Page 54 - The Making of the German Post-war Economy

CONCEPTION AND COMMUNICATION 27

who obtained the newspaper via the emigrated German-Jewish
industrialist Paul Silverberg, considered the NZZ entirely indispensable
for his political work. However, due to the fact that international
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newspapers were too expensive for the ordinary citizen, their influence on
the general public was very limited.
During pre-election campaigns, political posters and pamphlets
complemented communication via newspapers. While similarly subject to
censorship by the Allies, political placards and flyers were the first public
communications media after the war. The various political parties tried to
distinguish themselves, their programmes and ideas, from their political
opponents in striking ways. Moreover, by expressing the political culture,
posters and pamphlets are unique and succinct witnesses of history.
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However, most astonishing is the fact that historical and political research
has almost ignored the use, prevalence, and impact of these vitally
important means of communication.
In essence, due to the restrictions imposed by the Allied Military
Governments, the German political parties had limited options for
disseminating information to the general public. The control of German
media in the three zones of occupation examined remained in the hands
of the Allied military authorities until 1949. On 21 September, in parallel
to the Statue of Occupation, the occupying authorities granted the
German press and other media the freedom for unlicensed reporting by
law.
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Apart from these external restraints, the German political parties faced
another problem in getting their message across. Due to the consolidation
of institutional powers and the media during the Third Reich, the
credibility of political parties and confidence in the press were eroded. In
the immediate aftermath of the war, certain scepticism towards political
elites, the press and the future in general was prevalent among the
German population. This crisis of confidence could only be countered by
a free press and truthful reporting. Thus it was considered an absurdity
that the intellectual gagging by Hitler and his regime was substituted by
Allied reprimands and the decreed reading material from the military
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authorities. The public widely rejected the content of the newspapers as
caricaturing the existing circumstances. In spite of these external
restrictions and the press’ credibility gap, newspapers constituted a major
source of information for the citizens in occupied Germany and the media
in general inherited a constitutive and indispensable element for the
political and economic reconstruction of post-war West Germany.
In examining how the schools of economic thought and political parties
appeared before the public in order to promote their respective agenda, it
is important to consider the circumstances and restrictions outlined above.