men and women of many different nationalities developed in him an intimate understanding of their Ideas, of their goals, even of their lh?le. everyday worries and joys. It made Lozovsky the only important Communist who really anew something about the little people of Western Europe.
Incidentally, it also helped him to acquire fluency in many foreign languages. He speaks German and French without an accent he speaks English and Spanish almost faultlessly, and quite a nurn-
Wpe-A etfcJNf wont of*. I have to go to work and 1 can hardly move. Bow I shall stand it I don't know . . .**
Or: "I don't know what to write you. I do not wish to lie, yet If I told you the truth, it would only be depressing. Mother Is weak. She spends most of the day in lines tor food. Yet for months past we have not seen butter, we have forgotten how It tastes or what eggs look like .. . We once wanted a child, do you remember? How happy I am that we- have none
It is on such material that Lo-zovf ky has based his broadcasts to Germany. These broadcasts cannot be termed general propaganda. They have been, indeed, very per^ onal messages to existing persons in Germany, to th* wives, brides, mothers or sisters of prisoners or soldiers, who have fallen.
To give just one example, there was the case of Frau Mohrmann. of Berlin, Charlottenburg, Fasa-nenstrasse 16. Lozovsky knew from her son, who had been captured, and from the letters they had found upon him, that old Herr Mohrmann was ill, (hat the doctor had ordered good, nourishing food for him, and that his wife could not get it.
So a broadcast to Frau Mohrmann personally was arranged. It started by saying that the speaker did not know whether she was listening, but if any neighbor was listening, he might bring her to the radio; or if this were impossible, some of her friends might tell her afUrwards. And then it proceeded . . . "Go round to the Horcher Restaurant Martin Luther Strasse . . . There you will finoV several dozen Nazi bosses eating what a man Hke your husband needs; s good juicy steak or a fine veal cutlet nice tender fish, asparagus and fruit salad with real cream. Go there, Frau Mohrmann but take fifty Reichsmarks with you, because that is what a meal will cost you at Horcher'a But we are sorry. We forget that fifty Reichsmarks exceed the weekly wage of your husband . . .
Lozovsky very often addresses mothers or wives of fallen soldiers,
telling them that the amulet that Hans wore Is in his, Lozovsky's, hands, or that the photos Fritz treasured so much are in Lozovsky's safekeeping, and that he will take good care of them until the war Is over and he can send them to those unfortunate women. Sometimes he gets prisoners before the microphone to talk to their friends and relatives in Germany. They say that they are decently treated, that they have enough food, and that their camp is quite comfortable, that they are glad they are prisoners; and they advise their comrades to desert as soon as possible, because what's the use of fighting for Hitler's glory, since the Fuehrer isn't interested In the welfare df his own people.
A war of words? It is more than words. It is a very interesting and very successful attempt to set human values against propaganda doctrines. Goebbels has only one goal, to assure the continuance of the Hitler regime. That means that his propaganda must assure everybody that everybody is happy about Hitler, and that Hitler Is winning the war�-no matter what the truth is. Lozovsky can counteract that by simply telling the truth, which is that everybody In Germany is not happy at all, and everybody is hoping that this war will end soon. And, Incidentally, that Hitler Is not going to win this war. Goebbels must tell the people how they should feel. Lozovsky just tells them how they are feeling.
The InterruptibAs of German news broadcasts staged by th* Voice, and the broadcasts from person to person, are only part of Lozovsky's huge propaganda program.  Very important, too. Is an*
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(Continued from Page One) Treblinka,  Poland, for the extermination of Jews.   In   this place alone, it is said, the Germans have killed 2,000,000 persons.
The account of the executions opens with an announcement the Germans pinned up on the station where the vlcUms arrive:
"You may be easy in yom mind as to your future," the notice read. "You are going to the east
lowing answer: "If the Fuehrer says that his troops have taken Stalingrad, it is undoubtedly true. The Fuehrer never lies. The strange thing he forgot to mention, however, Is that those troops Which took Stalingrad disappeared rather suddenly once they were Inside the city. In any case, those troops did nothing to prevent Russian troops stationed In the city from continuing their fight against German troops still outside the city. This is a strange mix-up, and one must forgive the Fuehrer if he doesn't follow up these details."
In the meantime, the interruptions of the German broadcasts continue. And there have also been equally disturbing interruptions of Radio Roma, and of'the Sofia station.
Until the last days of August, 1941, Goebbels seemed as Invincible as the German army. Since then the German army has spent two rather uncomfortable Winters ' in Russia. Like the German army, Goebbels, too, has found his match in Russia. In S. A. Lozovsky he has finally encountered a man who understands as well as Goebbels himself that In our times a propagandist must be a fighter, for today propaganda means war.
This article Is from This' Week.
to work and your wives will have care of your household. Before you leave you must have a bath and your clothing must be deloused. Your property will be restored to you In proper condition."
Men, women and chUdreh "comply with the order for disrobing and then, states Polish Labor Fights, comes the first scene in the last act of the Treblinka tragedy. The article continues:
"Children with women go first, urged on by whips of the Germans. Faster and faster they are driven and thicker and thicker fall the blows on heads paralyzed with terror and pain. The silence of the woods Is shattered by the screams of women and the oaths of Germans.
"The victims now realize their doom Is near. At the entrance of the death house the No. 1 chief himself drives them to cells, freely using a whip. The floor of the cell is slippery. Some fall and are unable to rise because of the pressure of those behind. Small children are flung over the heads of the women.
'When the cells are filled they are closed and sealed. Steam is forced through apertures and suffocation of the victims begins. At first cries can be heard but these gradually subside and after fifteen minutes ail is silent. The execution is over.
"When the trap is opened to let the bodies drop down they fall in a compact mass, stuck together by the beat and steam, Cold water Is sprayed on them with a hose after which the grave diggers pile the corpses on a platform like the carcasses of slaughtered animals.
"Often a gravedigger b too weak to carry two bodies, as ordered, so he ties arms or legs together and runs to the burial ground, dragging them behind him.
"The execution of men is carried out in the same way. They are driven along the same path through the woods. On their way to death the reactions of the victims differ. Some blaspheme, but are eventually are silenced by. blows. J 2
"At times not all victims can be squeezed Into the death cells at once and those remaining are kept near the house of death. They can
see and hear all that takes, place but are so numbed in their senses that there U no sign of the Instinct of self preservation.
"This Is clear proof of the condition to which they have been reduced by ill treatment and starvation."
CONFERENCE WORKS TO EVACUATE JEWS
(Continued from Page One)
economist said that the exodus L'uuki be accomplished by using-railroads and highways from the Nazi-occupied countries to Turkey. Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, from which the evacuated Jews could then be transferred to Palestine and other AHled territory. He said that the plan also called for use'- of all neutral shipping now idle in American porta
It has already been reported In the Review that at a recent session; m connection with the Conference, Louis D. Caplane, head of the New York bureau of the Norwegian Journal of Commerce and Shipping, said that sufficient shipping was available In the Mediterranean to move .25,000 Jews out of Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary.
The executive committee also elected several co-chairmen and vice-chairmen of the Emergency Committee. Co-chairmen elected were Thothas J. Watson, Dr. Max Lerner, Representative Win Rogers, Jr., Sigrid Undset, Ben. Hecht and Peter Bergson. Vice-chairmen elected were Dean AJfange, Representative Andrew Somera, Jo Davidson, former Representative William S. Bennet Lisa Sergie, Fletcher Pratt Dean George, W. Matheson, Dr. Francis E. Mac-Mahon, Oscar Ehrhom. D a v i d Bookstaver, Konrad Bercovicl and Dr. William.
Hebrew has been included in the official list of modem languages for Wihlch examinations may be'   / taken by the Army trainees at Ohio State University.
Six new settlements, covering an area of more than 18,000 dunams, have been established in Palestine during the past six months.
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stined for the Gerssan soldiers and < their Axis Allies, the Hungarians^' the Rumanians, etc These safe-conducts, printed in several languages, tell the recipient that all he has to do is fin in his name on the dotted line and go over lu the Russians. If he shows the safe-conduct he will not be shot at and will be treated as a friend. He will have a good time in a camp until the war is over. There is also the Feldzeitung (camp newspaper) � a weekly- printed in and for German prison camps, showing how the Russians treat their prisoners, publishing photos of prisoners playing chess or cards, and also detailed accounts of their dairy rives written by the prisoners themselves. These, too, are dropped over the German lines.
One other important difference between Russian and German propaganda broadcasts is the sense of humor � and this is said to be Lozovsky's own contribution � which characterizes the Russian broadcasts. There have been, for instance, wonderful imitations of Goebbels and of Hitler himself, over the Russian radio. The Russians have found voices that resembled those of the German leaders to an alai using degree. The texts of those broadcasts are. of course, sheer parody. To quote from one by a burlesque Hitler: MI promised you that this year would be the decisive one. but I wont let myself be disturbed by Bolshevik propagandists: I will make this war last as long as I like, and if I say it will last thirty years, it will last thirty years. You know my patience ... I will carry on this war down to the last German. Don't let us be influenced by defeatists who say that this war wttl not last forever. That is foreign propaganda. German soldier* will die for me and not for tfeos* foreigners. And when eight million have died. I will take all the responsibility . . ."
In November. 1M2. the days following Hitler's speech in Berlins Sportpalast (in which he claimed that his troops had taken Statin-grad). Lozovsky   devised the fol-
"How Ion a is 3 weeks, Ivan ?
� Hitler boasted he would smash Russia in three weeks . . . Ivan's courage, resourcefulness and sighting skiU have already spun those three weeks into a third year.
What is three weeks ... what is Tune itself to Ivan but a succession of mirmtrs, each one marked by the mil of s Nazi soldier.
We have helped Ivan destroy Hitler's time-fable by sending planes, tanks, guns, shells, food. It is a proud thing to share even a little in Russia's triumph to this hour.
We who make higb-proof alcohol for the smokeless powder in Ivan's high explosives also have a special way of measuring Time, In our plants, wholly converted to war production, we mark the passing of each hour by the thousands of gallons of high-proof alcohol Bowing from our giant stills. Three weeks, three months, three years ... it will go on lowing until the last Axis soldier has laid down either his body or his arms . . . ia
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