I am going to discuss the history of free press in Germany. If you are not aware what free press means, it is that there is no government control of the press. Over time German media systems have changed dramatically. From World War 2 to present a lot has happened. The press has gone from being controlled to a free press. When Hitler was in charge the German media systems were at their worst. There was strict regulation involved. The Nazis would control what was printed and what the people would see. If you would disagree with the Nazis you could be injured or thrown in a concentration camp. The Nazis would take over printing presses and equipment. They would also destroy newspapers and printing equipment.
The Nazi’s would Aryanize businesses. Aryanization is forcing a Jewish owned business to be owned by a German. There were two very large printing companies in Germany named Ullstein, and Mosse. Ullstein in Berlin would publish Vossische Zeitung every day. But in 1933 Germans forced the Ullstein family to call it quits. A year later the business was up for sale. The Mosse family published material that was much hated by the Nazis. The day after Hitler took power the family ran away. This was common at the time and many journalists also fled. Of the 4,200 newspapers published only 1,100 remained toward the end of World War 2. Three months after the United States captured the city, the first German newspaper was approved for publication. Having a free press was very important; they thought that it would create democracy in Germany. After the Nazi owned presses were shut down the last surviving German radio station made its final broadcast on May 9th 1945. It is hard to believe the amount of suffering that was involved in creating a free press for Germany.
Written by Alex DeNardo
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We can see the changing process of Germany media structure clearly in this article. Before the WWII, Nazi controlled the press and , as we discussed in the class, the heavily propaganda during that time limited the vision of all their citizens. That was the way for German government to build people’s believes of Nazi and start the war. At the same time, the business cannot grow when Nazi was in power because they forced the Jewish business owners quit and have all the economy controlled in German people’s hands. This policy stopped the economy growth and even limited it. However, after WWII, the Germany changed to a liberal media system which means they have more freedom of press. The media environment was totally different with how it was before. People have the rights to express their opinions and know what happens in the world. I believe this is one of the reasons that Germany have economy growth after WWII as well.
While the propaganda used in WWII were extreme and well-documented, every war ‘requires’ the use of propaganda techniques. Reading this post reminded me of what the senior producer, Samir Khader, said in the documentary Control Room, “You cannot wage a war without rumors, media, propaganda. Any military planner that plans for a war… if he doesn’t put media and propaganda at top of his agenda… he is a bad military planner.”
Any war without propaganda will never gain any support from the public. The events of WWII, while extremely significant, sometimes overpower the other more recent genocides and war crimes that have taken place. For example, the couple million killed in the 1971 Bangladesh war by Pakistan, the thousands of civilians killed after the Invasion of Cyprus in 1974, in the Lebanese Civil War that went on until 1990, the Iran-Iraq War, the hundred of thousands of children in Uganda that are still being forced to join the ranks of murderous cults simply because they have no other choice. Rwanda in 1990, Bosnia in 1991, Croatia in 1998, Liberia and Sierra Leone until 2000, Kosovo 1998, Lebanon 2006, Iraq until 2011, Kuwait to Darfur to today’s agenda; Syria. All of these wars have used propaganda, most often set by government; an agenda is set for each side which respectively betters the people who are in charge. Why does it seem that the importance of being educated about these atrocities has diminished?
WWII education is a perfect framework to help explain why or how all of the later events in the world, but it should be taught as such. When history isn’t portrayed as small piece of a bigger picture, the trends associated with war and politics seem to become distorted. I hope that knowledge and education about wars, genocides, conflicts, doesn’t stop after WWII. And while the knowledge that the events from 1939-1945 have ended, it should not lead any to think that all genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes are no longer a concern. Aside from the the many wars that have gone on in the past 70 years, in 1977, experiments reminiscent of Hitlers, were performed on “unwitting subjects” in the U.S. by the C.I.A. Project MKULTRA was research concerning behavior modification, arguably mind control, which used small to extremely large doses of LSD without participants consent. Read about it and similar ‘experiments’ here:
In the words of George Orwell, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” I just want to reiterate that I do believe education about Hitler and the history surrounding WWII in its entirety is very important. I think it is a mistake that not all states are required to teach about the events of WWII or Hitler in public schools. These students are likely believe genocides and war crimes were even longer ago than the Holocaust, many students don’t even know what it was. Watch this video of Pennsylvania students (some of them Penn State) who never learned about WWII – Did you go to public school in PA? How many of these answers do you know?
I think it is amazing how far Germany has come since the end of World War II. To think that in the 1940’s Germany was run by the Nazi’s and all the press and media was made up of propaganda is crazy. I am very happy that Germany and it’s media structure has dramatically changed since then. Even though their country was such a menace to the rest of the world a little over 50 years ago they have changed for the better. I would love to see Germany become more of a technology savvy country and be equivalent to countries such as the United States and England when it comes to press and media. Our countries could teach them a lot when it comes to producing media and using that media to benefit the economy. I think the world would be a lot different if the Nazi’s were never defeated and Germany still remained a country that had a controlled press.