For German Ears

Of the 11,000,000 radio receiving sets in Germany, some 5,000,000 are equipped to receive short-wave broadcasts. Not generally known is the fact that the U. S. has quietly entered the short-wave news propaganda battle. Every day in the week for the past year and a half, NBC's 25-kilowatt W₃XL, its power stepped up to the equivalent of some 150 kilowatts by a directional beam antenna, has sent in the direction of Germany's 5,000,000 shortwave receivers an hour of news, music and Americana calculated to reach Germans between eight and nine o'clock at night.

Last week, for example, German listeners could hear in German news that might not otherwise have reached their ears--that Bridget Hitler, the Fuehrer's sister-in-law, had been arrested in London for not paying her rent; that the U. S. viewed Dr. Schacht's dismissal with alarm.

How widely and cordially these broadcasts are received in Germany was evident last week in a fanmail file prepared by NBC's International Division for the Federal Communications Commission. Of about 2,000 letters and postcards received by NBC each month from 82 foreign points, 300 to 400 are in German, and 60% of these from inside Germany. A few typical excerpts, translated:

From Stuttgart: "Already a small group of listeners has formed which meets regularly and listens to your presentations."

From Munich: "As I was obliged to go to the meeting on Friday . . . against the Jews, I could not listen, but a friend heard your program and told me about it."

From Vienna: "Your news service is objective for our needs, though too short, as we are starved for the truth."

From Prague: "Perhaps we are too much in the middle of things to see clearly, or else we do not learn everything here in Europe. . . . You succeed in giving European news before it is given in Europe."

From Bratislava: "I have seldom heard so much truth about the fate of the Jews as in your broadcast ... we never hear such manly words about humanity here."

From Cologne: "We do not hear Cologne as loud."

These communications and other news last week indicated a few hitches in the Reich's campaign to limit public information. The cheap People's Radios are designed to receive mainly the medium-waveband domestic German broadcasts. But the popular British Broadcasting Corp.'s medium-wave news periods are frequently as easily received on People's Radios.

In the short-wave bands, Germany's most galling intruder is Moscow, which, by some underground means the Gestapo has not yet uncovered, gets German news and broadcasts it back to Germany almost as soon as it happens. In spite of all the Reich's counteracting efforts, many Germans can and do learn what goes on.

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