Sefton Delmer
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and propagandist for the British government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
. Fluent in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, he became friendly with Ernst Röhm
Ernst Röhm
Ernst Julius Röhm, was a German officer in the Bavarian Army and later an early Nazi leader. He was a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung , the Nazi Party militia, and later was its commander...
who arranged for him to interview Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
in the 1930s. During the Second World War he led a black propaganda
Black propaganda
Black propaganda is false information and material that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side. It is typically used to vilify, embarrass or misrepresent the enemy...
campaign against Hitler by radio from England.
Early life
Denis Sefton Delmer, known familiarly as "Tom", was born in Berlin, Germany, but was registered as a British citizen with the British Consulate. His parents were from AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. His father, Frederick Sefton Delmer, born in Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
, Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, was Professor of English Literature at Berlin University and author of a standard textbook for German schools. On the outbreak of the First World War he was interned in Ruhleben internment camp as an enemy alien. In 1917, in a prisoner exchange between the British and German governments, the family was repatriated to England.
Denis was educated at Friedrichwerdersches Gymnasium, Berlin, St Paul's School, London and Lincoln College, Oxford
Lincoln College, Oxford
Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is situated on Turl Street in central Oxford, backing onto Brasenose College and adjacent to Exeter College...
, where he obtained a second class degree in modern languages. He was brought up to speak only German until the age of five and as late as 1939 spoke English with a slight accent.
Early career and work during wartime
After leaving university he worked as a freelance journalist until he was recruited by the Daily ExpressDaily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
to become head of its new Berlin Bureau. Whilst in Germany, he became friendly with Ernst Röhm
Ernst Röhm
Ernst Julius Röhm, was a German officer in the Bavarian Army and later an early Nazi leader. He was a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung , the Nazi Party militia, and later was its commander...
who arranged for him to become the first British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
journalist to interview Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
.
In the 1932 German general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...
, Delmer travelled with Hitler aboard his private aircraft. He was also present with Hitler when Hitler inspected the Reichstag fire
Reichstag fire
The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....
. During this period, Delmer was criticised for being a Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
sympathiser and, for a time, the British government thought he was in the pay of the Nazi regime. Perversely, Nazi leaders were convinced that Delmer was a member of the British secret service; his denials of any involvement only served to strengthen their belief that not only was he a member, but also an important one.
In 1933, Delmer was sent to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
as head of the Daily Express Paris Bureau. In 1935, Delmer married Isabel Nichols
Isabel Rawsthorne
Isabel Rawsthorne, also known as Isabel Lambert, was a British painter, designer and occasional artists' model. During the war she worked in Black Propaganda...
(she later married composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Constant Lambert
Constant Lambert
Leonard Constant Lambert was a British composer and conductor.-Early life:Lambert, the son of Russian-born Australian painter George Lambert, was educated at Christ's Hospital and the Royal College of Music...
and after his death married again in 1955 to composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Alan Rawsthorne
Alan Rawsthorne
Alan Rawsthorne was a British composer. He was born in Haslingden, Lancashire, and is buried in Thaxted churchyard in Essex.-Career:...
). Delmer covered important stories in Europe including the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
in 1939. He also reported on the German western offensive in 1940.
Delmer returned to Britain and worked for a time, as an announcer for the German service of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. After Hitler broadcast a speech from the Reichstag
Reichstag (building)
The Reichstag building is a historical edifice in Berlin, Germany, constructed to house the Reichstag, parliament of the German Empire. It was opened in 1894 and housed the Reichstag until 1933, when it was severely damaged in a fire. During the Nazi era, the few meetings of members of the...
offering peace terms, Delmer responded immediately, stating the British cast the terms in "your lying, stinking teeth." The instant—and unauthorized—rejection produced a great impact on Germany, where Goebbels concluded it had to come from the government. The speed unquestionably led the great impact, which authorization would have prevented; this produced consternation in the government, as the effect was desirable, but they did not know whether such a spokesman would again happen to say what the government wanted.
In September 1940, Delmer was recruited by the Political Warfare Executive
Political Warfare Executive
During World War II, the Political Warfare Executive was a British clandestine body created to produce and disseminate both white and black propaganda, with the aim of damaging enemy morale and sustaining the morale of the Occupied countries....
(PWE), to organize black propaganda
Black propaganda
Black propaganda is false information and material that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually from the opposing side. It is typically used to vilify, embarrass or misrepresent the enemy...
broadcasts to Nazi Germany. Leonard Ingrams
Leonard Ingrams
Leonard Victor Ingrams was a merchant banker and opera festival founder/impresario.Leonard Ingrams was the youngest of four sons. His parents were Leonard St Clair Ingrams and Victoria . His mother was very musical and he started to learn the violin at the age of six...
gained clearance for Delmer to work for the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office. The operation was based at Wavendon
Wavendon
Wavendon is a village and civil parish in the south east of the Borough of Milton Keynes and ceremonial county of Buckinghamshire, England. The village name is an Old English language word, and means 'Wafa's hill'. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 969 the village was recorded as Wafandun. The...
Tower in what is now Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes , sometimes abbreviated MK, is a large town in Buckinghamshire, in the south east of England, about north-west of London. It is the administrative centre of the Borough of Milton Keynes...
new town. Selmer's creations would join a number of other "Research Units" operating propaganda broadcasts.
The concept was that the radio station should undermine Hitler by pretending to be a fervent Hitler-Nazi supporter.
His first, most notable success, was a shortwave station: Gustav Siegfried Eins
Gustav Siegfried Eins
Gustav Siegfried Eins was a British black propaganda radio station during World War II operated by the Political Warfare Executive . It was the brainchild of Sefton Delmer, a former BBC German service announcer recruited by PWE in 1940, and claimed to be an illegal radio station operating within...
(Gustav Siegfried One) which was G3 in the Research units.
It would be “run” by the character "Der Chef”, an unrepentant Nazi, who disparaged both Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
("that flatfooted son of a drunken Jew") and the "Parteikommune", the "Party Communists" who betrayed the Nazi revolution. The station name: "Gustav Siegfried Eins" (abbreviated to "GS1") left a question in listeners' minds – did it mean Geheimsender 1: (Secret Transmitter 1) or Generalstab 1 (General Staff 1) [?].
GS1 went on the air on evening of 23 May 1941. Der Chef played by Peter Secklemann, a former Berlin journalist, was the (then) only member of the team to have arrived at the discreet redbrick house known as "The Rookery" in Aspley Guise
Aspley Guise
Aspley Guise is a village and civil parish located in central Bedfordshire, England. It is just over the county border from Woburn Sands in the Borough of Milton Keynes and about by road to Milton Keynes Centre and to the M1 London to Yorkshire motorway junction 13.-Notable buildings:The...
, Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....
. Another journalist Johannes Reinholz played an adjutant to the Chief. Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and early 1940s...
had arrived in Scotland 12 days later.
When Stafford Cripps
Stafford Cripps
Sir Richard Stafford Cripps was a British Labour politician of the first half of the 20th century. During World War II he served in a number of positions in the wartime coalition, including Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Minister of Aircraft Production...
discovered what Delmer was involved with (through the intervention of Richard Crossman
Richard Crossman
Richard Howard Stafford Crossman OBE was a British author and Labour Party politician who was a Cabinet Minister under Harold Wilson, and was the editor of the New Statesman. A prominent socialist intellectual, he became one of the Labour Party's leading Zionists and anti-communists...
) he wrote to Anthony Eden
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...
, then Foreign Secretary: "If this is the sort of thing that is needed to win the war, why, I'd rather lose it." Delmer was defended by Robert Bruce Lockhart who pointed out the need to reach the sadist in the German nature. GS1 ran for 700 broadcasts before Delmer killed it off in late 1943 with gunfire heard over the radio intimating the authorities had caught up with Der Chef.
Delmer created several stations and was successful through a careful use of intelligence using gossip intercepted in German mail to neutral countries to create credible stories. Delmer's credit within the intelligence agencies was such that the Admiralty sought him out to target German submarine crews with demoralizing news bulletins. For this Delmer had access to Aspidistra
Aspidistra (transmitter)
Aspidistra was a British mediumwave radio transmitter used for black propaganda and military deception purposes against Nazi Germany during World War II. At one time, it was the most powerful broadcast transmitter in the world...
, a 500 Kw radio transmitter sourced from RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
in the US, (their largest off-the shelf-model), which the Section VIII bought for £165,000. Use of Aspidistra, which began in 1942, was split between PWE, BBC and the RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
. Delmer's creation was Deutsche Kurzwellensender Atlantik (or popularly Atlantiksender). This station used US jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
(banned within Germany as decadent) and up-to-date dance music from Germany (extracted via Sweden and RAF courier) as well as an in-house German dance band. Important details on naval procedures came from anti-Nazis identified in POW camps and mail were sifted to create personalized announcements. Agnes Bernelle
Agnes Bernelle
Agnes Bernelle was an actress and singer, long-based in the UK for much of her career, although she later settled in Ireland. Her family had fled Berlin in 1936...
"played" the seductive "Vicki" and announced news bulletins which effectively undermined crew morale - one (fake) announcement being credited with causing a submarine commander to surrender to the Allies.
Christ the King (G.8) broadcast an attack on the conscience of religious Germans, telling of the horrors of the labour and concentration camps, through a German priest.
Soldatensender Calais
Soldatensender Calais
Soldatensender Calais was a British black propaganda broadcaster during the Second World War operated by the Political Warfare Executive. It pretended to be a station of the German military broadcasting network...
("Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
Armed Forces Radio Station") was another clandestine radio station directed by Delmer at German armed forces. Transmitting from Crowborough
Aspidistra (transmitter)
Aspidistra was a British mediumwave radio transmitter used for black propaganda and military deception purposes against Nazi Germany during World War II. At one time, it was the most powerful broadcast transmitter in the world...
, Soldatensender Calais broadcast a combination of popular music, "cover" support of the war, and "dirt" - items inserted to demoralize German forces. Delmer's propaganda stories included spreading rumours that foreign workers were sleeping with the wives of German soldiers serving overseas. The station, broadcast by Aspidistra, was popular on the German home front also. Delmer oversaw the production of a daily "grey" German-language newspaper titled Nachrichten für die Truppe ("News for the Troops") which first appeared in May 1944 much of its text being based on the Soldatensender Calais broadcasts. Nachrichten für die Truppe was written by a team provided to Sefton by SHAEF and was disseminated over Germany, Belgium and France each morning by the Special Leaflet Squadron of the US 8th Air Force.
As the fighting progressed into Germany itself, black propaganda was used to create an impression of an anti-Nazi resistance movement. Delmer criticised this later as the "black boomerang" with Nazis claiming they had been allied to this fictitious movement. With the end of the war in Europe, Delmer shaved his beard off and advised his colleagues to say nothing of the work they had been in lest, as the Nazis did after the First World War, the Germans could claim they had not been beaten militarily but by underhanded means.
Later career and retirement
After the Second World War, Delmer became chief foreign affairs reporter for the Daily Express. Over the next fifteen years Delmer covered nearly every major foreign news story for the newspaper. Lord Beaverbrook sacked Delmer in 1959 over an expenses issue. and he retired to LamarshLamarsh
Lamarsh is a village and a civil parish in the Braintree District, in the county of Essex. It is near the large village of Bures and the village of Alphamstone. It has a pub, a Village Hall and a church called The Friends of Holy Innocents Church....
in Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, near to Little Sampford
Little Sampford
Little Sampford is a village and a civil parish on the B1053 road, in the Uttlesford district, in the county of Essex, England.- External links :* http://www.recordinguttlesfordhistory.org.uk/littlesampford/littlesampford.html...
where his ex-wife Isabel lived with her third husband. He wrote two volumes of autobiography, Trail Sinister (1961), Black Boomerang (1962) and several other books including Weimar Germany (1972) and The Counterfeit Spy (1971). David Hare
David Hare (playwright)
Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...
based his play Licking Hitler
Licking Hitler
Licking Hitler was a television play about a black propaganda unit operating in England during World War II, broadcast by the BBC on 10 January 1978 as part of the Play for Today series. Written by David Hare, it featured performances by Kate Nelligan and Bill Paterson. Photography was by Ken...
on Black Boomerang, and his plot included the faked, on-air discovery and shooting of the broadcaster, in the same way as Delmer had finished the career of "Der Chef".
External links
- Sefton Delmer - Black Boomerang: Sefton Delmer was head of British black propaganda during World War II. His book Black Boomerang tells the story of his work.
- PsyWar.Org - Black Propaganda and propaganda leaflets database: A website with various articles on black propaganda and psychological warfare. The site has an extensive library of propaganda leaflets from World War I to the present day.
- Gray and Black Radio Propaganda against Nazi Germany Extensively illustrated paper describing the Allied effort in World War II to undermine Germany through unidentified or misidentified radio broadcasts.
- Yours Faithfully, Adolf Hitler Correspondence between Delmer and Hitler in 1931.