Facts About Shadow of the Swastika (1940)

Smith's Weekly 27 Jan 1940 p. 18.

FACTS ABOUT "THE SHADOW OF THE SWASTIKA"
"SMITH'S" SHORT-WAVE SERVICE
By "Short Wave"

THAT black chapter In the history of the Nazi Party which begins with the annexation of Czechoslovakia, and ends with the rape of Poland, will be dealt with in the seventh programme
of the B.BC series. "The Shadow of the Swastika," now being broadcast from London.

This next episode will be heard on Saturday, January 27, at 4.45 p.m. through GSD (25.53) and GSB (31.55 metres), and at 10.30 p.m on GSG (16.86) and GSJ (13.93 metres)

The search for the facts on which these programmes are based—and the historical accuracy of the series is one of its most striking features—involved the analysis of every book written in English and German on the Germany of the last twenty years, a minute study of the files of the German Press during that time, and the collection of private Information about the Nazi Party and its members, from refugees and British subjects who have had access to leading personalities of the regime.

Carried out by Igor Vinogradoff, former Lecturer In History at Edinburg University, this research work is probably the most exhausive ever undertaken for a broadcast programme.

George Walter, a German musician who came to England about seven years ago, is the composer of the special music of the series. A pupil of Krenlk and Schonberg, he conducted opera in Germany at the age of seventeen, and wrote the incidental music of many German radio-plays and films.
For the continually-recurring theme that denotes Hitler, Walter used the Hort Wessel song, rescored for brass only. An arrangement of Wagner's "Wotan" theme accompanies the recollections of Hitler's broken promises, and the theme-music for the concentration camps is the folk-song, "Die Lorelei," which, until it was proscribed by the Nazis, was sung everywhere In Germany.

A. L. Lloyd is the author of the script for "The Shadow of' the Swastika," and Laurence Gilliam is producing the series Marius Goring, an actor well known for his Interpretation of parts demanding great nervous energy, plays Hitler.