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The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic

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by Randall L Bytwerk


  The SED’s system further demanded greater commitment from propagandists. The NSDAP had nothing like the SED’s elaborate party educational system. The NSDAP’s schools tended to run brief courses for propagandists, but SED propagandists took lengthier courses, either by correspondence or at party schools. Part of the difference had to do with the nature of the respective systems. Nazism doubted the virtues of the intellect in making propaganda. Faith and passion were the keys, and the Führerprinzip instructed subordinates to obey blindly their superiors. The SED in practice demanded an almost identical obedience, but in theory it based its demands on scientific principles, and even its leaders built elaborate theoretical justifications for their policies.

  One way to compare the demands on local propagandists is to contrast the propaganda plans both systems developed. The March 1942 issue of the propaganda newsletter for Gau Weser-Ems included a propaganda plan for the coming weeks. It briefly outlined the major propaganda arguments to be used but noted: “What these men need to know about political events they can easily learn from the newspapers, the radio and the material This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:40 UTC

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  provided by the RPL . . . and above all from the articles by the Reichspropagandaleiter. 68 It is not critical that they know every detail of the situation or of political events, rather they must display complete conviction that there is no alternative but victory for the German people, and that everything must be done for it, above all that the full efforts of each individual are required.”69 Propagandists were not expected to know anything more than their fellow citizens. Rather, their prime task was to display faith.

  The SED expected considerably more than confident ignorance. Consider the 1982 propaganda plan for Kreis Rochlitz, a county in Saxony. It says nothing about the convictions of propagandists but instead provides pages of detailed arrangements to ensure that the masses got the message.

  One section deals with reaching workers:

  In cooperation with comrades from the union, discussions and conversations on the basic issues of our policies must be conducted more consistently. . . .

  Comrades will receive specific assignments to meet with young workers, particularly those in youth brigades, to discuss the responsibility of the working class and the role and significance of the party. The goal is to win the best as candidate members for the party.

  The mass political work with the working class must focus on such problems as:

  • The unity of socialism and peace. The securing of peace and banishing the danger of war—the most important problems for humanity.

  • The general strengthening of the GDR and socialism—the most important prerequisite for maintaining pace.

  • Raising national productivity requires increasing labor productivity, efficiency and quality as the main goal of the workers’ mass initiative.

  • The close connection between the advantages of socialism and the results of the scientific-technical revolution.

  • The political strength of the working class—the foundation of revolution.

  • The growing leadership role of the SED in the further formation of the developed socialist society in the GDR.70

  This is a quite different set of expectations. The SED’s propagandists were expected to demonstrate conviction, but that conviction was to be backed by solid knowledge.

  For both systems, hundreds of thousands of local propagandists worked with varying degrees of diligence to provide a link between ordinary citizens and the party or state. Their jobs were challenging and difficult, since they had considerable duties and often heard complaints about which they This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:40 UTC

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  could do little. Their fellow citizens also saw them, with considerable justice, as minions of the system rather than as sources of real information or assistance. Still, they gave a human and accessible face to the systems, which could not have functioned without them. And their public professions of faith in their systems worked on them as well as on their neighbors.

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  Maps of Reality

  M M M M

  Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin, lover and adviser to Empress Catherine the Great, had a problem in 1787. The empress was to tour an area into which he had sunk considerable sums of her money with limited results. After careful preparation, Potemkin presented Catherine with a facade of success, though he did not build the literal Potemkin villages of legend. The empress left convinced of his abilities. He was an early propagandist. His successors, with the resources of modern media, have sur-passed his achievement, persuading whole nations of things that were not so.

  The media in totalitarian societies have catechetical functions. Their goal is to present people with convincing accounts of what they cannot know firsthand—the reality beyond their everyday lives. That which is presented must agree with the reigning worldview. If Jews are bad, news of Jews anywhere in the world must be bad news. If capitalism is in its dying days, it will not do to present its successes. And if the news is to serve as an organ of the truth, those who determine what is news must be those who supposedly know that truth themselves.

  The news media of both National Socialism and Marxism-Leninism have been extensively studied.1 I shall not repeat in detail what others have 89

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  already done. Rather, after a survey of the both systems, I shall turn to case studies of the systems in action.

  The Führer’s Media

  National Socialism came to power with a clear idea of the role of the mass media: they were to serve the state. As Hadamovsky wrote in 1933: “German intellectuals active in forming public opinion should not speak of freedom, rather of self-discipline and responsibility. The supreme value to which they should pay spiritual homage is not the press, but the nation that they serve with their ability and their strength.”2 This did not mean that the media should be directly under state control. In theory the Nazis favored private ownership of the media but in practice worked against it.

  Their methods were clearest with regards to the press. Although the socialist and Communist publishing houses were quickly eliminated, other newspaper owners retained possession. This kept them sympathetic even as the NSDAP’s own newspapers and magazines became dominant. The Völkischer Beobachter, the NSDAP’s national daily, became the paper of record. Its circulation rose from 130,000 in 1933 to about 1 million by 1940. As the war effort forced many newspapers out of existence, the Völkischer Beobachter’s circulation reached 1.7 million in 1944.3 Party organizations put out a variety of newspapers. Goebbels’s daily Der Angriff was assumed by the DAF. The SS published Das Schwarze Korps, a lively and often nasty weekly read outside SS circles as well. Many nonparty organs either became uneconomic or were absorbed by the Nazi press system.

  Max Amann, the Nazi Reichsleiter for the party press, controlled about two-thirds of the daily newspapers by 1939.4 There were party magazines for boys, girls, women, teachers, doctors, and so forth.

  Press ownership made little practical difference, since the NSDAP rapidly established comprehensive control over newspaper content. News agencies were centralized. All those involved in journalism by law had to be members of the Reich Chamber of the Press. Jews could not be members; a limited number could work for newspapers with exclusively Jewish readers.

  The Nazis avoided official press censorship through the editors’ law of 4 October 1933, which made editors legally
responsible for the content of their newspapers. They became de facto censors. Journalists learned that even minor errors could result in summary firing. An efficient system of self-censorship resulted. Most journalists, like most Germans, went along to get This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:42 UTC

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  along. Hardly any journalists whom the Nazis did not force to resign (for example, Jews, Communists, and socialists) did so of their own volition.5

  The press received guidance in full measure. Goebbels made his goals clear as he spoke to journalists on 15 March 1933, two days after he assumed office as propaganda minister: “You should obviously get your information here, but you should also get your instructions. You should know not only what is happening but also what the Government is thinking and how you can most usefully explain this to the people. We want to have a press that works with the Government, just as the Government wants to work with the press.”6 It would not be an equal partnership.

  The Propaganda Ministry held a daily press conference to provide directives to leading journalists.7 The directives ranged from trivial to crucial.

  Several examples:

  • “There will be an international dog show in Berlin on Sunday. The dog of Miss Heß, the sister of Rudolf Heß, should not receive special attention.”

  [26 October 1935]

  • “Greta Garbo may be covered in a friendly manner.” [20 November 1937]

  • “With respect to the events of last night throughout the Reich [ Kristal-nacht], Baeckow explained that newspapers could add to this morning’s DNB [ Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro] report examples of individual incidents, mentioning that here and there windows were broken and synagogues burned. He requested that the stories not be played up, above all no headlines on the front page. For the moment he also requested no pictures.

  There should also be no general accounts covering the entire Reich.

  Newspapers may naturally mention that there was understandable outrage and corresponding actions by the populace in other parts of the Reich.” [10 November 1938]

  Frei and Schmitz estimate the total number of such directives at 80,000 to 100,000.8 The published edition of prewar directives runs seven volumes.

  It is based on covertly taken notes, since it was officially forbidden to take notes during the conferences.9

  The surviving notes sometimes reveal how journalists responded. In February 1939, for example, cabaret artist Werner Finck was punished for being too good at his art. Journalists were instructed to applaud the step. In response, they concluded that satire in any form was dangerous. Within three weeks, a loyal satirist wrote to Goebbels to complain that no one dared to publish his work. That led to still more instructions to journalists.

  As Hans Fritzsche, later a prominent radio commentator, told the journalists: “One would hope culture editors had more backbone.”10 But of course This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:42 UTC

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  most journalists, who had had their spines bent for six years by then, no longer had a great deal of spine left. There was also the Zeitschriften-Dienst, a confidential newsletter that went to editors with examples of good and bad journalism.11 It scolded periodicals that had carried material to which the government objected and praised those that had set a good example.

  Radio news was the one area in which the Third Reich faced competition. German-language shortwave broadcasts reached Germany from a variety of sources. Prewar radio magazines even carried the schedules of international broadcasters. Although listening to foreign stations was promptly banned when the war began (by the end of the war people were being executed for the offense), it was difficult to control.12 The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) estimated that by fall 1944 over ten million Germans were listening to its German-language broadcasts. This forced German radio to respond, though newscasters often could not overtly say that they were responding to the BBC.13

  Television broadcasting began in Berlin in 1935 and in Hamburg in 1941. Sets were expensive and programming limited. The solution was to set up public viewing rooms. Berlin had ten in 1939. Broadcasting continued as late as 1943, but the beginning of the war put an end to the development of a medium the Nazis would have found valuable.14

  The newsreel was an established institution by 1933. During the war, newsreels ran twenty to thirty minutes and were shown before the feature film. The Nazis realized the importance of the visual and put substantial effort into newsreels from the beginning. Excellent cameramen secured vivid footage, not surprising perhaps, since nearly a thousand members of the propaganda companies that reported the war were killed or injured.15

  Goebbels viewed each newsreel at least twice before approving its release, once without sound, once with.16 Until Stalingrad, Hitler also previewed newsreels and sometimes ordered changes. The two did not always agree.

  In July 1941 Goebbels noted in his diary: “The Führer wants more polem-ical material in the script. I would rather have the pictures speak for themselves and have the script explain only what the audience would not otherwise understand. I consider this to be more effective, because then the viewer does not see the art in it.”17 By art Goebbels meant propaganda.

  Properly chosen pictures, he was convinced, led viewers to the proper conclusions. Trusting what it saw, the audience would less likely question images than words.

  The importance of newsreels is indicated by the resources the Nazis put into them. In the 1930s smaller theaters (which paid less) got a newsreel This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:42 UTC

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  months after it was released. During the war, 1,600 prints were made, reaching the smallest theaters within a month.18

  World War II newsreels and photographs were powerful.19 Internal morale reports regularly noted what newsreel footage had worked and what had not. Heinz Boberach maintains that only Hitler’s speeches had greater public impact.20 The newsreels had clear propaganda purposes. At the beginning of the war they presented Germany as an irresistible military force, later as an invincible fortress. In 1945 the message was resist to the last or face horror. A March 1945 newsreel, for example, had grisly scenes of civilians murdered by the approaching Russians.

  The GDR Media

  The GDR’s system was simpler. Private ownership of the media was prohibited. With the exception of religious publications, all newspapers and significant magazines were published by the SED, the four bloc parties, or organizations such as the FDJ or the FDGB.21 The SED published Neues Deutschland, the leading daily, with a circulation of about one million. Each of the SED Bezirk branches published a daily newspaper. Broadcasting was a state monopoly. Films came from DEFA, a film production company owned by the state.

  As under the Nazis, the press was watched with great care. Faced initially with a shortage of trained socialist journalists, the SED moved rapidly to build a trustworthy cadre. No one became a journalist without proving political reliability. The SED organized special conferences for journalists in 1950, 1951, and 1959 to make its wishes clear. The program in journalism at Karl Marx University in Leipzig became the primary training ground for journalists. Its purpose was clear by 1967, when Emil Dusiska became its director. He was not a trained journalist but rather came from the Central Committee. One’s politics was more important than one’s professional background. A student recalls him telling a group that wanted to investi-gate the effects of the media: “You know that the party does not want that done.”22 The press was to serve the party.

  Unlike the Nazi period, in which both party and state had journalistic influence, the line of authority in the GDR flowed from the SED. The Agitation Department of t
he Central Committee held a weekly press conference each Thursday that laid out the approach to be taken. The instructions were oral, with note-taking prohibited, but the material was This content downloaded from 198.91.37.2 on Sun, 05 Jun 2016 03:34:42 UTC

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  important enough to encourage people to violate the rule.23 Two examples of the press injunctions suggest their nature.

  • On the boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics: “We ask you . . . to avoid any statement or commentary. Until further notice, nothing can be published without our prior approval. No individual initiatives!” [10 May 1984]

  • On coverage of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the GDR in 1984: “The people must always see themselves as the builders of the state. Present this socialist state in the manner it deserves. During this period, no one may spout off about things he does not like, Marzahn [a huge housing development at the edge of Berlin] for example. The complainers had to haul coal for forty years, and now hot water flows from their taps. Complainers are people who do not have any idea that collectives and individuals have accomplished great things.” [30 August 1984]

  Representatives of the bloc parties were not invited to the Thursday conference but received similar directives from the state press office.24 The Agitation Department also issued a large number of printed directives and teletypes to journalists.

  Not only were journalists carefully chosen and instructed, but they also knew that mistakes could end their careers. An unfortunate newspaper in Halle reported on the KZ of the SED rather than the ZK (that is, concentration camp instead of Central Committee). After considerable investiga-tion, the staff escaped with instructions to spell it out in the future.25 There were numerous similar incidents.

 

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