- Soldatensender Calais
Soldatensender Calais (G.9) was a British
black propaganda broadcaster during theSecond World War operated by thePolitical Warfare Executive . It pretended to be a station of the German military broadcasting network ("Soldiers' Radio Calais"). The station was in operation fromOctober 24 ,1943 toApril 30 ,1945 , when it ceased operations.Soldatensender Calais operated on the mediumwave band on 833 kHz (360 meters), 714 kHz (420 meters), and 612 kHz (490 meters), with an associated shortwave station Kurzwellensender Atlantik. The station used a 600-kiloWatt transmitter originally built for American broadcaster
WLW , inCincinnati . This transmitter had lain unused at the factory after the FCC imposed a 50 kW power limit, and soRCA was glad to sell it overseas. Codenamed "Aspidistra," it was installed in a huge, underground bunker, where it was briefly the world's largest mediumwave station, perfect for deceptive "black" operation.Soldatensender Calais operated from 6 p.m. local time to dawn. Unlike its predecessor GS1 the programme were live from the purpose built broadcast studio at
Milton Bryan [Bletchley Park's Secret Sisters: Psychological Warfare in World War II, John A. Taylor, The Book Castle 2005, ISBN 1-903747-35-X] .The method of
propaganda used by Soldatensender Calais was described bySefton Delmer in his book, "Black Boomerang", as "cover, cover, dirt, cover, dirt"; that is, using good music and providing coverage of sports and other events of interest to a German serviceman, the station made that listener receptive to propaganda items aimed at decreasing morale. An example was a warning of confidence men swindling German soldiers being transferred from France to the Russian front. This approach could be compared to those used byTokyo Rose andAxis Sally , without the heavy-handedness of the Axis programs. Soldatensender Calais, as part of its cover, relayed speeches byAdolf Hitler and other Nazi officials.During the
D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944, Soldatensender Calais broadcast information that was intended to impress German intelligence officers that the invasion area was wider than it actually was. After the Pas de Calais area was overrun, the station changed its callsign to Soldatensender West.Soldatensender's broadcast was repeated in print the next day in the PWE/OSS "Nachrichten für die Truppe" air-dropped newspaper for German troops.
The station closed on April 30, 1945, without any official announcement.
Other Clandestine radio stations operated by the Political Warfare Executive and its foreruners during the war included "Das wahre Deutschland" (G.1), "Sender der Europäischen Revolution" (G.2), "
Gustav Siegfried Eins " (G.3), "Wehrmachtssender Nord" (G.5) and the "German Priest" (G.7) station.The United States Army maintained a similar operation,
Radio 1212 .Bibliography
*"Black Boomerang - An Autobiography, Volume Two", (Secker & Warburg, 1962), D Sefton Delmer.
*"The Black Game - British Subversive Operations Against the Germans During the Second World War, (Michael Joseph, 1982), Ellic Howe. ISBN 0-7181-1718-2
*"The Secret History of PWE - Political Warfare Executive 1939-1945", (St Ermin"s Press, 2002), David Garnett. ISBN 1-903608-08-2ee also
*
Black propaganda
*Political Warfare Executive
*Psychological warfare
*Sefton Delmer References
External links
* [http://www.seftondelmer.co.uk/contents.htm Black Boomerang] Sefton Delmer's out-of-print book.
* [http://members.aol.com/skywave48/aspidistra.htm The Biggest Aspidistra in the World] About the activities of Soldatensender Calais, Atlantiksender and other WWII European propaganda stations.
* [http://nymas.org/radioproppaper.htm Gray and Black Radio Propaganda against Nazi Germany] Extensively illustrated paper describing the Allied effort in WW II to undermine Germany through unidentified or misidentified radio broadcasts.
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