The Associated Press news agency willingly cooperated with Nazi Germany, submitting to the regime’s restrictive rulings on the freedom of the press and providing it with images from its photo archives to be used in its anti-Semitic and anti-Western propaganda machine, a new report reveals.
When Adolf Hitler’s National Socialists rose to power in 1933, all international news agencies but the US-based AP were forced to leave Germany. The AP continued to operate in the Third Reich until 1941, when the United States joined World War II.
According to German historian Harriet Scharnberg, the world’s biggest news agency was only allowed to remain in Germany because it signed a deal with the regime.
The news agency lost control over its copy by submitting itself to the Schriftleitergesetz (editor’s law), agreeing not to print any material “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home,” she wrote in an article published in the academic journal Studies in Contemporary History.
Scharnberg’s research was first reported by the UK-based Guardian newspaper.
The Associated Press photographs the third anniversary of National Socialism’s accession to power in 1933 widely celebrated throughout Germany on Feb. 11, 1936. At noon, Adolf Hitler assembled 25,000 of his oldest stormtroop comrades in the Lustgarten in Berlin. In his address, Hitler reiterated Germany’s will to peace. This is a general view of the banner and flag bearers in Berlin. (AP Photo)An Associated Press photograph shows what it calls men ‘making up this human map of greater Germany. They are members of Labor Service Corps at the International Handicraft Congress in Berlin, May 28, 1938. Those in white shirts represent the boundaries; those inside, in brown shirts, with spades, are intended to represent Germany’s network of auto roads. Note that the absorption of Austria is recognized. Note also the little island at the upper right representing East Prussia, and the deep dent at the right center where Czechoslovakia sticks its long neck into Germany.’ (AP Photo)An Associated Press photograph shows some of over 132,000 members of the Hitler youth organisation assembled at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, where German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Dr. Joseph Goebbels addressed them, as part of the usual round of May Day festivities and demonstrations in Germany on May 1, 1939. The AP caption notes: ‘The Fuhrer arrives and the members of the Hitler youth organisation rise as one man to give the Nazi salute at the demonstration in the Olympic Stadium, Berlin.’ (AP Photo)An Associated Press photograph shows a parade of Nazi black guards marching past the Reich Chancellory on Wilhelmstrasse during their parade in Berlin, Germany, on Jan. 30, 1937. (AP)An Associated Press photograph shows Adolf Hitler, German Reichsfuehrer, acknowledging the ecstatic cheers of Sudeten Germans, as he entered Asch, on the heels of German armies which took over the ceded Czechoslovakian territory, on Oct. 3, 1938. The AP caption notes: ‘Party members grip each other’s belt, straining to hold the enthusiastic crowds in check.’ (AP Photo)
— Raphael Ahren
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