Page 47 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

20 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

and our problem is directed to this end. We urge that we not be
instructed to establish a party press until independent competitive
newspapers are on a firm basis and there is sufficient newsprint to
warrant allocation to other than an independent press. We do not
believe that we can establish a free and independent press in
Germany if we deviate from our present policy to attempt to
establish with the limited newsprint now available party controlled
newspapers, which would reduce the number of independent
papers.
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Despite this statement, the successor organisation of the Psychological
Warfare Division (PWD), the Information Control Division (ICD),
abstained from imposing a ban on newspapers controlled by political
parties, but rather justified the delay in licensing party papers by paper
scarcity. In regard to licensing independent newspapers, it is important to
mention that the officers assigned the task to license German media were
mostly acquainted neither with German history nor politics; often they
could not speak the language. Therefore, they had to rely on advice and
translation from the occupied. This deficiency was also not moderated by
the Manual for the Control of German Information Services edited and
distributed for this purpose to the American staff in May 1945.
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However, in order to assure a certain independence and ‘that newspaper
columns be open to all groups’, the papers were often edited by panels
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of people with different political dispositions and backgrounds. For
instance, the first such panel newspaper was the Frankfurter Rundschau,
which appeared from 1 August 1945. Its licence for publishing was shared
by the Social Democrats Hans Etkorn, Paul Rodemann, and Wilhelm
Knote, the former member of the Zentrum party, Wilhelm Karl Gerst, the
two communists Emil Carlebach and Arno Rudert (though the latter one
was not a member of the KPD), and, finally, Otto Grossmann who was
not affiliated to any political party. For the licensed media, the military
authorities edited general instructions, such as the bilingual Fair Practice
Guide issued by the Information Control Division of the American
Military Government in April 1947, which provided a guideline for
journalists on content and form of articles.
Fuelled by frictions between the Allies and with due consideration to
the necessity for maintaining military security, the Allied Control Council
Directive No. 40 (Policy to be followed by German Politicians and the
German Press) issued on 12 October 1946 finally allowed the German
democratic parties and the German press to discuss freely German
political problems. Furthermore, comments on the policy of the
occupying powers in Germany and publications about world events,