GERMAN PRESS CONTROL IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES Is it a reflection of Nazi plans for their future in Hitler’s New Order ? ISSUED BY The Ministry of Information LONDON September, 1941“ The foremost task of the press is to be an instrument of political leadership. It must consequently publish only such news as is designed to further, or at least not to hinder, the policy of the German Reich” [Instructions from the Press Division of the Kommissar of the Norwegian Press, June 1st, 1940, quoted from White Book, Norway, No. 1.) A WAR-TIME CONTROL of the press of the Occupied Territories is understandable in a country fighting for its life. And, naturally enough, the once free press of the occupied countries is under stringent control. But closer scrutiny suggests that the policy underlying Nazi press control is much more far-reaching than Germany’s imme- diate military concern to discourage resistance and encourage “ co-operation.” The Nazi plan is far more cunning. It appears to be to condition each country for the role which it is intended to play as part of German-dominated Europe after the war, and therefore the policy varies fundamentally from country to country.PLANNING FOR THE NEW EUROPE German press control, stringent in each of the Occupied Territories, varies widely from country to country. Its policy is tempered to the role which each country is intended to fill in a German-dominated Europe. Territory by territory, the differing practices and their purpose are described and analysed below. BELGIUM Belgium is to be dismembered after a German victory, her national entity abolished, and her people parcelled out among her neighbours. On April 8 th, 1941, an article in Hier Dinaso, the German- controlled Nazi paper, suggested the transfer of the French- speaking populations of Wallonia and Northern France to the depopulated regions of central and southern France, this with the ostensible motive of (i) removing a seed of discontent in Belgium, (ii) giving the Netherlands “land they so sorely need,” (iii) sparing the Walloons from the fate of “ wasting away in a Belgium becoming more and more Dietsch ” (within the German orbit). “ We no longer acknowledge a Belgian fatherland, nor a Belgian people, nor a Belgian soul or spirit, nor a Belgian history, nor Belgian customs or culture, nor, above all, Belgian honour. We no longer discuss these matters. We have finished with all that is Belgian.” (“ Hier Dinaso,” April 26th, 1941.) The Nazi press control in Belgium, with this aim in view, sets itself by every means to destroy the national spirit of the Belgian people. Quisling journalists are encouraged to vie with one another for German favour, and in their rivalry to sling mud at their compatriots. Degrelle, De Clercq, Poulet, Du Becker and De Man, each one hopes to be master of Belgium under the Nazis, each discredits the Government, and each offers his own solution to the insoluble problem of how to preserve Belgian interests and his own, under the Boche. “ Under the New Order it is essential that the press should cease from bickering and from criticising the country’s leaders.” (Robert Poulet, May 22nd, 1941.)“ In defeat, a country must show a certain reserve, a dignity in which some Belgians to-day are conspicuously lacking.” (De Becker, “ Cassandre,” March 23rd, 1941.) “ De Clercq has not given the least guarantee to the partisans of a Federal Belgian State, nor did he make any statement concerning either the collaboration of Flemings and Walloons, or the problem of Brussels. It is therefore surprising that the Rexists have not obtained precise conditions about their future status before leaving their own organisation.” {Du Becker, May 13 th, 1941.) “ Walloons may live in Flanders so long as they observe the rules of the Flemish community like other foreigners. Similarly, Flemings may live in the Walloon country.” (“ Pays Riel” Degrelle’s paper, May 16 th, 1941.) “ Walloons may continue to live in Flanders so long as they conform to the Flemish community. On the other hand, we intend to organise the Flemings in Wallonia.” j(“tP The Nazification of Holland is therefore of primary im- portance to Germany, and Nazi press control reflects the urgency of the problem. The instructions issued to Dutch journalists are far more comprehensive even than those issued to the Norwegian press. Whereas the Norwegian press control is chiefly negative, and aims at getting Norwegian views to harmonise with National Socialism, Dutch press control lays down positive instruc- tions to journalists to press the Dutch people into the Nazi mould :— “ Journalists shall aim at the attaining of the union of all Germanic powers. The. Dutch press shall steadily and actively emphasise the cultural, economic and military advantages offered by a Germanic Union. “ Constantly emphasising the idea of a National Union, journalists shall take into account the individualities of various districts and oppose narrow class distinctions, also any unnecessary religious differences and attempts to retain political parties.” {Ten commandments for all Dutch journal- ists who are allowed to write in German- dictated papers. First published in the “ Agrarisch Nieuwsblad,” May 30th, 1941.) 4CZECHO- SLOVAKIA Czecho-Slovakia is a country engulfed by Germany. Unlike the other occupied countries, she lies within the body of the Reich itself, and thus the tranquillisation of her rebellious people presents a problem of first importance to the Nazis. Press control jin the Protectorate, therefore, aims first and last at anaesthetising the Czechs. The following extracts from the Confidential German Censorship Instructions to the Czech press, Sept. 25th, 1939, show the technique :— “ Headlines must not be sensational or distort the news. The largest type allowed is f of an inch. Bold-face type must be strictly limited. “ No conflicts between Czechs and Germans, no arrests, no suicides, are to be reported on. “ The word ‘ war ’ must be avoided ; instead the phrase ‘ a state of war ’ is to be used, except in reference to Poland, when the description is to be ' reprisals for Polish attacks and provocations.’ “ No mention whatever may be made of the transport of prisoners, the taking on of new workmen, air raid precautions, etc.” Of primary importance in the sedative treatment is to smooth the relationship between Germans and Czechs :— “ No blank spaces must be left in the newspapers : censored articles must therefore immediately be replaced by new material. The general public is not allowed to know which articles have been censored. “A friendly attitude must always be maintained towards the Reich. Hitler must always be referred to as the ‘ Fiihrer and Reichskanzler/ No comparison must be drawn between conditions in Germany and those in the Czech State. In no case must news from Germany be treated as foreign news.” Nothing must be allowed to appear in the newspapers liable to cause excitement, in order that the stupified people may submit to their absorption into Germany without realising that it has happened. In more recently occupied countries, such as Yugo- slavia and Greece, there has not yet been time for the shape of Nazi policy to disclose itself through the form of press control chosen for the area, but it is further proof of Germany’s long-term planning for Europe that in Poland—a country which the Nazis have attempted to wipe off the map—they have caused aa almost total disappearance of the Polish press. 5FRANCE The German use of the press as a hypnotic for conditioning the French people into acquiescence seems to fall into the same pattern as in the other occupied countries. The pattern is the same but its execution is far more intricate, and its unravelling presents a complex problem. An added complica- tion is the division of France into two zones, each with its separate Government and press control. France is so great a country, her network of newspapers so vast, and her people so welded together in the bonds of national tradition that she demands a different treatment from that meted out to small countries such as Holland and Belgium. METHOD OF GERMAN PRESS CONTROL Occupied France—the Paris Press A German, Sieburg, is in control. The newspapers are ostensibly under French direction, but German instructions to journalists are precise and comprehensive, allowing no latitude for individual expression of opinion. They are subject to an immediate German military censorship. Examples of Instructions to Paris Press :— Article 2. 1. No criticism of Germany or the regime allowed. 2. No attack on “ la politique du Marechal Petain.” 3. No allusion to the English radio or to de Gaulle. 4. Only D.N.B. communiques and German news so far as diplomatic questions are concerned. 5. News from non-occupied zone only allowed to be intro- duced by consent of Military Press Bureaux. 6. No controversy on internal policy. Article 4. Press to be censored directly by the Bureaux de Presse de l’Armee Allemande.” WF The newspapers of Occupied France all sing in harmony, and the tune is note for note a German tune. Unoccupied France—the Vichy Press The Vichy press is directly controlled by Admiral Darlan. General instructions to journalists are :— “ Un conformisme total a l’egard des f>roblemes exterieurs.” (Af. Marion, Secretary-General for Information, Lyons, April, 1941.) 6That is, the press of Unoccupied France is as free as Petain and Darlan can, or will, allow it to be. Although immensely detailed lists of secret instructions are daily issued to the press, a certain latitude of individual expression is allowed to journalists. This latitude is followed by immediate suspension of the whole newspaper if the views expressed are not in conformity with German interests. The following items are taken from a single day’s list of instructions issued to the press (March 25th, 1941) :— No. 246. Injunction-to omit a communique from the Greek Legation denying the disembarkation of British troops in Greece. No. 247. No reference to the arrest of sailors at Toulon. No. 249. Do not front-page the order of the day by the Greek King to his troops. No. 250. Headline Marshal Petain’s visit to Grenoble and Vienne. No. 252. No"'mention to be made of the recent interview between Eden and Sarajoglu or of the improvement in Anglo-Russian relations. Yet, despite these profuse injunctions, journalists in the Unoccupied Zone enjoy greater freedom than their counterparts in Paris. So much is apparent in their less biased presentation of the news. For instance, the Temps and the Journal des Debats both continued to print Allied communiques until May, 1941, and the latter never mentioned or publicised the Nazi-coined term cc New Europe ” until after that date. Further, the Unoccupied press freely devotes space to American news, and reports it accurately. Lastly, the frequency with which newspapers are summarily suppressed for the publication of views unpleasing to the Axis is in itself proof that they enjoy a certain latitude. For instance :— Marianne has apparently been permanently suppressed. It was first suppressed for three months in September, 1940, for publishing an article by a Jew—but has not been seen since. Le Jour was suspended for four days in April, 1941, “ pour non- application des instructions et des directives du gouvemement.” It was also accused of printing pro-British news—in particular the British version of air raid on Bordeaux. Figaro was suspended for two days in March, 1941, “ par mesure administrative Vladimir d’Ormesson, its foreign editor, is frequently attacked by the Paris press and wireless. The Catholic Temps Nouveau was suspended for four weeks in May, 1941, on a charge of being “ Anglophile and pro-American.” 7To sum up : The only difference between the German- controlled press in Occupied France and the ostensibly free press in the Unoccupied Zone lies in the fact that, in the former, German censorship sees to it that only articles con- forming to German views appear in the papers ; in the latter, journalists may give their own colour to selected news subject to summary suppression if they offend. POLICIES UNDERLYING THE GERMAN CONTROL Through the Nazi press control can be traced a short-term and a long-term policy. The Short-term Policy The Nazis bring indirect pressure to bear on the Vichy Government. Faithful to their method of preserving a puppet government where the risk of independence is not too great, the Nazis give the French people, and, they hope, the world, the impression that the Vichy Government is a free agent. This pressure is exerted :— (a) Through the exploitation of existing political tendencies favourable to Germany, e.g. Vichy authoritarianism and Vichy’s agricultural policy. These can be alternately praised and blamed. Thus Vichy is kept on tenterhooks. In other words, there is a cat-and-mouse game with press control and with political and economic control. The demarca- tion line, prisoners, raw materials, food, freedom of the press, are so many bargaining weapons which can be used to make Vichy toe the line. (b) Through the prevention of resistance by concentrating the nation’s attention on a succession of red herrings, e.g. every act of the Vichy government is attacked by the Paris press :—whatever Vichy does is wrong ; whatever goes wrong is not the fault of Germany. Since the press is the only means of contact between the two zones, this system is an effective means of diverting attention from the German occupation. The Long-term Policy Its aim is to lull the French people into an uncritical acceptance of the role assigned to them in a German-dominated Europe, a role involving the loss of French overseas investments and even of French territory, as well as relegation to agriculture and the subservience of such French industries as remain to the German system :— “ We learn that Germany extends to the west as far as the northern plain, the highlands of the centre and the mountains of the south. The highlands of the centre include the Eiffel, the Ardennes, the hills of 8Lorraine and Argonne, the Hardt and the Vosges ; the Jura becomes a natural prolongation of the Alps.” (.Report to General Huntziger, Minister of War, from General Doyen, President of the French Delegation to the Armistice Commission at Wiesbaden, May 30th, 1941.) “Above all the Comite d’Organisation has created the pre-condition for a considerable change in the placing of contracts which has put French industry at the disposal of German industry.” (“ Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung,” March 29th, 1941.) The change-over is being achieved directly by back-stairs action which is largely hidden from the French people by the smoke-screen of their own press, with its illusion of indepen- dence and its helplessness in the face of German pressure. The French people would resist violently if they realised that “ collaboration ” with Germany means :— (1) The loss of their industrial regions. (2) The subservience of their remaining industry to Germany, by the encouragement of ersatz industries, e.g. “ France Rayonne,” which will be dependent for its supplies of raw materials from Germany, or of industries such as are now being encouraged by numerous exhibitions which will be dependent on Germany for their market. In France, the Germans have succeeded in circum- scribing the public’s interest. They have done so (i) by concentrating French attention on immediately urgent problems such as communications and family life, i.e. on the demarcation line and the absence of prisoners (problems artificially created by the Germans and maintained for this purpose) ; (ii) by alternately offering concessions and threatening to refuse them ; and (iii) by leaving a zone technically unoccupied and forbidding the press to reveal how far it is in practice controlled. They have thus diverted criticism from the disasters of occupation, requisitioning and looting by inflation, to side issues such as vituperation of the Jews, Freemasons, English, Anglophiles, etc. In fact, German press control is a short-term smoke- screen, allowing the Nazis to carry out their plan for permanent economic domination before the French are alive to the danger. 9APPENDIX PRESS CONTROL : THE STAGES BY WHICH GERMANY TAKES OVER I The first step in the control of the press of the Occupied Territories was largely achieved before German occupation, through the treachery of local Quisling journalists, many of whom had previously been regarded as loyal servants of their newspapers. Examples are :— (i) The Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Niemvs. The cultural editor, Jan Haderman, who had always inserted British cultural items in his columns, has now become the chief leader-writer under the Germans. (ii) The great Danish Liberal newspaper Politiken, whose Editor, Niels Hasager, was on the committee of the Anglo-Danish Society of Denmark. On April 20th, 1940, he demanded of his foreign editor an article calling for goodwill and co-operation with the Germans^ (iii) Representatives of the Skandinaviska Telegram Byra, which before, the German occupation held an important position in Denmark, seized the opportunity of the surrender of Copenhagen on April 9th to meet the Germans, dressed in Nazi uniforms and “ Heiling ” busily. The S.T.B. is now the dominant “ private ” news agency of Denmark. (iv) The editor and many prominent members of the staff of V Oeuvre, the Paris newspaper, patriotic and pro-British before the collapse of France (publisher of Mme. Tabouis* articles), were not arrested by the Nazis, as seemed inevitable. Surprisingly, they continued in their posts after the occupation (with the exception of Mihe. Tabouis), urging a policy of complete co-operation with the Germans. VOeuvre was for a short time after the collapse published in Unoccupied France, but was warmly welcomed by the German-controlled wireless when it reappeared in Paris in September, 1940. These Quisling journalists are a particular danger to the peoples of the Occupied Territories who, accustomed to trust the loyalty of their newspaper, often do not perceive until too late the change from a simulated patriotism before occupation to complete compliance with the conqueror. In BELGIUM the people slowly became alive to the treachery of Le Soir3 one of the most influential Brussels newspapers, and a general boycott of the paper was called on February 10th, 1941. In DENMARK readers of Politiken discovered the change in their newspaper’s policy without delay. Within a few days of the publishing of pro-German articles, Politiken lost 40,000 subscribers out of its normal circulation of 160,000. 10- In NORWAY, the same thing occurred :— “ Haakon Hoff, the editor of Hafnar Arbeiderblad, which is now ceasing publication, complains bitterly in a farewell article about the greatly decreased number of readers. Hoff was one of the first pressmen to adapt himself entirely to Nasjonal Samling. His sudden adhesion to the N.S. resulted in fewer readers, and the crisis came on July ist, when the paper lost nearly all its subscribers.” (“ Svenska Dagbladet,” Stockholm, July 2.2nd, 1941.) II The second step is achieved through direct control of the press by the Army Press Officer of the Army of Occupation :— “ The control of newspapers must be extended to the entire content of the paper; that is to say also to its advertising space.” {Instructions from the Press Division of the Reich Kommissar of the Norwegian Press, June 1st, 1940, quoted from British White Paper, Norway, No. 1. CMD. 6270. 1941.) A good example of the rigid control of Norwegian papers- is the direction given to Norwegian editors after the bombing of German shipping in Bergen by aircraft of the R.A.F. in June, 1940 “ The following announcement on the bombing of Bergen must be published by all papers. The announcement must be set out with one of the following headings, from which a free choice is allowed : (i) The King Sends Us Help from England; (ii) Bergen has been Bombed; Hearty Thanks, King Haakon, for the Bombing of Bergen; (iii) Did King Haakon Know that his English Friends were Bombing Bergen ? (iv) Hardly has the King Arrived in London than Norwegians are Killed by Bombs ; (v) King Haakon Carries on the War : Bergen his First Victim ! ” As all the morning papers chose number (iii) as the' least painful of the headlines, the afternoon papers received the following additional direction :— “ Afternoon papers must also carry an announcement of the bombing of Bergen. Heading (iii) is eliminated.” German authorities have made every effort to conceal the press controls :— “ The above regulations to the Norwegian press should form the subject of intensive oral instructions to editors. In no circumstances must these instructions be made public, nor must the fact that such instructions have been given to editors become known in any way.” {Instruction from the Press Division of the Reich Kommissar of the Norwegian Press, June 1 st, 1940, quoted from British White Paper, Norway, No. 1, 1941.) “ The publication of the present instruction, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited.” {Secret document containing the instructions given to the French press by the German Occupation Authorities.) IIIll Apart from the openly controlled press, the Nazis also own and finance newspapers in the occupied countries, e.g. Fritt Folk in Norway and Faedrelandet in Denmark. These papers serve the purpose of providing an apparently unbiased source of information from the Occupied Territories and are widely quoted in German news services. Fritt Folk and Faedrelandet were little known before the occupation, although they were already being financed by German money, but lately efforts have been made to give them the importance of a greatly increased circulation, either by (a) advertisement or (b) sharp practice :— (a) “ The London emigres are not without sense : at any rate they read Fritt Folk, which is the only Norwegian newspaper cited daily in the London broadcasts. The emigres are most anxious to have Fritt Folk; they use every method of obtaining it, smuggling it round the world to England, and fighting for it on its arrival like starved wolves— forgetting war and bombs in its perusal.” ** You must not show less sense than the fugitives in London. So do as they do, and read Fritt Folk.” (“ Fritt Folk” Oslo, June 18 th, 1941.) (b) “ Fritt Folk, the principal organ of the Nasjonal Samling, has been forced to withdraw the recent front-page statement that the paper’s circulation had now reached 55,000. It has been demonstrated that the circulation was only 15-20,000 copies and that the major part of the edition was returned to the offices and sold as wastepaper in Oslo. Apart from this the paper’s circulation appears to a large extent to consist of free copies.” (“ Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snallposten,” Malmo, Sweden, February 25th, 1941.) IV Dr. Goebbels’ meddling fingers are not confined to the press of the Occupied countries of Europe. In countries as far distant as Latin America, he uses the device of quoting from seemingly neutral papers to give credence to German propa- ganda lies. Such papers as El Pampero and Reconquista, whose violently pro-German views are so often triumphantly re-quoted by German News Services under the heading “ Leading Argentine Papers. . . ” are “leading” only in Dr. Goebbels’ imagina- tion. Both newspapers—like others of their kidney in other neutral countries—were started by the German Propaganda Ministry and are maintained with German money for the sole purpose of inserting the lies. and distortions of German propaganda. 12(81517) 25828/P1526 7260 8/41 M&C Ltd. 440