Page 51 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

24 THE MAKING OF THE GERMAN POST-WAR ECONOMY

public to be nominated by the Prime Ministers, were formed.
Interestingly, an annex stated that in this composition agents of political
parties were not allowed to be appointed. These institutions in the
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various Länder were consulted on factual issues regarding the issuance but
also withdrawal of licences, and furthermore in the limitation of
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circulations of newspapers and magazines. Despite this commissioning
of authorities to German representatives, the British military authorities
intervened directly or indirectly via paper rationing if they considered it
necessary. This was often the case with the communist press, which was
deemed to be in breach of the ban on criticising the occupying powers.
Due to this argument, which was frequently a pretence to foster
anticommunist political life in Germany, however, the KPD was
prosecuted and dispossessed of several licences: after several prohibitions
to publish, the Westdeutsche Volksecho in Dortmund lost the licence on 4
May 1948, the KPD-organ Freiheit in Düsseldorf on 8 October 1948. Thus
the direction selected matched the American attitude. Nevertheless, the
approach to revive political parties and their influence on the electorate in
the British zone of occupation was different. Even though more
independent newspapers were licensed in the course of time, party papers
with a zonal circulation constituted the majority in the British sovereign
territory in 1949. Out of 58 newspapers in the British zone of occupation,
47 were party papers and only eleven can be considered as independent.
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This fact which enabled supra-regional communication provided an
explanation for the advanced organisation of political parties in the British
occupation zone.
Due to the fact that the French zone of occupation did not come into
existence until 30 June 1945, Law No. 191 of the American Military
Government issued by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary
Force was equally in effect here. Although initially following the American
licensing practices in mainly approving independent newspapers, the
French authorities gradually changed to the British approach by permitting
newspapers with party affiliation. Directive no. 40 issued by the French
Military Government in October 1946 granted German parties and the
press ‘de discuter librement des problemes politiques allemands’ (to discuss freely
German political problems). This alteration was mainly due to the
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increasing awakening of German political life and the wish to discuss
freely political and economic problems in the French occupation zone.
Although the French Military Government was hesitant in permitting and
supporting German political parties, the first communal elections took
place in the Saarland on 15 September and in Baden, Rhineland-Palatinate
and Wuerttemberg-Hohenzollern on 13 October 1946. The political
interaction between parties and electorate during campaigns led to the