JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
The pamphlet Stuttgart vous parle! (ca. 1941) is nearly the same name as the Stuttgart radio station/program which was a propaganda arm of the Nazis, broadcasting into France in 1939 and 1940, and progressively less so after the French capitulation. Goebbels was very thorough in controlling the radio and television programming/writing/distribution in Germany, as well as creating propaganda broadcasts into Nazi-occupied countries. There is very little question about where this pamphlet is heading, its pro-German, appeasement, anti-Ally, anti-USSR, pro-Vichy sentiments being very clear. For an example, here's a bit from page 30, which recommends the immutability of Mein Kampf:
“Si en quelques jours, devant l'evidence des menaces et des pieges que l'Angleterre lui tendait, le Reich s'est reconcilie avec Moscou, il faut admettre qu'il n'existe pas d'idees preconcues dans la mentalite du Fuhrer et qu'il dirige la politique allemande au mieux des eventualites. Que ces quelques explications vous fassent saisir ce qu'il y a d'immuable dans mein kampf et ce qu'il s'y trouve de momentane, c'esttout ce que nons esperions aujourd'hui.”
Experts state that the principal broadcaster for the radio show was Paul Ferdonnet. Captured at the end of the war in Germany, Ferdonnet was tried as a war criminal, a charge he denied, saying that it was not he who was the broadcaster and so on. The court found otherwise, and Ferdonnet ("le traître de Stuttgart") was convicted and executed in short order, not living to the end of the summer of 1945.
[There is also a publication Stuttgart vous Parle! Les Discours de Paul Ferdonnet Diffuses vers la France a partir de la Radio Allemande en 1939-1940 (edited by VHO), which seems to state in certain terms that Ferdonnet was indeed guilty of war crimes for his participation in pro-Nazi propaganda. It is also interesting to note that Stuttgart vous parle! has no identifying marks for publisher, printer, or place of publication. Nothing.]
On the one hand, free speech is a big deal; but free speech does not extend to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. (I'm slipping up on the name right now, but there was a case back in the 'teens of 100+ people, mostly women and children, family of union members, who were meeting in a hall when an anti-union thug yelled "fire!", starting a deadly stampede.) Working away at the psyche of a people trying to defend itself, trying to survive, is very nasty and murderous stuff. Ferdonnet was executed for this action, a fate escaped by E. Pound for his Fascist broadcasts in Italy during WWII...but all of that is another story.
Comments