NARRATOR:
A RADIO STATION CALLING ITSELF "WORKER'S CHALLENGE" DECLARED IT WAS BRITISH AND WAS BROADCASTING FROM INSIDE BRITAIN - BUT WAS IN FACT GERMAN.
Worker's Challenge Broadcast:
Workers in the Army it's not your war. It's the capitalist's war. So what will you get out of it? Nothing. All you'll get is a bullet in the head. Perhaps you'll end up with a couple of legs short. For what?
"Lies, Lies" Animation
NARRATOR:
THE GERMANS PRETENDED TO BE BRITISH. AND PRETENDED TO BE A REAL ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT. THIS USE OF LIES TO TRICK THE PUBLIC WON A NEW NAME - BLACK PROPAGANDA. DELMER WAS INSPIRED BY THIS DARK SIDE. THIS WAS THE POINT THAT THE GOVERNMENT SET UP A NEW UNIT CALLED THE POLITICAL WARFARE EXECUTIVE. IN MAY 1942, THEY TURNED TO DELMER TO RUN IT'S TOP SECRET MISSIONS - BRITAIN'S OWN BLACK PROPAGANDA OFFENSIVE. ELLIC HOWE WOULD BECOME A KEY MEMBER OF DELMER'S UNIT.
Archive:
Subversion!
Ellic Howe:
First of all - They wanted to achieve something immediately that Her Majesty's Government could disavow. The whole emphasis of black was that H.M. government could deny it even existed.
Reconstruction:
Delmer and Der Chef rehearsing in Garden.
NARRATOR:
IN MAY 1941 DELMER BEGAN BROADCASTING FROM A REQUISITIONED HOUSE IN BEDFORDSHIRE. HIS WIFE ISABEL WOULD BE RECRUITED TO ILLUSTRATE LEAFLETS.
Isabel drawing Coloured leaflets of German's with prostitutes
NARRATOR:
TO SMEAR THE GERMANS AS SEX TOURISTS, IMAGES OF TROOPS WITH PROSTITUTES WERE FAKED TO LOOK LIKE POSTCARDS SENT HOME FROM CONQUERED FRANCE.
Reconstruction:
Delmer and Der Chef rehearsing in Garden
NARRATOR:
BUT DELMER WANTED TO COMBINE THE NEW WEAPONS OF SEX AND BLACK DECEPTION. TO DO SO, HE TURNED TO RADIO.
Memoirs of Delmer:
I think we should try a new type of 'Black Radio' -- one that undermines Hitler, not by opposing him, but by pretending to be all for him and his war.
Reconstruction:
Delmer and Der Chef rehearsing in the Garden.
Memoirs of Delmer:
Hitler once said to me "There is an inner Pig-dog in every man", we must appeal to the inner pig in every German.
Der Chef:
What our propaganda idiots call sorting out the front line north of Kirkusk of retreating, is no reason for those at home to go and shit their trousers.
NARRATOR:
THE VOICE OF DELMER'S PROPAGANDA WAS A YOUNG GERMAN EMIGRE, PAUL SAUNDERS. HE WAS TO PLAY A FICTITIOUS GERMAN OFFICER - KNOWN ONLY AS DER CHEF - A LOYAL AND PATRIOTIC SUPPORTER OF HITLER AND THE WAR, BUT HOSTILE TO THE SS - CLASSIC DIVIDE AND CONQUER.
Translation of original German broadcast: Der Chef speaking:
Major General von Papen who gave the command to withdraw from the enemy is a good man and a first rate officer, and for this reason the cowardly armchair farters of the party, communist to a man, start shouting for his head. They should have their backsides torn open as wide a they open their mouths. So much for the Eastern front. But the shit that stinks to high heaven, the real shit, is that we are not only to cope with the Bolsheviks in the front line but to cope with the bastard Bolsheviks at home inside the government.
NARRATOR:
DELMER BORROWED THE COARSE LANGUAGE OF "WORKER'S CHALLENGE" TO TITILLATE HIS AUDIENCE, THEN WENT FURTHER. HE USED SEX STORIES TO KEEP HIS LISTENERS HOOKED.
Paul Saunders (Der Chef):
We wrote and rendered real pornographic pieces because it was Delmer’s idea. And probably it was right, that what the Germans called 'das front Swine', the war pig, the simple man who is in the mud in the front line, likes to hear a juicy story.
Nude fantasy interrogation sequence
Der Chef Speaking:
And now some information about the swinish, filthy tricks the enemy are using to try and extract information from our boys in the Luftwaffe who have been unlucky enough to be shot down and captured. When the usual methods of interrogation fail, some of our airmen have been stripped naked and tied to the floor in a gymnasium at the interrogation centre. While they are in this humiliating position, a young and beautiful woman is sent into the room. Our reports say that invariably the woman has long hair. This young woman who is only partially dressed. But that sort of thing people weren't used to it. So one comrade would say to the other - unbelievable have you heard this thing on the air, there is someone telling absolutely 100 per cent dirty and funny dirty stories. She then positions herself on a gymnastic bar above the prisoner. She then swings herself over the bar and lets down her long hair and then she trails her soft hair back and forward, back and forward, over the naked bodies of our young airmen. After some minutes of this some prisoners will babble anything.
Memoirs of Delmar:
We took great care not to let it seem that The Chef himself enjoyed the bawdy details. Never, never did he let on that he was retelling these salty scandals to make his listeners eager to listen to his next harangue.
Der Chef Speaking:
We must be strong and not give in to this filthy perverted treatment. Say nothing.
Dr Ortwin Buchbender:
The English thought the Germans liked that. The party members listening to GS1, out of Gustav Siegfried one, ya. They liked it. Blood, sex and crime is always interesting.
Ellic Howe:
They were trying to establish an audience for the kind of subversive stuff they wanted to put over the kind of stuff, which above all would lead to the dissemination of rumours. Rumours which would err, effect the German initial will to fight make them cast doubts, ask questions and so on.
Footage:
Christy Campbell entering stacks of National Archive.