In their own words...

[bobbysocks]

propaganda with british humor

While waiting to cross the Channel. The Feldgrau idled away their time tuned their radio dials to to hear the BBC's German-speaking voice broadcast the latest war news, titbits of gossip and the latest runour from the Third Reich aswell as playing popular German ballads.

The broadcasts were a component of the "Black Propaganda" campaign devised to "approach the German mind .... and throw it off guard by appealing to the selfish motives in the (soldier civilian)."

Speaking as fluently as any Berliner, Sefton Delmer's chats on BBC were designed to make the German soldiers fearful of taking part in the looming invasion of England. "The barbaric British have developed a fiendish apparatus with which they are going to set the English Channel ablaze as soon as your assault boats near the beaches," Delmer said.

To a degree this disclosure was true. Britain had created an anti-invasion defense whereby oil would be piped to large containers offshore. When ignited, a thick barrier of fire and smoke would rise from the water. However this device was only installed on only a few potentential landing beaches.

Then Delmer informed the Germans in France that he would teach them afew useful English phrases.

"For your first lesson, he said, "We will take the Kanaluberfahrt - the Channel cross-ing ..... the Chan-nel cross-ing.

"Now, repeat after me: Das Boot sinkt .... Das Boot sinkt .... the boat is sink-ing .... the boat is sink-ing.

"Das Wasser ist sehr kalt .... the wat-er is ver-y cold.

"here is a verb will be most useful. Please repeat after me. Ich brenne .... I burn .... Du brennst .... you burn ..... wir brennen .... we burn.

"and now I suggest that you learn another important phrase: Der ss Sturmfuhrer brennst auch scoen .... the ss cap-tain is al-so burn-ing quite nice-ly."

The theme of the germans burning to a crisp on the English Channel was tied in wth information planted by British deception servce, using turned spies and whispers in neutral embassies in Londo, Madrid , Stockholm and Geneva.