Nazis continue vilification of Roosevelt even in death
Abusive Berlin tirade shocks even the Japs, who concede president was ‘great man’
LONDON (UP) – The Nazis burst the last bounds of decency today and continued a vilification of President Roosevelt, even in death.
German propagandists gloated openly over the president’s death. They poured out an abusive tirade that shocked the rest of the world, perhaps even Japan.
While the Japs joined with the Germans in accusing Mr. Roosevelt of causing the present war, Tokyo conceded at least the president was a “great man.”
But Berlin’s commentaries heaped abuse upon the president’s memory.
Called war’s ‘inventor’
One commentator, in a speech which was apparently written by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, said that the miracle which had saved Adolf Hitler had killed the “inventor of this war.”
The commentator was Wilfred von Ofen, one of Berlin’s best. But expert listeners said his remarks did not follow his usual tone and that they were termed much after the way Goebbels writes.
The broadcast was unusual in that Von Ofen spoke in the first person. It broke all rules and it appeared obvious that Goebbels was directing the “hate” program against Mr. Roosevelt’s name.
‘Deep satisfaction’
“It is for me, who believes in justice of fate, a deep satisfaction to witness the fact that this man, himself chiefly responsible for this second World War, does not himself survive it,” Von Ofen said. “I have never more firmly than at this moment believed in Divine justice.”
He added that a Divine miracle saved Hitler during the July 20 attempt on his life “but it struck down the other mercilessly and justly by sudden, unexpected death.”
The Jap admission was in direct contrast to the reaction in Berlin, where the news of the president’s death reached the German capital while it was undergoing an Allied air raid.
Lack official comment
While official German quarters declined to comment, one Berlin radio commentator said Mr. Roosevelt would go down in history “as the man on whose drive the present war has expanded to a second World War.”
“He was the most expensive president of the United States who above all achieved one thing – to lift in his own camp the strongest competitor into saddle: The Bolshevist Soviet Union,” the German commentator said.
Japs pay tribute
The Japs paid tribute to Mr. Roosevelt’s position in world affairs and his place in history. When news of the death reached the Jap capital, Tokyo radio interrupted a program of prisoner of war messages and announced: “We now introduce a few minutes of special music to honor the passing of this great man.”
A Jap commentator later described Mr. Roosevelt as “the symbol of American imperialism, a mixed phenomenon of the contemporary type.”