THE PRESIDENT: Is it necessary to have the accompaniment of music?
M. FUSTER: I am sorry, but it is impossible to cut out the sound from this film.
THE PRESIDENT: It cannot be helped? Very well.
M. FUSTER: The rapidity of the film made it necessary for us first to give a few details of the pictures which passed before the Tribunal. I think, however, that the Tribunal could appreciate them.
Now, we are going to show a few photographs of posters. These will be easier to deal with than the film, which cannot be slowed down. We are going to show them one by one, commenting on each as may be necessary.
I should like to point out to the Tribunal that the film which it has just seen is submitted as Document Number RF-1152 and also under Document Number RF-1152 (bis).
The scenarios of other propaganda films, entitled “M. Girouette” (M. Weathercock), “French Workmen in Germany” and taken from the dossier of the proceedings taken against M. Musard before the Seine Court of Justice, will also illustrate the tendency and the subject matter of the German propaganda carried on by this means.
The photographs of posters which we are going to show now are submitted as Document Number RF-1153. Before showing these films, we must say something about the way in which poster propaganda was organized. It was organized with extreme care. In this connection we submit a pamphlet which contains full instructions for mounting and shows that a real administrative service existed to carry out projects which had been under consideration for a long time. This is Document Number RF-1150. We shall not read it, since it is a publication, but we will summarize the most important contents. The Tribunal will see that the most exact provision has been made for every detail, the sites for the billboards and so forth. All these posters were issued by the central bureau in Berlin, D.P.A. In their original form, they consisted only of pictures. The text was added later in the country for which they were intended. The text had to be printed in the language of this country and adapted to suit local conditions.
The Germans very often refrained from indicating their official German origin or even attributed a different origin to them. For instance, they used the phrase “Printed in France,” which has no particular meaning since it never appears on genuine French posters. The French posters bear only the printer’s name; and this, in its turn, never appears on German posters. By the use of the phrase “Printed in France,” however, the Germans could undoubtedly make the French believe that the propaganda put before them was not directly of enemy origin. This is a feature at once curious and revealing.
As we have said, publicity has been practiced for a long time, but Nazi Germany made propaganda into a public institution and applied it internationally in a most reprehensible manner.