US prosecuted Nazi propagandists as war criminals The Nuremberg tribunal and the

[Guest guest]

T

Sun, 5 Jun 2005 17:39:38 -0700 (PDT)

US prosecuted Nazi propagandists as war criminals The

Nuremberg tribunal and the role of the media

 

 

 

 

US prosecuted Nazi propagandists as war criminals The Nuremberg

tribunal and the role of the media

 

WSWS: By David Walsh

 

The ongoing US aggression in the Middle East raises the most serious

questions about the role of the mass media in modern society. In the

period leading up to the invasion, the American media uncritically

advanced the Bush administration's arguments, rooted in lies,

distortions and half-truths, for an attack on Iraq. It virtually

excluded all critical viewpoints, to the point of blacking out news of

mass antiwar demonstrations and any other facts that contradicted the

propaganda from the White House and Pentagon.

 

The obvious aim was to misinform and manipulate public opinion, and

convince the tens of millions within the US who were opposed to the

administration's war policy that they constituted a small and helpless

minority.

 

Now, as if on cue, the US media has obediently turned its attention to

Syria, evidently the next target of the US military. If the focus of

the White House and Pentagon should shift to North Korea or Iran, the

appropriate items will begin to appear about the dire threat

represented by those regimes to the security of the American people.

 

In the American media there is barely a trace of serious analysis

concerning the political and social realities of the Middle East. It

long ago abandoned any sense of responsibility for educating and

informing the public or carrying out the critical democratic function

traditionally assigned to the " Fourth Estate, " i.e., serving as a

watchdog and check on government abuses and falsifications. Instead it

slavishly carries out the function assigned it by the ruling elite: to

confuse, terrorize and intimidate the American public, rendering it

less able to resist the reactionary program of the right-wing clique

in Washington.

 

The television networks and leading newspapers are the prime source of

news and information for tens of millions of people in the US.

However, these public resources are in the hands of giant firms,

controlled by fabulously wealthy individuals who will stop at nothing

to defend their profits and property. The corpses of thousands, or, if

necessary, millions of Iraqis, Syrians, Iranians and others are a

small price to pay, as far as the media billionaires are concerned,

for achieving American military and economic domination of the globe.

 

This makes the US media an accessory before and after the fact to

crimes carried out in Iraq and future crimes against other peoples in

the region and around the world. Sitting far from the ravaged Iraqi

cities, in well-appointed boardrooms, the media moguls may believe

they will never face such charges. There are, however, historical

parallels and precedents to the contrary.

 

The Nuremberg precedent

 

 

 

The role of propaganda and propagandists figured prominently at the

Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, convened to render judgment on the Nazi

leaders following World War II. The tribunal was an institution

organized by the victorious Allied governments, serving in the final

analysis the ruling classes of those countries.

 

Nonetheless, in their arguments US prosecutors set forth a democratic

legal principle derived from the international experience of a

half-century of carnage: that planning and launching an aggressive war

constituted a criminal act and that those who helped prepare such a

war through their propaganda efforts were as culpable as those who

drew up the battle plans or manufactured the munitions.

 

The case made against Hans Fritzsche, one of the individuals chiefly

responsible for Nazi newspaper and radio propaganda, is particularly

significant. Fritzsche, born in Bochum, Westphalia in 1900, served in

the German army in World War I and studied liberal arts at university,

but left without a degree. He began a career as a journalist working

for the Hugenberg Press, a newspaper chain that supported the

right-wing " national " parties, including the Nazis.

 

Fritzsche began commenting on radio in September 1932, discussing

political events on his own weekly program, " Hans Fritzsche Speaks. "

That same year the regime of Franz von Papen appointed him head of the

Wireless [Radio] News Department, a government agency. Fritzsche was

generally sympathetic to the Nazi cause, but not a member of the party.

 

Underlining the importance with which the Hitlerites viewed radio as

an instrument of propaganda, on the evening that the Nazis came to

power, January 30, 1933, two emissaries of Joseph Goebbels, soon to be

minister of propaganda and enlightenment, paid Fritzsche a visit. The

latter was allowed to stay on as head of the Wireless Radio Department

despite his rejection of certain conditions set by Goebbels, including

the immediate firing of all Jews and all those who refused to join the

Nazi Party.

 

The Nuremberg prosecution case against Fritzsche notes: " Fritzsche

continued to make radio broadcasts during this period in which he

supported the National Socialist [Nazi] coalition government then

still existing. "

 

In April 1933, Goebbels paid Fritzsche a personal visit and informed

him of the decision to place the Wireless News Service under the

jurisdiction of the newly created Propaganda Ministry as of May 1,

1933. Apparently satisfied with the results of the first meeting,

Goebbels arranged a second at which Fritzsche informed the propaganda

minister of the steps he had taken to " reorganize and modernize " the

agency, including ridding it of Jewish employees.

 

" Goebbels thereupon informed Fritzsche that he would like to have him

reorganize and modernize the entire news services of Germany within

the control of the Propaganda Ministry. ... He [Fritzsche] proceeded

to conclude the Goebbels-inspired reorganization of the Wireless News

Service and, on 1 May 1933, together with the remaining members of his

staff, he joined the Propaganda Ministry. On this same day he joined

the NSDAP [Nazi Party] and took the customary oath of unconditional

loyalty to the Fuehrer. "

 

After entering the Propaganda Ministry, Fritzsche went to work for its

" German Press Division. " From 1933 to 1942 Fritzsche held various

positions in that department, heading it for the four years during

which the Nazi regime launched its invasions of neighboring countries.

The Nuremberg prosecution argued: " By virtue of its functions, the

German Press Division became an important and unique instrument of the

Nazi conspirators, not only in dominating the minds and psychology of

Germans, but also as an instrument of foreign policy and psychological

warfare against other nations. "

 

According to Fritzsche's own affidavit: " During the whole period from

1933 to 1945 it was the task of the German Press Division to supervise

the entire domestic press and to provide it with directives by which

this division became an efficient instrument in the hands of the

German State leadership. More than 2,300 German daily newspapers were

subject to this control. ... The head of the German Press Division

held daily press conferences in the Ministry for the representatives

of all German newspapers. Hereby all instructions were given to the

representatives of the press. "

 

The prosecution case: propaganda as an instrument of aggression

 

 

 

The prosecution case, argued by Drexel Sprecher, an American, placed

considerable stress on the role of media propaganda in enabling the

Hitler regime to prepare and carry out aggressive wars. " The use made

by the Nazi conspirators of psychological warfare is well known.

Before each major aggression, with some few exceptions based on

expediency, they initiated a press campaign calculated to weaken their

victims and to prepare the German people psychologically for the

attack. They used the press, after their earlier conquests, as a means

for further influencing foreign politics and in maneuvering for the

following aggression. "

 

Fritzsche was named head of the German Press Division in 1938 after

the " primitive military-like " methods of his predecessor, Alfred

Ingemar Berndt, created " a noticeable crisis in confidence of the

German people in the trustworthiness of its press, " in Fritzsche's words.

 

The Nuremberg prosecutor detailed the propaganda campaigns taken up by

the German media, under Fritzsche's immediate supervision, in relation

to various acts of foreign aggression, including the incorporation of

Bohemia and Moravia (1939) and the invasions of Poland (1939) and

Yugoslavia and the USSR (1941).

 

The Nazi press propaganda campaign preceding the invasion of Poland

involved manufacturing or manipulating complaints of the German

minority in that country. Fritzsche explains: " Concerning this the

leading German newspapers, upon the basis of directions given out in

the so-called `daily parole,' brought out the following publicity with

great emphasis: (1) cruelty and terror against Germans and the

extermination of Germans in Poland; (2) forced labor of thousands of

German men and women in Poland; (3) Poland, land of servitude and

disorder; the desertion of Polish soldiers; the increased inflation in

Poland; (4) provocation of frontier clashes upon direction of the

Polish Government; the Polish lust to conquer; (5) persecution of

Czechs and Ukrainians by Poland. "

 

In regard to the Nazi propaganda surrounding the Yugoslav events, the

prosecutor noted the " customary definitions, lies, incitement and

threats, and the usual attempt to divide and weaken the victim. "

 

Fritzsche describes how he received instructions on the eve of the

invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941: " [Foreign Minister Joachim

von] Ribbentrop informed us that the war against the Soviet Union

would start that same day and asked the German press to present the

war against the Soviet Union as a preventative war for the defense of

the Fatherland, as a war which was forced upon us through the

immediate danger of an attack of the Soviet Union against Germany. The

claim that this was a preventative war was later repeated by the

newspapers which received their instructions from me during the usual

daily parole of the Reich Press Chief. I, myself, have also given this

presentation of the cause of the war in my regular broadcasts. "

 

Thus, the presentation of an illegal invasion of a foreign country as

a " preventative " or pre-emptive war did not originate with Bush,

Cheney or Rumsfeld.

 

The prosecution in the Fritzsche case raised an issue that is of the

greatest relevance today: the role of Nazi media propaganda in inuring

the German population to the sufferings of other peoples and, indeed,

urging Germans to commit war crimes. It argued: " Fritzsche incited

atrocities and encouraged a ruthless occupation policy. The results of

propaganda as a weapon of the Nazi conspirators reaches into every

aspect of this conspiracy, including the atrocities and ruthless

exploitation in occupied countries. It is likely that many ordinary

Germans would never have participated in or tolerated the atrocities

committed throughout Europe, had they not been conditioned and goaded

by the constant Nazi propaganda. The callousness and zeal of the

people who actually committed the atrocities was in large part due to

the constant and corrosive propaganda of Fritzsche and his official

associates. "

 

The American media today reports poll results indicating that 60 or 70

percent of the population supports the war against Iraq. Such polls

are not conducted by disinterested bodies for the purpose of advancing

sociological knowledge. The manner in which the interviewees are

selected and the questions formulated has a considerable impact on the

results obtained. The powers that be in America have every interest in

maintaining the fiction of a nation united behind its president and

armed forces. In reality, there is widespread hostility and opposition

to the war and to the Bush administration, which finds no _expression

in the media, the Democratic Party or any other official American

institution.

 

Nonetheless, there is a constituency for war among the more backward

layers of the population. Aside from the relatively small number of

right-wing fanatics, who would be in favor of war against almost

anyone, including a good section of their fellow Americans, those in

favor of the assault on Iraq believe a) that the Saddam Hussein regime

had a hand in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on New York City

and Washington; b) that the Iraqis possessed " weapons of mass

destruction, " which they intended to use against their neighbors or

the US at some future point; and/or c) that the Iraqi population

desired " liberation " at the hands of the US military.

 

While it is outside the scope of this article to expound on this, all

three claims have been proven to be lies by the events of the war

itself and will be further exposed by future developments. If many

Americans, however, believe these arguments, with all the tragic

consequences for the Iraqi and other peoples, how is that to be

accounted for? Clearly, by " the constant and corrosive propaganda " of

the US media over the course of months and even years, dating back to

the first Gulf war. The media's very success in manipulating public

opinion is one of the strongest proofs of its culpability in the

commission of war crimes.

 

It is worth quoting extensively from the Fritzsche prosecutor's

conclusion, for it sheds considerable light on the role of the media

in the modern age, as well as the democratic sensibilities of those

pursuing the Nazi war criminals, sensibilities that no longer carry

any weight within US ruling circles.

 

" Fritzsche was not the type of conspirator who signed decrees, or who

sat in the inner councils planning the overall grand strategy. The

function of propaganda is, for the most part, apart from the field of

such planning. The function of a propaganda agency is somewhat more

analogous to an advertising agency or public relations department, the

job of which is to sell the product and to win the market for the

enterprise in question. Here the enterprise was the Nazi conspiracy.

In a conspiracy which depends upon fraud as a means, the salesmen of

the conspiratorial group are quite as essential and culpable as the

master planners, even though they may not have contributed

substantially to the formulation of all the basic strategy, but rather

concentrated on making the execution of this strategy possible. In

this case, propaganda was a weapon of tremendous importance to this

conspiracy. Furthermore, the leading propagandists were major

accomplices in this conspiracy, and Fritzsche was one of them...

 

" Fritzsche learned a lesson from his predecessor, Berndt, who fell

from the leadership of the German Press Division partly because he

over-played his hand by blunt and excessive manipulation of the

Sudetenland propaganda. Fritzsche stepped into the gap caused by the

loss of confidence of both the editors and the German people, and did

his job with more skill and subtlety. His shrewdness and ability to be

more assuring and `to find,' as Goebbels said, `willing ears of the

whole nation,'—these things made him the more useful accomplice of the

conspirators...

 

" Fritzsche is not in the dock as a free journalist but as a

propagandist who helped substantially to tighten the Nazi stranglehold

over the German people, who made the excesses of the conspirators

palatable to the German people, who goaded the German nation to fury

and crime against people they were told by him were subhuman.

 

" Without the propaganda apparatus of the Nazi State, the world would

not have suffered the catastrophe of these years, and it is because of

Fritzsche's role in behalf of the Nazi conspirators, and their

deceitful and barbarous practices, that he is called to account before

the International Military Tribunal. "

 

The tribunal found Fritzsche not guilty on the dubious grounds that he

had not had sufficient stature to formulate or originate the

propaganda campaigns undertaken by the Nazi regime. It also asserted

that the prosecution had not proven that Fritzsche was aware of the

extermination of the Jews or had spread news he knew to be false.

(Fritzsche was immediately rearrested and charged by German courts

with various crimes. He was sentenced to nine years at hard labor,

left prison in 1950 and died of cancer three years later.)

 

The prosecution, in its reply to the " Unfounded Acquittal of Defendant

Fritzsche, " returned insistently and pointedly to its arguments. It

noted that the verdict failed to take into account that Fritzsche was

until 1942 " the Director de facto of the Reich Press and that,

according to himself, subsequent to 1942, he became the

`Commander-in-Chief of the German radio.' "

 

The prosecution went on: " For the correct definition of the role of

defendant Hans Fritzsche it is necessary, firstly, to keep clearly in

mind the importance attached by Hitler and his closest associates (as

Goering, for example) to propaganda in general and to radio propaganda

in particular. This was considered one of the most important and

essential factors in the success of conducting an aggressive war. "

 

In Hitler's Germany, the reply to the verdict continues, " propaganda

was invariably a factor in preparing and conducting acts of aggression

and in training the German populace to accept obediently the criminal

enterprises of German fascism. ...

 

" The basic method of the Nazi propagandistic activity lay in the false

presentation of facts. ... The dissemination of provocative lies and

the systematic deception of public opinion were as necessary to the

Hitlerites for the realization of their plans as were the production

of armaments and the drafting of military plans. Without propaganda,

founded on the total eclipse of the freedom of press and of speech, it

would not have been possible for German Fascism to realize its

aggressive intentions, to lay the groundwork and then to put to

practice the war crimes and the crimes against humanity. In the

propaganda system of the Hitler State it was the daily press and the

radio that were the most important weapons. "

 

There is little to be added to this condemnation. While all historical

analogies have their limits, the indictment of the German media chief

for war crimes speaks with great force to the role of the US media

barons in contemporary world affairs.

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2968.htm