Unaccountable Backfire

This year's most significant Nazi propaganda trial abruptly backfired last week. For some months the Ministry of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment has been telling Germany what a nest of swinish rascals and swindlers the Prussian Ministry of Public Welfare was before Adolf Hitler became Chancellor. Under the shrieking headline "HOW PUBLIC MONEY WAS SQUANDERED!" Dr. Heinrich Hirtsiefer, ousted Public Welfare Minister, was denounced for indulging in an orgy of buying honorary degrees for himself from German universities and treating his colleagues shamelessly to beer.

These odd charges involved the alleged acceptance of bribes by the renowned and ancient University of Graz in Austria. A onetime mayor of Diisseldorf was also accused of having wangled favors from the Prussian Ministry of Public Welfare by presenting 100 lottery tickets and 100 bottles of wine to Minister Hirtsiefer. In the Press these charges were reported as facts, played up as horrible examples of corruption to be expected from politicians of the German Republic now replaced by the honest officials of the Third Reich.

In Berlin as the trial closed last week Judge Hoepke, to his intense embarrassment, found it necessary to acquit Dr. Hirtsiefer and his four alleged accomplices for lack of evidence. "The ending of this trial with an acquittal must seem surprising and unaccountable to the public." said Judge Hoepke. "Nobody regrets more than the court that its judgment conflicts with public opinion. . . . This is to be traced back to the fact that the public was not correctly informed by the Press."

Actually the whole Press, mustered into action by club-footed Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment Dr. Paul Josef Goebbels, joined in damning Dr. Hirtsiefer from the moment Storm Troopers arrested him and drove him through the streets of Essen with a placard hung from his neck: "I AM A TRAITOR TO MY COUNTRY!"

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