Just started reading an article about Lord Haw Haw. Was German propagandist during WW2 who broadcasted over UK air waves.

Here are some quotes from people who listened to him.

“The BBC, on behalf of the Ministry of Information, and Mass Observation both undertook in early 1940 a special study of the effects of the German broadcasts. ”

A Canadian listener writing to London Callingon 25 November 1939 said ‘Whenever we are short of entertainment we tune in to that comedian. We often wonder whether he knows what a lot of laughter he causes’. A large percentage tuned in ‘because so many other people listen to him and talk about it’

Still others felt him to be a good broadcaster. A working-class woman in Lambeth replied: ‘I think he is very good. He’s very nice. We aren’t educated enough to understand all the words he uses, but he’s very interesting, and lot he says is true’ (Mass Observation’s US).

Other interviewees reacted with even more enthusiasm: ‘He sounds such a nice man. It makes you think there must be something in what he says. I love him and his clever tricky sayings. I love his voice and manner and would love to meet him. I feel he is a gentleman and would be a nice friend – all my intuition and his voice…His talk on “Soon” was great and made me chuckle – true or not true. He is a great psychologist. Always he makes me happy

“He talks a lot of cock and 75% of his statements are either lies or propaganda, but occasionally he hits the nail on the head. It’s then that he makes you think. You wonder whether a lot of his statements are also true’

And a librarian: ‘We nearly always turn him on at 9.15 to try and glean some news that the Ministry of Information withholds from us. It is interesting to get the BBC’s views and the German wireless’s accounts of the same aerial engagements. Between the frantic eulogies of the BBC and the sneers of the German wireless one achieves something like the truth’ (Mass Observation’s US). A building worker was of the opinion ‘…both Haw-Haw and our own wireless are propaganda. They pick out one another’s weak points’