Sefton Delmer was born in Berlin to Australian parents. His father was a professor in Imperial Germany and he was ten when World War I broke out. He experienced the effects of propaganda first-hand as school friends turned on him in a matter of weeks. His family did not get out of Germany for several years and this experience shaped his view of life and people. He finished growing in England, got an Oxford degree and then became a journalist for the Daily Express in 1920's Germany. He chronicled the rise of the Nazi regime, acting as an aide-de-camp to Ernest Rohm, the leader of the Nazi storm troopers at a private meeting. Delmer accompanied Hitler on his airplane as he campaigned to become president against Hindenburg. Delmer also gave lots of parties in Berlin that attracted a number of Nazi officials. After World War II, broke out and France was occupied, Hitler gave a speech offering peace to Great Britain. Sefton Delmar was selected at the BBC to provide an immediate reply that threw the Nazis for a loop. This was what he wanted to do, using language to subvert the enemy. But before he could get a position in the psych-ops wing of the British intelligence services, he had to persuade the powers that be that he was not a Nazi infiltrator and that he had an idea that would reach beyond the "Good German" that the current BBC programming was focusing on.
In late1940, Delmer was posted to Lisbon by the Daily Express. He was also to find out German plans regarding Gibraltar for the Secret Intelligence Service. Then he got recalled to London where he resigned from the Daily Express and was placed in charge of a "Research Unit" - actually a code for "freedom radio." Delmer had the challenge of setting up a right-wing sounding radio to influence the German public! Finally Delmer could put his ideas into practice! Propaganda was what was needed and that was what was delivered using language, tone, and innuendo that got the listeners to stop believing everything on the official radio broadcasts. Delmer took the German broadcasts and spun them with sly bits of commentary that would get listeners rethinking their attitudes toward Nazi officials, the military, their neighbors, and eventually everything. Delmar used the truth to undercut the lies and "fake news" that the official German broadcasts had regarding bombings, outcomes of battles, and survival of individuals. But, Delmer's success in floating some propaganda ideas during the war had unintended consequences after the war, specifically, the stories he spread regarding the German general's opposition to Hitler. After the war, Delmer never knew the success he had before and during the war, but his contribution to winning the war was immense.
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