WORLD WAR II, MUSIC, HISTORY, HOLOCAUST
Last Wednesday I was a guest on the ‘Creativity and Technology Solutions for Business and Life Show,’ presented by Joe Dans on WTBQ Radio. WTBQ is an independent radio station broadcasting from Warwick, New York. The last locally-owned radio station in Orange County, New York, WTBQ broadcasts on 1110 AM and 93.5 FM, throughout Orange County and Northern New Jersey.
We had a talk about my blog and how history repeats itself.
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It is Sunday evening—you turn on the radio and the news breaks that planet Earth is invaded by Mars. So what do you do? You panic, of course.
Well, that was the case for many when they switched on the radio on 30 October 1938.
By the end of October 1938, Welles’s Mercury Theatre on the Air had been on CBS for 17 weeks. A low-budget program without a sponsor, the series had built a small but loyal following with fresh adaptations of literary classics. But for the week of Halloween, Welles wanted something very different from the Mercury’s earlier offerings. The show began on Sunday, 30 October, at 8 pm ET. A voice announced, “The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.”
Network radio on Sunday nights in the fall of 1938 was dominated by a ventriloquist. Edgar Bergen and his wooden dummy Charlie McCarthy, plus a host of visiting guests, tickled NBC listeners at 8:00 pm week after week. No program, it seemed, could compete with the Bergen/McCarthy appeal. Failing to dent the NBC ratings blockbuster, CBS gave their competing hour over to “The Mercury Theater on the Air,” a low-budget series that presented a different drama each week to the few non-Bergen fans who might listen. Many tuned in late after listening to Bergen and McCarthy’s opening scene. And therein lay one of the secrets of the Orson Welles drama’s impact.
Another factor was timing. Only the month before, listeners stayed close to their radios for days as Europe appeared to be heading into war during the Munich Crisis of September. They came to expect radio journalists to break into programming with the latest events.
Listeners had grown to fully trust what they could hear. Welles played on this as he and his cast pretended to be something quite different than they initially seemed.
Welles introduced his radio play with a spoken introduction, followed by an announcer reading a weather report. Then, seemingly abandoning the storyline, the announcer took listeners to “the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York, where you will be entertained by the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra.” Putrid dance music played for some time, and then the scare began. A radio announcer broke into the broadcast, saying that “Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory had detected explosions on the planet—Mars.” Then the dance music came back on, followed by another interruption in which listeners were informed that a large meteor had crashed into a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey.
Soon, an announcer was at the crash site describing a Martian emerging from a large metallic cylinder. “Good heavens,” he declared, “something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now here’s another and another one and another one. They look like tentacles to me … I can see the thing’s body now. It’s large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather. But that face, it… it … ladies and gentlemen, it’s indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it’s so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate.”
The Martians mounted walking war machines and fired “heat-ray” weapons at the puny humans gathered around the crash site, and then annihilated a force of 7,000 National Guardsmen. After being attacked by artillery and bombs, the Martians released a poisonous gas into the air. Soon, “Martian cylinders” landed in Chicago and St. Louis. The radio play was extremely realistic, with Welles employing sophisticated sound effects and his actors—doing an excellent job—portraying terrified announcers and other characters. An announcer reported that widespread panic had broken out in the vicinity of the landing sites, with thousands desperately trying to flee.
The Federal Communications Commission investigated the unorthodox program but found no law was broken. Networks did agree to be more cautious in their programming in the future. The broadcast helped Orson Welles land a contract with a Hollywood studio. In 1941, he directed, wrote, produced, and starred in Citizen Kane—a movie that many refer to as the best American film ever made.
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I was on Irish National radio this afternoon, discussing the sale of Nazi uniforms as Halloween costumes in Ireland.
It was on Joe Duffy’s Liveline show. I enjoyed being on it, but the show was a bit manipulated. I received a call from one of the researchers at 10 a.m. this morning. He asked me my opinion about the sale of Nazi costumes for Halloween. I told him in principle, I was against it. The researcher let me know that the show had been approached (by an anonymous lady) who had seen the costumes. Then he sent me a link.
I replied to his email.
Hi D,
Sorry, I missed your call.
The outfits are offensive. If you allow this then you also have to allow KKK, Black and Tan, Paedophile Priest outfits, and Jimmy Saville costumes, etc. To put it in context, the Nazis murdered 17 million between 1933 and 1945, of which 6 million were Jews, but also people from the LGBT community and people with disabilities.
I wonder if the people who wear these outfits ever consider that.
The horrors of the Nazi regime lived on in the minds of many Europeans long after the war, and still today for some.
My grandfather was killed by Nazis, as were some cousins of my mother.
Aside from that, it has nothing to do with Halloween.
I was then called again and was advised that when I talk to the presenter, I should pretend I found this on social media.
When the interview started—it was implied that I had contacted the show and not the other way around. I can understand why they did that, but it was a bit bizarre.
But have a listen for yourself.
https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22023230/
At the moment there is a lot of talk how social media is used to distribute propaganda, but the widespread of propaganda is nothing new.
The ‘social media’ during WWII was the radio. About 18 months after the Germans invaded the Netherlands they started broadcasting German language course programs.
During World War II radio listening was restricted in the Netherlands In 1940 the Dutch were forbidden to listen to foreign broadcasting and Dutch broadcasting- organizations were censored by the Germans. The VARA was the first organization to openly protest against the Germans when they had to report about a march of the Dutch Nazi-organization NSB.
Broadcasting of English and American songs was forbidden in January 1941. The grip of the Nazis on the programming was increasing, they ordered to broadcast Aryan “Auflagesendungen” (mass-produced programs) like the music programs with German titles : “Gruss aus der Heimat” (greetings from the fatherland) and “Wunschconcerte” (request concert).
The Dutch society protested against the German rule and persecution of the Jews with the “February-strike” of 1941. After this the Germans let no more room for talking. On 9 March 1941 the broadcasting organizations were dismantled, and a German propaganda-station “De Netherlands Omroep” (Dutch for: Dutch Broadcasting Organization) was founded. The personal and property of were taken over by “De Netherlands Omroep”.
On Sunday 5 October 1941 listeners readied themselves with a textbook for their first German lesson, broadcast on a Dutch radio station from the city of Hilversum. Alfred Rügner began by telling his audience a little something about German pronunciation.
But this wasn’t any ordinary German lesson: this was about teaching National Socialist German. Those following the course learned military terms, translated the Nazi slogan-of-the-week and penned Hitler’s words to paper.
The lessons in the book were interspersed with antisemitic illustrations and drawings of soldiers and members of the NSB (Dutch Nazi Party). As the war progressed, the Germans interfered with Dutch radio programming more and more. By mid-1941, all of the Dutch stations were incorporated into one Rijksradio (State-controlled) broadcaster. From then on, the propaganda transmitted via the radio simply continued to increase.
Many Dutch listened with their hidden radios to the Dutch broadcasts of “Radio Orange” from England. The BBC was also very popular. Being caught with a hidden radio or listening to either the BBC or Radio Orange could result in a death penalty.
With “wire-broadcasting” the Nazis could control the programs which were passed on. Wire-broadcasting (in Dutch “Draadomroep” or “Radio-distribute”) was the only radio which was allowed. During the last months of the war the Dutch could listen to “Radio Herrijzend Netherlands” from the liberated parts of the country.
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History of Sorts 
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