Club Meeting

Phillip, a friend of Rees’s from his former Club, on “The largest Aspidistra in the World” The largest Aspidistra referred to a 500kw radio transmitter used by Phillip Sefton to broadcast propaganda to Germany in WW”. Phillip Sefton was a former Daily Express reporter who worked for the Political Warfare Executive (PWE), to organise black propaganda broadcasts to Nazi Germany on the GS1 radio station. According to Wikipedia the major characteristic of black propaganda is that people are not aware that someone is influencing them, and do not feel that they are being pushed in a certain direction. The concept was that the radio station would undermine Hitler by pretending to be a fervent Hitler-Nazi supporter, der chef. After der chef was “killed off” in 1943 other projects followed including broadcasting to German sailors in U-boats and to Occupied Europe using the Aspidistra transmitter.