The various organizations set up in England with the aid of official Reich agencies to spread National Socialist propaganda and their methods are described in the current issue of “The New Statesman and Nation.”
The article reports there is a series of organizations with headquarters in London, sometimes boasting a considerable membership, and all, with one exception, supervised and controlled by the propaganda department of the German Embassy. It then describes a looser organization of individuals chosen to approach important people who would hesitate to take part in organized propaganda. For this method of individual approach about 120 well-trained German propagandists, mostly with University education, have been imported into England. They all speak fluent English and their job is to tackle individual cases. Finally, several thousand domestic servants have been allowed by the German Ministry of Labor to obtain work here, after coaching in the right questions to ask and the right answers to give while in England.
The specific organizations, according to the article, seek to provide suitable Nazi clubs for every social group and clique in England. Some specialize in students and organize German lessons, discussions groups, rambles and other social activities. Then there are clubs for business men. Here, diagrams are displayed to show how German industry has been booming in the last four years. A professor of German economics, who had come here to give a course of lectures, explained to his English audience that one of the characteristics of the Nazi regime is to foster private enterprise.
The most important of the organizations of Nazi propaganda, the article goes on, is the very respectable “link,” with reputable Englishmen at its head. With its headquarters in Holborn, it controls branches in Chelsea, Hampstead, Wimbledon, action and other suburbs. London has been divided into sectors, with an experienced organizer at the head of each local group. The danger of this organization, the magazine declares, lies in the fact that it recruits its members chiefly among the small middle class – city typists, bank clerks, private secretaries – in other words, people who do not know much about politics and may easily be convinced that Nazi Germany is the finest country under the sun.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
