Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-12-21
Dr.. GoebbeIs Scores
In Pictures Of
Atrocities by Poles
But Observer Questions
Right to Judge Any
Nationality by Its Mobs
(Thirty-ftth OF a Sertes.)
nv william UKITrE

BY WILLIAM L. WHITE.
BERLIN (by AirmaiD.-I have
just come from DR.. Goebbels' Minis.
terium of Public Enlightenment and
Propaganda, which is a few minutes
brisk walk from my hotel, with q
nice load Of German propaganda
which I shall proceed to deliver to
you while 1t is still hot and steam
ing. I do this because think the
facts are in the main true and be-
cause 1t has been represented to me
that I am still free to put q 100 per
cent American Interpretation on
them provided I avoid lying, con-
ditions which I gladly accept.
The load consists of pictures Of
corpses of German residents of the
formerly Polish town of Bomberg,
found by the German Army when 1t
entered the town.
Bomberg is a typical border town
in Central Europe. Most Of It's peo-
pie are Poles, but there is more
than a smattering of Germans and
other minorities, who have been
getting along with each other in
varying degrees of harmony and
acrimony for the last thousand
years.
Theory Of Superiority.
The present regime here has popu-
larized the theory that Germans
come of a superior racia! stock and
owe their first loyalty to the home
land no matter under what flag they
were born or live, and this theory
of superior racial nationality, while
very f1attering to Germans born in
Central Europe and the Americas,
has not gone over very we'll with
the other citizens of these countries,
some of whom can't see anything
particularly superior about a Ger
man, and also have come to suspect
their German neighbors (often
without reason of being spies
against the country under whose
flag they live.
So, now, to the Polish citysof Bonn
berg. The retreating Polish Army
marched out, leaving the city to the
enemy, who were expected in q few
hours or days. Then a very human
thing happened. The German
minority of Bomberg, which had
been singing soft and low in the days
just before the war and while the
army was still in town, now began
to take heart, and a number of them
began promenading the streets of
Bomberg with big self satisfied
Nordic smiles on their faces, and If
they also do not pass few sardonic
remarks to the Poles, I should be
very much surprised.
Polish Mob Attacks,
So now another very human thing,
but also an unpleasant one, happens.
Remember that the Poles had long
suspected those Polish citizens Of
German blood of disloyalty to Pc.
land, and the Poles were very bitter
over the defeat of their army. In
any event a Polish mob gathered in
Bomberg and attacked these Ger.
mans, and what they did to them is
not pretty to think about, or to see
IN those propaganda ministerium
photographs of corpses with their
heads cracked open or their teeth
smashed In or their eyes gouged
out or their limbs hacked of. What
mob does is seldom pretty as I
well remember, after having seen
what an American mob did in a
similar race riot in Tulsa, Okla. in
the early 1920s, with considerable
less provocation than this Polish
mob had.
I would not judge people by the
work OF its mobs, or by what bands
OF towards do when armies have de-
parted, and I think an American
mob or a French mob or a British
mob or a German mob would have
done about what that Polish mob
did under similar circumstances.
Unlikely in America.
But that can never come about
In our country because Americans
OF German ancestry are loyal to
their country's free democratic in
situations, and also because it is we'll
understood over here that we have
an excellent navy.
So I think DR.. Goebbels wins his
point here and I think his Polish
atrocity photograms are genuine.
and the victims were actually Ger
mans, and not Poles slaughtered by
the Germans, as has been ignorantly
suggested by biased American writ
ers who do not know conditions in
Central Europe or the German doc
trines Of race superiority which
under certain circumstances give a
man a right to be a traitor to his
countrys flag, provided always, how
ever, that it is not the German flag.
In view of all this body of evidence
I will personally vouch for the fact
that DR.. Goebbels' photographs are
genuine and not fakes, as were the
allied propaganda stories about Bel
gian babies with their hands hacked
of or Canadian soldiers crucifled
on barn doors which played 80 i'm
portant a part in getting America
f~ - l.