Bending Spines: The Propagandas of Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic

Chapter 5: MAPS OF REALITY

5 Maps of Reality MMMM 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 surpassed 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 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 twothirds 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 selfcensorship resulted. Most journalists, like most Germans, went along to get 90 Chapter Five 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...