Editing Sefton Delmer (section)

===Soldatensender Calais===

[[File:Sefton Delmer's WW2 'black propaganda' radio studio at Milton Bryan.JPG|thumb|Purpose-built radio studio at Milton Bryan for "Soldatensender Calais"]]''[[Soldatensender Calais]]'' ("[[Calais]] Armed Forces Radio Station") was another clandestine radio station Delmer directed at the German armed forces. Based in [[Milton Bryan]] and connected by high-quality telephone lines for transmission from the [[Aspidistra (transmitter)|Aspidistra transmitter]] at [[Crowborough]],<ref>{{cite web |title=P. W. E. Milton Bryan |url=https://clutch.open.ac.uk/schools/emerson00/milton%20bryan_1.html#:~:text=Milton%20Bryan%20Propaganda%20Station%2C%20built,of%20a%20modern%20transmitting%20station. |website=kmi.open.ac.uk |publisher=[[Open University]] |location=[[Milton Keynes]]}}</ref> ''Soldatensender Calais'' produced [[Live radio|live]] broadcasts, a combination of popular music, "cover" support of the war, and "dirt" – items inserted to demoralise German forces. Delmer's black propaganda sought to propagate rumours that German soldiers' wives were sleeping with the many foreign workers in Germany at the time. Bernelle, again, was presenter.

The station also proved to be popular on the German home front.<ref>Rankin (2008) p. 310</ref> While the station was in the format of a German military station, it did not pose as an actual Nazi station; but although listeners knew the station was run by the British, they listened to and trusted it, and could use the excuse that they thought it was a legitimate German station if caught listening to it.<ref name=pomerantsev/> 

Delmer also oversaw the production of a daily "grey" German-language newspaper titled ''Nachrichten für die Truppe'' ("News for the Troops"), which first appeared in May 1944, much of its text being based on the ''Soldatensender Calais'' broadcasts. ''Nachrichten für die Truppe'' was written by a team provided to Delmer by [[SHAEF]], and disseminated over Germany, Belgium and France each morning by the [[Special Leaflet Squadron]] of the US [[Eighth Air Force]].<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=|editor1-first=|title=The Psychological Warfare Division Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force: an Account of its Operations in the Western European Campaign 1944–1945 |date=1945 |publisher=[[Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force|SHAEF]] |location=Bad Homburg, Germany |oclc=2511848 |page=170 |edition=2008}}</ref>

When [[Siegfried Line#Clashes|fighting entered Germany]] itself, black propaganda was used to create an impression of an anti-Nazi resistance movement.

At the end of the war in Europe, Delmer advised his colleagues not to publicise the work they had been involved in, lest unrepentant Nazis claim (as had been the case after the [[First World War]]), that they had been defeated by unconscionable methods, rather than on the battlefield.<ref>Rankin (2008) pp. 588–9</ref> Consequently, former Nazis were able to claim, without contradiction, that they had assisted the fictitious resistance movement; Delmer described this [[unintended consequence]] as a "black boomerang".<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Lee |editor1-first=Loyd E. |title=World War II in Asia and the Pacific and the war's aftermath, with general themes : a handbook of literature and research |date=1998 |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Conn. |isbn=9780313293269 |chapter=War in Science, Technology, Propaganda}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Plock |first1=Vike Martina |title=The BBC German Service during the Second World War : broadcasting to the enemy |date=2021 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=Cham, Switzerland |isbn=978-3-030-74091-7 |page=186}}</ref>

In December 1945, Delmer was appointed an Officer of the [[Order of the British Empire|Order of the British Empire (OBE)]], with the citation specifying merely that he was "Controller of a Division, Foreign Office".<ref>{{cite news |title=Additional Officers of the Civil Division |work=[[The London Gazette]] |issue=37412 |date=9 January 1946 |page=277}}</ref>