Propaganda Trial

WAR & PEACE

A jury in a U.S. District Court last week found Germany's Transocean News Service guilty of having failed to register with the State Department as the agent of a foreign government.

Transocean's U.S. managers, Dr. Manfred Zapp and Guenther Tonn, were not in court. Two days before the trial opened in Washington, they were released from Ellis Island (in exchange for two U.S. newsmen-- "detained" in Germany) to sail with a shipload of Axis consuls on the U.S.S. West Point (TIME, July 28). Nor could Transocean be compelled to pay its $1,000 fine, $15,000 court costs. For when this U.S. branch of Dr. Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry closed down officially on July 10, its till was neatly empty.

All the same, the trial was neither a mock trial nor a failure. As a counterblast against Axis propaganda, it was an opening gun in the War of the America's (see p. 12). As a revelation of Nazi methods, it was worth any amount of money in Latin America, where a branch of Transocean is still active.

$1-a-Month Men. From its founding in 1914 (after Britain cut Germany's transatlantic cables) until Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933, Transocean was a reputable news agency. Then the Nazis put it under control of the Foreign Office and the Propaganda Ministry.

Kurt Sell, plump-cheeked, well-liked Washington correspondent for D.N.B., Germany's official press service, appeared last week as a witness for Transocean, told how its propaganda activities began. In 1933, said Newsman Sell, Dr. Hans Luther, German Ambassador in Washington, asked him how Transocean's service could be distributed to German-language papers in the U.S. that could not afford an expensive news agency. Sell suggested subsidizing the service, charging a nominal fee of $1 a month, payable at the nearest German consulate.

Over a period of 25 months, before it was closed, Transocean collected only $3,045 for its services. At the same time, Berlin spent $164,652 to keep it going, other sums were contributed by the German Embassy, German consulates in the U.S. One of Transocean's chief functions, said Eric T. Winberg, a Swedish correspondent in the U.S., who got his information from Manager Tonn, was to broadcast news to South America which might be "harmful to the U.S."

Missing Witness. One witness did not appear at the trial. In Bucaramanga, Colombia, on the night before he was to board a plane for the U.S. to testify, Arturo Regueros Peralta, a member of Colombia's Congress, publisher of the liberal newspaper El Comunero, was shot. The pro-Nazi section of Colombia's press said it was suicide. Dispatches from Colombia reported it was murder.

Publisher Regueros Peralta dropped Transocean Service when he began to suspect it was doctoring U.S. news. Transocean offered to subsidize El Comunero with cash and discounts on newsprint, if Sr. Regueros Peralta would continue the service. He refused.

Last Words. George A. McNuIty, special Assistant Attorney General prosecuting the case against Transocean, summed up his case: "The real purpose of the Transocean agency was war. Not a shooting war, but a war of propaganda, a phase of the Nazi ideal of total war."

Defense Counsel Emil Morosini maintained that "propaganda is not a crime in this country." Said he: "Adolf Hitler is not on trial here. The German Government is not on trial here. The Nazi party is not on trial here."

It took the jury just 33 minutes to make up its mind, say the last word: "Guilty."

*Jay Allen of North American Newspaper Alliance, Richard Hottelet of United Press, who were on their way home this week.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.