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SEX BOMB

Channel Four
Producer: David Monaghan
Director: David Malone
Associate Producer: Mark Tanner

SCRIPT

PART 1

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Swirling Ink
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Sefton Delmer Shaving. Mixing to and from Hitler rally in Delmer's mind.

NARRATOR:
DURING WORLD WAR II, ONE MAN WAGED A SECRET AND SINISTER WAR ON BEHALF OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. HIS NAME WAS SEFTON DELMER.

Quote:
He was king of the Nasty.

NARRATOR:
HE'D WITNESSED GERMANY UNLEASH A NEW WEAPON - SEX PROPAGANDA. AND VOLUNTEERED TO BEAT THE NAZIS AT THEIR OWN GAME. HE RAN A SHADOWY DEPARTMENT TO PRINT AND BROADCAST PORNOGRAPHY. HE SPREAD FANTASIES OF RAPE, PERVERSION, AND SEX TO CREATE DIVISIONS AMONG THE GERMANS AND SHATTER ENEMY MORALE. TO BEAT TYRANNY, SEFTON DELMER BUILT BRITAIN A STATE APPARATUS DEVOTED TO LIES, SMEARS AND TRICKERY - BUT HE PAID A TERRIBLE PERSONAL PRICE.

Swirling Ink mix to title

Sex Bomb Title.

Images of German's massed on Maginot line.

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NARRATOR:
AT THE START OF WORLD WAR II, THE GERMAN ARMY UNLEASHED: SEX PROPAGANDA. IN A CAMPAIGN ALL BUT WRITTEN OUT OF THE HISTORY BOOKS, BRITISH TROOPS WERE SUBJECT TO A MULTI-MEDIA ASSAULT OF SEXUAL SMEARS. GERMAN PROPAGANDA MINISTER JOSEF GOEBBEL'S HAD COME UP WITH A RUSE TO SPLIT THE BRITISH FROM THEIR FRENCH ALLIES. HE DECIDED TO STIR UP SEXUAL JEALOUSY BETWEEN THEM. IN 1940 ILLUSTRATED LEAFLETS WERE FLOATED OVER THE MAGINOT LINE FOR THE FRENCH TO READ.

Tommy Leaflets.

Archive Footage: Germans sending leaflets by balloon.

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Dr Ortwin Buchbender:
While the basic message was quite simple: The poor Frenchman in his trenches is fighting against the German and the English are drinking Champagne with our women. Quite easy

Herb Friedman:
And the whole concept was to convince the French that while they were fighting and dying at the front, the British were having sex with their women.

Archive Footage:
French soldiers on Maginot Line.

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Archive Voice Over:
What is happening to your wives back home, soldiers? The British are staying in your villages.

Archive Footage: Where's Tommy? The leaflets.

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Herb Friedman:
The Where's Tommy? Leaflet is a really interesting item. It's one of the very first of the see-through leaflets. What the Germans did was basically show a French soldier in its death throws and when that card was held up to the light a second card had been cleverly glued behind it making two pieces. When the light shone through now a British soldier would be seen back with a French wife or in a French Bistro or in a French whorehouse obviously with semi-dressed young ladies. And they were very popular cards.

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NARRATOR:
SEFTON DELMER WAS A SUCCESSFUL TABLOID JOURNALIST COVERING THE STAND OFF IN FRANCE FOR A BRITISH PAPER. WHEN HE SAW THE LEAFLETS HE WAS INTRIGUED. TROOPS WOULD NORMALLY THROW AWAY STRAIGHT-FORWARD PROPAGANDA - BUT DELMER SAW THAT THE ONES WITH DIRTY PICTURES WERE KEPT, RE-READ, AND PASSED FROM MAN TO MAN. THIS WAS A REVELATION TO DELMER. IN THE YEARS TO COME, HE WOULD USE THIS PRINCIPLE IN THE SERVICE OF THE BRITISH - AND BUILD A MEDIA EMPIRE OF LEAFLETS, NEW SHEETS AND RADIO STATIONS ACROSS EUROPE OF GREATER INFLUENCE THAN EVEN THE BBC.

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Exterior of Selina Delmer Best’s house

Into Selina and daughter looking at old photos of Delmer in Photo album.

NARRATOR:
SOMEONE WHO KNEW WHY DELMER WAS PERFECT FOR THE JOB OF BEATING THE GERMANS WAS HIS DAUGHTER, SELINA.

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Selina Delmer Best:
Shall we look at some photos of your grandpa.

Over shoulder photos of Delmer

Selina Delmer Best:
Where shall we start? Start at the beginning and work backwards.

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NARRATOR:
DELMER UNDERSTOOD THE GERMANS. HE'D SPENT HIS EARLY CHILDHOOD IN GERMANY. HE WAS VERY GOOD AT TELLING STORIES, WONDERFUL STORIES.

Selina Delmer Best:
He had a perfect upbringing for the job that he did because having been an enemy schoolboy in Germany, born in Berlin and having gone to school in Berlin. And then after his father was interned in Germany they were sent back to Britain and he went to St Paul's and yet again another enemy schoolboy because he'd come from Germany. So he had tremendous insight into that side of things - of being an outsider. When he was in Germany you would have sworn he was German. When he was in Britain he was very, very British. It made him two people in one package.

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Delmer and Isabelle reconstruction.

NARRATOR:
EVEN HIS MARRIAGE STRADDLED TWO WORLDS. IN 1935, DELMER HAD MARRIED ISABELLE NICHOLAS. SHE WAS A LONDON ARTIST, WHO HAD BEFRIENDED PICASSO, GIACOMETTI AND EPSTEIN. ISABEL'S BEAUTY HAD INSPIRED THEM TO TURN HER IMAGE INTO ART.

NARRATOR:
DELMER WAS A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT IN PARIS WHEN WAR CHANGED THEIR LIFE. ISABEL HAD HELPED DELMER CULTIVATE THE CONTACTS WHO HAD GIVEN HIM ACCESS TO THE NAZI ELITE - INCLUDING HITLER HIMSELF.

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Archive Photo:
Delmer and Hitler.

Sefton Delmer:
He looked at me as though he was Ludendorff about the confer the Iron Cross and said "Zieg ieda mien", "Zieg ieda mien" which means "Pleased to meet you". “Dreadful".

Divide and Conquer Archive

Archive Voice Over:
France still looked like an imposing castle, but Hitler's' political termites had so eaten away the binding of national unity, that the castle was ready to crumble.

Archive:
Panic in the streets.

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NARRATOR:
WHEN FRANCE COLLAPSED, THE GERMAN PROPAGANDIST COULD CLAIM THAT THEIR SEX SMEARS HAD PLAYED A PART. DELMER AND ISABEL FLED TO LONDON. GERMANY WOULD NOW TURN ITS NEW WEAPON ON BRITAIN - AND THE BRITISH WOULD HAVE TO DECIDE WHETHER TO STAY ON THE MORAL HIGH GROUND OR TO USE SEX PROPAGANDA THEMSELVES.

End of Part One

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