Editing Sefton Delmer (section)

===Radio stations===

[[File:Crowborough-aerials-1024x872.jpg|thumb|The [[Aspidistra (transmitter)|Aspidistra transmitter]], Sussex, used for Delmer's ''Atlantiksender'' propaganda broadcasts]]

In September 1940, Delmer was recruited by the [[Political Warfare Executive]] (PWE) to organise [[black propaganda]] broadcasts to Nazi Germany as part of a [[psychological warfare]] campaign.<ref>Twigge, Stephen & Edward Hampshire, & Graham Macklin. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=35MVAQAAIAAJ British Intelligence]'', ([[National Archives]], 2008), pp.&nbsp;72–73.</ref> Leonard Ingrams of the PWE gained clearance for Delmer to work for the Political Intelligence Department of the [[Foreign Office]]. The operation joined a number of other "research units" operating propaganda broadcasts, based at [[Wavendon#Wavendon Tower|Wavendon Tower]] (now in [[Milton Keynes]]), but in Spring 1941, Delmer was given his own base, a former private house in nearby [[Aspley Guise]].<ref>Delmer (1962) p. 37</ref><ref name=EH>{{cite web |title=Political Warfare Executive Studio, Milton Bryan |url=https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=1401210&resourceID=5 |publisher=[[English Heritage]] |access-date=29 March 2023}}</ref> 

The concept was that the radio station would undermine Hitler by pretending to be a fervent Hitler-Nazi supporter. Under Delmer's leadership a number of notable people played a part: [[Muriel Spark]],<ref name="Smith">{{cite web |last1=Smith |first1=James |title=The Political Warfare Executive – what's in a (cover) name? |url=https://sites.durham.ac.uk/writersandpropaganda/2018/11/12/whats-in-a-cover-name/ |website=The Political Warfare Executive, Covert Propaganda, and British Culture |publisher=Durham University |access-date=1 January 2021 |date=12 November 2018}}</ref> [[Ellic Howe]],<ref name="clutch">{{cite web |title=PWE Ellic Howe |url=http://clutch.open.ac.uk/schools/emerson00/pwe_page11.html |website=clutch.open.ac.uk |publisher=CLUTCH Club |access-date=1 January 2021}}</ref> and Delmer's college friend, the cartoonist [[Osbert Lancaster]]. Some of Lancaster's ''[[Daily Express]]'' cartoons were reprinted into booklets aimed at civilians under German occupation and dropped by the [[Royal Air Force|RAF]].<ref name="Woodward">{{cite web |last1=Woodward |first1=Guy |title=Cartoons and propaganda: Osbert Lancaster at the PWE |url=https://sites.durham.ac.uk/writersandpropaganda/2020/01/28/cartoons-and-propaganda-osbert-lancaster-at-the-pwe/ |website=The Political Warfare Executive, Covert Propaganda, and British Culture |publisher=[[Durham University]] |access-date=1 January 2021 |date=28 January 2020}}</ref>

Delmer's first, most notable success was a shortwave station: ''[[Gustav Siegfried Eins]]'' (Gustave Siegfried One), G3 in the Research units. It was "run" by the character "Der Chef", an unrepentant Nazi, who disparaged both [[Winston Churchill]] ("that flatfooted son of a drunken Jew") and the "Parteikommune", the "Party Commune" supporters who betrayed the Nazi revolution. The station name, "Gustav Siegfried Eins" (phonetic alphabet for "GS1") left a question in listeners' minds – did it mean ''Geheimsender 1'': (Secret Transmitter 1) or ''Generalstab 1'' (General Staff 1)? 

''GS1'' went on the air on the evening of 23 May 1941 — earlier than intended, to exploit the capture of Hitler's deputy, [[Rudolf Hess]], in Britain. {{ill|Peter Seckelmann|de}},  a former German writer of detective stories who had fled Nazi Germany, was recruited from a [[Royal Pioneer Corps|Pioneer Corps]] bomb-disposal squad in London and he was the first member of the team to arrive at the discreet house known as "The Rookery" in Aspley Guise.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Howe |first1=Ellic |author1-link=Ellic Howe |title=The black game: British subversive operations against the Germans during the Second World War |date=1982 |publisher=[[ Michael Joseph (publisher)|Michael Joseph]] |location=London |isbn=9780718117184 |page=110}}</ref> He played "Der Chef". (In Delmer's [[autobiography]] ''Black Boomerang'' he acknowledges that "Some of the names of persons mentioned in this book have  been camouflaged [ … ]" and Seckelmann was there named "Paul Sanders". ) A journalist, {{ill|Frank Lynder|de}}, using the name "Johannes Reinholz", arrived soon after and played the adjutant to "Der Chef".<ref>Delmer 1962, page 1</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Lloyd |first1=Mark |title=The art of military deception |date=2003 |publisher=Pen & Sword |location=Barnsley |isbn=9781844680108|chapter=Second World War deceptions}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Hirschfeld |first1=Gerhard |author1-link=Gerhard Hirschfeld |title=Exile in Great Britain: Refugees from Hitler's Germany |date=1984 |publisher=Berg |location=Leamington Spa, Warwickshire |isbn=9780907582212 |page=149}}</ref> Both men assisted Delmer with the scripts.<ref>Delmer (1962) pp 36–38, 44</ref> The recordings were made on disc and taken by courier for transmission from a Foreign Office transmitter at nearby [[Gawcott#Signal Hill|Signal Hill, Gawcott]].<ref name=EH/>

When Sir [[Stafford Cripps]] discovered what Delmer was involved with (through the intervention of [[Richard Crossman]], who had sent him a transcript from the broadcast of one of Delmer's more salacious inventions), Cripps wrote to [[Anthony Eden]], then [[Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs|Foreign Secretary]]: "If this is the sort of thing that is needed to win the war, why, I'd rather lose it."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.psywar.org/cripps|title= Sir Stafford Cripps and the German Admiral's Orgy|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070117221303/http://www.psywar.org/cripps |archivedate=17 January 2007|author=Lee Richards|website=PsyWar.Org|year=2007}}</ref> Delmer was defended by [[Robert Bruce Lockhart]], who pointed out the need to reach the sadist in the German nature. GS1 ran for 700 broadcasts before Delmer killed it off in late 1943 with gunfire heard over the radio intimating that the authorities had caught up with "Der Chef". Owing to an error by a non-German-speaking transmitter engineer, the programme was accidentally repeated and "Der Chef's" dramatic on-air murder was broadcast twice.<ref>Delmer (1962) p. 80</ref>

Delmer created several stations and was successful through a careful use of intelligence using gossip intercepted in German mail to neutral countries to create credible stories. Delmer's credit within the intelligence agencies was such that the [[British Admiralty|Admiralty]] sought him out to target German submarine crews with demoralising news bulletins. For this, Delmer had access to [[Aspidistra (transmitter)|Aspidistra]], a 500&nbsp;kW radio transmitter obtained from [[RCA]] in the US (their largest off-the-shelf-model), which Section VIII bought for £165,000. Use of Aspidistra, which began in 1942, was split between PWE, the [[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]], and the [[Royal Air Force|RAF]]. 

Delmer's creation was ''[[Deutscher Kurzwellensender Atlantik]]'' (or popularly ''Atlantiksender''). This station used US [[jazz]] ([[Art in Nazi Germany|banned within Germany]] as decadent) and up-to-date dance music from Germany (extracted via Sweden and RAF courier), as well as an in-house German dance band. Important details on naval procedures came from anti-Nazis identified in [[POW]] camps, whose mail was sifted to create personalised announcements. The presenter ("Vicki") was [[Agnes Bernelle]], a refugee of part-Jewish origin from Berlin.<ref>{{cite news |last1=David |first1=Alexander |title=Obituary: Agnes Bernelle |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-agnes-bernelle-1081116.html |access-date=25 August 2023 |work=[[The Independent]] |date=17 March 1999 |language=en}}</ref>

''Christ the King'' (G.8) broadcast an attack on the conscience of religious Germans, telling of the horrors of the labour and concentration camps, through a German priest.<ref>Delmer (1962) pp. 139–141</ref>