enemy hears with

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Fig. 1: Sign “Be careful when talking! Enemy hears with!"
Fig. 2: Remnants of a warning poster 1945/46
Fig. 3: Campaign of the United States Office of War Information (OWI)
Fig. 4: OWI poster from 1941–1945
Fig. 5: Warning notice on the Swiss Army radio station (center of the device)

Enemy hears with! was a domestic political campaign in the German Reich from September 1, 1939 until the end of World War II to ward off espionage and sabotage and to raise awareness among the population of the consequences of inexperienced and chatty public communication during times of war.

The United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain carried out comparable campaigns during the war (see illustration of the "OWI" on the right) .

campaign

The war propaganda suggested to the population a latent threat situation and offered solutions on how to deal with it. During the war there was a well-known series of posters with the "Enemy hears with shadow man", which contributed significantly to its spread. On each one a small group of people could be seen and in the background a slanted black shadow that overheard them. Another illustration shows a cackling goose in a work suit with the title “Schäm dich, Schwätzer!”. Numerous signs on public telephones warned with “Be careful when talking! Enemy hears with!".

The campaign was disseminated via print media such as Der Stürmer as well as short films and newsreels that were shown in cinemas as supporting films. The stagings should make the citizen aware and show which specific behavior can be used to expose “dangerous” or “harmful to the people” with the intention of spying. Most of the time, the protagonists bravely confront these “conspicuous” people and succeed in stopping them or preventing them from pursuing their supposedly dangerous intentions. Some of the productions are designed in such a way that the protagonists remain injured. The viewer should learn from their damage.

literature

The slogan was taken from the First World War . In 1930 Hans Henning Grote published the anthology “Caution! Enemy hears with! A history of World War and post-war espionage ”, the volume contained“ over 150 photographs on panels ”and was published repeatedly in the following years, for example in 1937 in the 38th thousand, in 1941 in a revised edition and in 1943 in an edition shortened to 80 pages Air Force Command Staff.

Movie

The film “ Attention! Enemy hears with! "Was established in 1940 by the Terra film of Arthur Maria Rabenalt turned the music for this came from Franz Grothe , Rudi Schuricke sang" Give me your smile, Maria. " Actors were René Deltgen , Kirsten Heiberg , Lotte Koch , Michael Bohnen , Elsa Wagner , Josef Sieber , Claire Reigbert , Rudolf Schündler , Ernst Waldow , Karl Dannemann , Rolf Weih , Lola Müthel , Beate Uhse was active in the air . The script came from Kurt Heuser based on an idea from Georg C. Klaren .

Radio amateurs

In order to prevent the transmission of strategically relevant information to the enemy, the amateur radio service was banned in 120 states from September 1939 , including Great Britain, Canada and from June 1940 the USA. In Germany the licenses of the Reichspost lost their validity and the private ownership of radio equipment was immediately banned. The devices were expropriated and confiscated without compensation or had to be delivered to the delivery post office. Of the 250 states that allowed amateur radio services before the war began, half went off air at the same time

Subversive Allied radio transmission activities continued during the war, carried out by the secret organizations Office of the Coordinator of Information , Special Operations Executive and the Military Intelligence Division , which were particularly active in France, Norway, Italy, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Algeria, Greece, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Ostmark were active, but rarely in the "Old Reich". For the counterintelligence of such activities was the defensive charge.

literature

  • Andreas Fleischer, “The enemy is listening!” A comparison of propaganda campaigns from the Second World War (= Imaginarium , Volume 2). Lit, Münster u. a. 1994, ISBN 3-8258-2023-8 .

Web links

Commons : Enemy is listening  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Henning Freiherr Grote (Ed.): Caution! Enemy hears with! A History of World War II and Post War Espionage. Neufeld & Henius, Berlin 1930.
  2. ↑ Caution! Enemy hears with! in the Internet Movie Database (English)