Radio: Sign-Off

The loudest propaganda machine in history, the German radio, stumbled through its death-scene to musical accompaniment, finally died away piecemeal. Berlin began broadcasting in spasms, grew fainter & fainter, fell silent without a sign-off.

On the Bremen wave length, Lord Haw-Haw denounced Bolshevism—and tried it again in Hamburg. The words were indistinct ; Lord Haw-Haw was patently stewed.

With Berlin and Bremen silent, Hamburg became the official broadcaster of the German High Command’s daily communiqués (which fell hours behind schedule “owing to communications difficulties”). Dr. Karl Scharping, propaganda pet of Goebbels, asserted from Hamburg: “Germany … is a force which grows. . . .” When the Hamburg radio announced the fall of the city, Deutschland über Alles filled the air.

Wilhelmshaven tried to carry on but admitted: “Transmission of news suffers from some difficulties connected with atmospheric and other interferences.”

Berliners who had sets in working order heard from somewhere in Germany a thoroughly Teutonic curtain speech addressed just to them: “Vapors and smoke trail upward…. Underneath is a sea of flame, a volcano of millions of fires and twitching shadows. Berlin, help us once more to conjure up all that you have meant!” When Berlin returned to the air, it talked Russian.

And when Hamburg was next heard, the words were English—a rebroadcast of General Eisenhower’s proclamation of last fall: “The Allied forces serving under my command have now entered Germany. We come as conquerors. . . .”