_-_Fondo_Mar%C3%ADn-Kutxa_Fototeka.jpg)
Lazar was able to spread these messages widely by inserting articles in the Spanish press and broadly distributing two specific publications: ASPA, a weekly bulletin created by Goebbels’ propagandists that had proved its effectiveness during the Spanish Civil War, and the official bulletin for political information issued by the embassy and addressed to the Spanish authorities, which, thanks to Lazar and the Francoist government, was disseminated to a larger audience, while the British one had far fewer readers.²⁶
The bulletins, which appeared three times a week with a circulation of 45,000 to 60,000,²⁷ made an effort to justify [the Third Reich’s] actions, especially the attack on Poland. Following the same arguments [that the Third Reich’s] propaganda had been using since May 1939,²⁸ they attempted to prove that Poland had been persecuting its German minority, in turn criminalizing the nations that had crafted the Versailles Treaty.
This propaganda framed the repatriation policies established by the Polish government as a clear de‐Germanization policy, part of an extermination campaign against the German minority that resulted in 58,000 deaths, and was the product of a ‘twenty‐year orgy of violations and destruction’.²⁹
However, it was not easy to convince Spain of the righteousness of an attack on a friendly, Catholic country. Franco’s government ordered journalists to refrain from making damaging references to Poland, a friendly and anti‐Bolshevik nation, always without endangering the friendship with [the Third Reich]. Lazar acknowledged that his fight against this attitude produced only mixed results.³⁰
[…]
The Große Plan […] also focused on the use of irony, humour and entertainment to spread anti‐Allied sentiment. Crossword puzzles thematically connected to the course of the war, other publications like Humor de bolsillo (Pocket Humour) and illustrated fiction stories were widely distributed.⁴⁶ Most of them aimed at making fun of Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, especially showing that Stalin could not be trusted (Figures 1 and 2).
Additionally, the plan had an economic purpose, that of integrating Spain in the New Order. The embassy had begun to issue a brand‐new bulletin of economic information in early 1941. Throughout 1942, these bulletins, addressed to the Spanish authorities, increasingly mentioned the self‐sufficiency of the European continent and highlighted how all occupied areas, from the Netherlands to Poland, were economically thriving under [the Third Reich’s] rule.⁴⁷
[…]
Given Lazar’s skill at managing propaganda campaigns, it is not surprising that Hitler came to describe the Spanish press as the best in the world.¹⁰⁰ Years later, when writing his memoirs, Lazar would try to tone down his contributions during the war by jokingly reflecting on how he should have tried to make the Spanish press less pro‐German.¹⁰¹
However, not even the most skilled propagandist could counteract the hard realities of the front and the conflict’s trajectory. The shift in Spanish politics established by Jordana found, albeit slowly, its counterpart in the Spanish media. This new attitude provoked confusion among the Falangists, as the complaints of one local leader of the single party reflected:
[I don’t know] if I should bust the heads of all those new Anglophiles, if I should incarcerate them at the mere provocation, or if, on the contrary, I should shake hands with them and turn into one of them.¹⁰²
(Emphasis added.)
Click here for events that happened today (September 26).
1877: Ugo Cerletti, Axis neurologist, was born.
1889: Martin Heidegger, Fascist philosophist, was delivered to the world.
1895: Jürgen Stroop, SS commander who led the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, made the mistake of living.
1939: As a Fascist seaplane shot down a civilian KLM aircraft, killing somebody, Werner Mölders’s superiors relieved him of his duty as the commanding officer of 1./JG 53, making him the commanding officer of III./JG 53 instead. Additionally, the Third Reich buried former German Army Commander‐in‐Chief Werner von Fritsch in Berlin, but neither Adolf Schicklgruber, nor Joachim von Ribbertrop, nor Heinrich Himmler attended the ceremonial state funeral.
1940: Erich Raeder met with his Chancellor, noting that the Fascist territories in the Mediterranean Sea were in danger of being attacked by the British; he deduced from the importance the British had placed on the region historically. To prevent this, he recommended that the Chancellery make plans to seize Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, and the Suez Canal. At 1630 hours, one hundred Luftwaffe flightcraft attacked Southampton in England, causing damage to the factory at Woolston producing Spitfire fighters. RAF fighters claimed sixteen bombers and sixteen fighters shot down (which was likely an overestimate), while losing ten fighters and three pilots. Overnight, the Fascists bombed London for the 26th consecutive night, and they also assaulted Liverpool as well as other towns and cities.
1941: Axis battleship Tirpitz sailed with other warships to patrol off of the Aaland Islands in the Baltic Sea to prevent Soviet naval maneuvers, and Axis submarines U‐124 and U‐203 attacked Allied convoy HG‐73 north of the Azores islands and sank six merchant ships.
1942: The Wehrmacht began a ‘final’ reattack on Stalingrad, and Senior SS official August Frank issued a memorandum detailing how Jews should be ‘evacuated’. Likewise, the Schutzstaffel began to confiscate possessions of Auschwitz’s and Majdanek’s prisoners. Currency, gold, and jewelry transferred to the SS Headquarters of the Economic Administration. Watches, clocks, and pens went to the troops on the front lines. Finally, clothing went to needy German families.
1943: Otto Skorzeny presented three Knight’s Cross medals at the Harvest Thanksgiving festival at the Berlin Sportpalast. In the early afternoon, he had lunch with the Goebbels family.
1944: Axis shore batteries, cut off behind Allied lines around Calais in France, bombarded Dover, England, massacring forty‐nine folk.