- Yg. 1928, No. 2 -
If I were very rich, I would joke on the occasion of this year's election. I would print a poster in a print run of one hundred million copies, red writing on a white background: "Do not believe the dizziness!" This poster would have to stick to every poster column, every fence and every barn door in Germany four weeks before election Sunday and every week to be renewed at night from Saturday to Sunday.
You think the text is too unclear? I should rather say: "Do not believe the German national dizziness!"? My dear, if that's the way it was, everyone would think that it was a Social Democratic poster, and then, with the intention of the day, my request would not be half as effective. Why should not people think a little bit about what dizziness they should not believe? And let's be sure: ninety percent of the total fraud that will be poured out on Germany during the election period will be German national fraud. On a very simple account, this is evident from the fact that four-fifths of the entire German press, and almost the whole mighty apparatus of cinema and radio, are controlled by Hugenberg and his people. One does not even imagine how great the political ignorance of our people is, thanks to the daily darkening work of those powers. We have no idea, you have "intellectuals" above all, as it looks in the minds of millions of our German fellow citizens. How many people do you think is there in Germany, who still believe in Satan? What? Well, you see, yesterday I talked to one of them. Where? In the middle of the big city, between cars, electric lamps and loudspeakers.
One of the best examples of the invincibility of a long-running, systematic, sophisticated propaganda that has nothing at all to do with the truth is the fraud of guilt lies. Not one in the thousands in Germany is likely to get a fair picture of the way the war came about. Not a tenth of a percent of this poor people knows how much guilt at the outbreak that man in Holland and his Schranzen (Paladins have been said after seventy, as one had triumphed) on the conscience. If the truth about the war was known even in its broadest terms, then the German National Party would be a small coterie that nobody would have to worry about.
They understand how strong the interest of those circles must be to obfuscate the facts of 1914, including 1917 and 1918. It has made this purely domestic matter a foreign policy and pretends that Germany needed nothing for the lost war, if the world finally realized that it, ie its then rulers, who reign today, innocent of its outbreak has been. The foreign country knows quite a bit, of course exaggerates a little in his favor; but we in Germany have no idea.
Warrior widows, abandoned old parents, war cripples, impoverished pensioners, just think, choose German national, choose the people to whom they owe their misfortune, the destruction of their happiness! Those who would most gladly bring their Wilhelm back home tomorrow, so that he could continue to glorify after the little break as a "Peace Emperor"!
You often want to despair if you think about it all. Lies have short legs? Seven-league boots are on them today, I tell you. Yes, if you have money, money like Hugenberg!
1928, 2 Kazenwadel