Page 44 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

CONCEPTION AND COMMUNICATION 17

is more politically consequential for individual attitudes. Political
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communication at the person-to-person, or dyadic, level is expected to be
very influential precisely because of the homophilic nature of such
interaction. This special power of one-to-one influence has received much
empirical support, even from the early communication studies, which
found that argumentative speech had more influence face-to-face than on
individuals in an audience. Nevertheless, whether the process is person-
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to-person, group-to-person, or opinion climate-to-person, these three
levels of influence usually operate simultaneously and dynamically on the
individual. In the aftermath of the Second World War and the downfall of
the Third Reich, however, the interplay between politics and the media,
usually generating publicity and providing platforms for debate, occurred
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in a different framework.
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Already before the ending of the armed hostilities, the American Office
of War Information (OWI), which was later replaced by an Assistant
Secretary for Public Affairs, and the Anglo-American Psychological
Warfare Division of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary
Force (PWD/SHAEF), which was succeeded by the Information Control
Division (ICD) headed by General Robert A. McClure when the SHAEF
ceased to exist on 14 May 1945, worked out a plan to establish a new press
for occupied Germany. After the Allies agreed on the destruction of the
Nazi press which constituted the majority of all newspapers in Germany –
in 1944, only 977 newspapers were left in the Reich; of those, 352, with a
circulation of 82.5 per cent of all German papers, belonged to the trust of
the NSDAP – the divestiture of publishing houses and re-education of
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the German mind were envisaged in three systematic stages: initially, all
publishing was stopped and editorial departments were dissolved;
thereafter, so-called ‘Heeresgruppen-Zeitungen’ (overt publications), namely
newssheets exclusively edited and initially distributed free of charge, later
for 20 Pfennige (pennies), by the military authorities, would supply the
German people with information. In total, there were thirteen such
publications with a total circulation of up to 4.6 million appearing between
April and November 1945: Kölnischer Kurier (Cologne), Frankfurter Presse
(Frankfurt am Main), Hessische Post (Kassel), Braunschweiger Bote
(Braunschweig), Ruhr-Zeitung (Essen), Bayerischer Tag (Bamberg), Münchener
Zeitung (Munich), Süddeutsche Mitteilungen (Heidelberg), Weser Bote (Bremen),
Regensburger Post (Straubing), Augsburger Anzeiger (Augsburg), Stuttgarter
Stimme (Stuttgart), Allgemeine Zeitung (Berlin). These military publications,
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which were gradually replaced by semi-official papers, such as Die Welt in
the British occupation zone, Nouvelles de France – Westausgabe (titled West
Echo from 1948 onwards) in the French territory, and the Neue Zeitung –
Eine Amerikanische Zeitung für die Deutsche Bevölkerung and the glossy Heute in