Page 52 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

CONCEPTION AND COMMUNICATION 25

demand for explicit party organs. Following the wish of the German
parties and public for so-called ‘Meinungsblätter’, namely newspapers
expressing the opinion of a particular political party, the French
authorities met these demands by decreasing the number of independent
newspapers. After a decision by the Comité de Direction de la Presse
(Committee for the Direction of the Press) of the French Military
Government, taken on 3 February 1947, there remained only few
independent papers, such as the Rhein-Zeitung (Koblenz), the Südkurier
(Konstanz), the Schwäbisches Tagblatt (Tübingen), the Allgemeine Zeitung
(Mainz), or the Badische Zeitung (Freiburg im Breisgau), to the favour of
‘feuilles d’opinion’, notedly party papers. This was mainly carried out by
transforming non-party papers into party papers. The aim behind this
restructuring of the press was to ensure that every licensed political party
disposed of its own organ. In essence, each of the four licensed parties
disposed of three newspapers, which were requested to have the party
logo in the respective header; for the CDU, those were Der Westen
(Neuwied), Südwestdeutsche Volkszeitung (Freiburg im Breisgau), and the
Schwäbische Zeitung (Leutkirch). Whereas Die Freiheit (Mainz), Das Volk
(Freiburg im Breisgau), and Der Württemberger (Rottweil) were SPD organs,
the KPD addressed the public via the Neues Leben (Neustadt), Unser Tag
(Offenburg), and Unsere Stimme (Schwenningen). Finally, the Rheinisch-
Pfälzische Rundschau (Bad Kreuznach), Das Neue Baden (Freiburg im
Breisgau), and the Schwabenecho (Oberndorf) constituted the FDP party
papers. The respective issues were allocated according to a quota based on
election results similar to the British mode explained above. However, due
to limited circulation and frequency of the party papers – whereas
independent newspapers appeared up to six times per week and had a
share of 68.8 per cent of the overall circulation, the party papers appeared
only three times per week at most and had a share of merely 31.2 per
86
cent – the independent newspapers remained dominant in the press. In
addition, the non-party papers gave full coverage of political life and a
remarkably free expression of German opinion. This competition for
readership and limited support from the occupying authorities led to the
decline of the party-press in the French occupation zone: in 1949, only
two of the former twelve party papers still existed, namely the SPD organ
Die Freiheit and the Schwäbische Zeitung of the CDU.
Despite varying licensing procedures in the three zones of occupation,
the influence of party papers remained relatively weak with the
consequence that German political parties attempted to influence the
more widely read independent newspapers. While it is difficult to establish
readership numbers for the licensed newspapers in post-war West
Germany, it is estimated that each copy had on average four to six readers