By Deborah Swift for The Shadow Network Tour
The idea of manipulating the public through ‘fake news’ has many resonances for today, and this is what led me to be interested in the subject for a novel. How the media is controlled, and how it can influence large swathes of the population is still of crucial interest, and it was particularly potent as an idea when the world was at war.
I read quite a few books on the subject of radio propaganda, as radio was the most dominant influencer of the time, with half the population listening in England, and more than 80% in the USA.
In England, secret radio stations were set up operating for the duration of WW2, and they pretended to be genuine German radio stations. They employed German prisoners of war brought in from the camps, or other German speakers or refugees to make their broadcasts. The broadcasts were deliberately racy and were designed to capture the hearts of ordinary Germans and make them believe they were listening to a forbidden radio station from their own country. Their popularity of these ‘illicit’ programmes spread, and they got wide audiences for their programmes.
In wartime Britain there were three branches of propaganda, known then as ‘white’, ‘grey’, or ‘black,’ though we probably wouldn’t call them that today. White propaganda came from a known source and was completely above board. Grey propaganda, on the other hand, was the subtle promotion or amplification of a political opinion by broadcasters who pretended to be ‘objective’ or as neutral. However, with black propaganda the audience were oblivious to the fact they were being manipulated, and did not feel that they were being pushed in a certain direction. This was because black propaganda pretended to come from a source that was not the true source – in The Shadow Network my characters work for a black propaganda radio station.
The first such station, Gustav Siegfried Eins (GS1), featured a fake Nazi extremist called ‘Der Chef’, played by an actor, who accused Adolf Hitler and the Gestapo of going soft. It undermined the German soldiers’ trust in their leaders by reporting on their (alleged) corruption and sexual improprieties.
The two stations mentioned in my novel The Shadow Network are the British radio station Soldatensender Calais, supposedly a radio station for the Wehrmacht based in France, and Atlantiksender, a shortwave radio station for German submariners. In fact, both were coming from Bedfordshire in England, under the direction of Tom Sefton Delmer, a British journalist who had resided in Germany and spoke perfect German. Delmer created several fake German stations and used gossip from prisoners of war, or from intercepted German mail, to create credible stories. He had a team of people collecting suitable material from newspapers and from bugging the captured officers’ camps.
Soldatensender Calais broadcasted a combination of popular music, supposed support of the war, and “dirt” – news that would create dissent in the German forces, such as speculation that German soldiers’ wives were having affairs with the many foreign workers in German factories.
There were British black propaganda radio stations broadcasting in most of the languages of occupied Europe, and many of these were based in the area of Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire. The broadcasts were transmitted using an ex RCA transmitter mast from the USA, which was more powerful than any other, and which was bought for £165,000.
Finding out all this stuff led me on an interesting journey through many research books, and also to a network of Radio buffs and amateur radio enthusiasts who were able to point me in the right direction. The National Archive holds material on Sefton Delmer, as does the Sefton Delmer archive.
https://writersandpropaganda.webspace.durham.ac.uk/tag/sefton-delmer
and Sefton Delmer’s own book Black Boomerang published in 1962.
BUY THE SHADOW NETWORK mybook.to/RadioLies
‘Brilliant! Loved this novel about the input made by the Political Warfare Executive to WW2. The characters seemed so real and true.’ NetGalley Reviewer
‘A gripping tale of wartime subterfuge, spies, saboteurs and black propaganda.’ NetGalley Reviewer
The Shadow Network
One woman must sacrifice everything to uncover the truth in this enthralling historical novel, inspired by the true World War Two campaign Radio Aspidistra…
England, 1942: Having fled Germany after her father was captured by the Nazis, Lilli Bergen is desperate to do something pro-active for the Allies. So when she’s approached by the Political Warfare Executive, Lilli jumps at the chance. She’s recruited as a singer for a radio station broadcasting propaganda to German soldiers – a shadow network.
But Lilli’s world is flipped upside down when her ex-boyfriend, Bren Murphy, appears at her workplace; the very man she thinks betrayed her father to the Nazis. Lilli always thought Bren was a Nazi sympathiser – so what is he doing in England supposedly working against the Germans?
Lilli knows Bren is up to something, and must put aside a blossoming new relationship in order to discover the truth. Can Lilli expose him, before it’s too late?
Set in the fascinating world of wartime radio, don’t miss The Shadow Network, a heart-stopping novel of betrayal, treachery, and courage against the odds.
By Deborah Swift – Published February 2024 – 376 pages
Buy Links:
Universal Buy Link: mybook.to/RadioLies
Link to bookshop: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/the-shadonetwork-ww2-secret-agent-series-deborah-swift
Author Bio:
Deborah Swift is the English author of eighteen historical novels, including Millennium Award winner Past Encounters, and The Lady’s Slipper, shortlisted for the Impress Prize.
Her most recent books are the Renaissance trilogy based around the life of the poisoner Giulia Tofana, The Poison Keeper and its sequels, one of which won the Coffee Pot Book Club Gold Medal. Recently she has completed a secret agent series set in WW2, the first in the series being The Silk Code. Deborah used to work as a set and costume designer for theatre and TV and enjoys the research aspect of creating historical fiction, something she loved doing as a scenographer. She likes to write about extraordinary characters set against the background of real historical events. Deborah lives in North Lancashire on the edge of the Lake District, an area made famous by the Romantic Poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge
Author Links:
Twitter https://twitter.com/swiftstory – Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authordeborahswift/ – Website: www.deborahswift.com – Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/deborahswift1/ – Amazon http://author.to/DeborahSwift – BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/deborah-swift
Thank you so much for hosting Deborah Swift on your blog today.
Take care,
Cathie Dunn x
The Coffee Pot Book Club
I’m grateful to Deborah for such an interesting guest post