Chapter 14

(JUN 1940 HITLER ENTERS PARIS)

“Dr. Goebbels proved himself right, in that the radio became by far the regime’s most effective means of propaganda, doing more than any other single instrument of communication to shape the German people to Hitler’s liking.

I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state. Though unlike most Germans I had daily access to foreign newspapers, especially those of London, Paris and Zurich, which arrived the day after publication, and though I listened regularly to the BBC and other foreign broadcasts, my job necessitated the spending of many hours a day in combing the German press, checking the German radio, conferring with Nazi officials and going to party meetings. It was surprising and sometimes consternating to find that notwithstanding the opportunities I had to learn the facts and despite one’s inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression in one’s mind and often mislead it. No one who has not lived for years in a totalitarian land can possibly conceive how difficult it is to escape the dread consequences of a regime’s calculated and incessant propaganda. Often in a German home or office or sometimes in a casual conversation with a stranger in a restaurant, a beer hall, a café, I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious that they were parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers. Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realized how useless it was even to try to make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts of life had become what Hitler or Goebbels, with their cynical disregard for truth, said they were.”

(An exact quotation from “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” by William L. Shirer”) I have found that this particular quote from the in-depth analysis of the root causes of World War II contained in this 1,249 page book are one of the keys to understanding the mystique of Nazi thought and why it mesmerized an entire nation into blindly following the power of evil.

They say that understanding the past gives us the tools to cope with a difficult present, but in recent decades in most developed countries including the United States, the study of History is all but shunned as a waste of time.

I have to admit that my earlier studies of World War II was strictly from a military strategy and military tactics point of view but that was because I found that perception to be my passion. Now, when I read this book and other books again, I can see the similarities to current day dilemmas and I wonder why more educated and more involved parties have not focused on the lessons of the past in open print and use the lessons learned to help solve some of the issues of the day.

To some respect, I attribute that lack of insight to the attitudes of modern day communications and the prostitution of the media world. The miracle of the internet did open a lot of doors to areas of Historical study and print analysis to guide current thinking, but unfortunately the motives of the persons in power seem content to keep the general public happy to get their “news” from the lips of late-night entertainers rather than some boring journalist spouting the truth of actual facts to an audience of new age listeners geared to instant gratification and with an attention span of a flea.

In all honesty, the Fall of France happened so fast with the German “Blitzkrieg” and the lack of French resolve that the remainder of the free world was shocked into open-mouthed silence.

Now, the newsreels all over both occupied France and in “Vichy” France were showing detailed shots of the Fuhrer and his cohorts prancing and almost dancing in the highly photographed sights of Paris along the main boulevards and the primary sight-seeing places familiar to the entire world.

I did my best to contain my revulsion at the pure propaganda of the footage and I could not help but notice that most of the watchers were equally as disdainful of Hitler’s antics and the utter lack of compassion for the death and destruction of the forces he had unleashed on his neighbors without any sign of apology.

I knew that up to this point in time, he had managed to keep the “Final Solution” to the Jewish problem under wraps. I suspected that even if it did leak out and I knew that eventually it would do just that long before the war would end, most normal people would not comprehend the extent of the evil involved and not react with the horror it fully deserved.

I did notice that the German troops marching in Paris were in spotless uniforms with shining boots and they were probably “show” troops kept in special barracks for parades and public relations. The fighting and dying members of the German Wehrmacht were too busy mopping up enemy resistance in dozens of countries and fighting a rear guard action against the “partizans” and other resistance groups all across Europe. They were already raising a number of Waffen SS divisions from the conquered countries and that would add to their conscripted troops from Germany proper. The kickoff to “Operation Barbarossa” was not too far off and soon Hitler would be faced with a thin red line of frontline troops stretched to a breaking point around the globe.