Norman Domeier 
American Journalists in Hitler’s Germany [EPUB ebook] 

Examines American journalists‘ and media companies‘ roles in Hitler’s Germany, reigniting the debate on the relationship between political power and the media.


Despite Hitler’s international use of propaganda, and despite the power of the US press, historians have neglected American journalists‘ activity in Nazi Germany. American media companies expanded their presence in Germany after 1933, and the Associated Press (AP) conducted business with Hitler’s regime throughout the war.


Norman Domeier’s study, now in English, is the first to examine critically and in detail the roles of American journalists and media companies in Hitler’s Germany, showing that they knew about but kept secret the plans for rearmament, the occupation of the Rhineland, the annexation of Austria, and the invasions of Denmark, Norway, and the Soviet Union. The book documents the ‚companionship‘ between Adolf Hitler and Karl Henry von Wiegand, chief German correspondent of the Hearst press, who was the first and last American to interview him. Most important, it details the secret exchange of news photographs – discovered by Domeier in 2017 – between the AP and the Nazis from 1942 to 1945. Thousands of AP photos were used in the Nazi press, usually with anti-American or anti-Semitic spin, while the AP distributed ca. 40, 000 Nazi photographs to US newspapers. Domeier’s book reignites the debate on the relationship between political power and the media, opening up new perspectives on the political and cultural history of journalism beyond one-sided idealizations.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Nazi Germany as Part of the Modern Global Media System

1. Berlin 1932-37: The Most Exciting News Center in the World

2. Media Events and Scoops during the Expansion of the Third Reich in 1938-41 and the Triumph of Radio in Politics

3. Karl Henry von Wiegand, the Hearst Press, and National Socialism

4. Secret Photos: Covert Cooperation between AP and Nazi Germany, 1942-45

5. ‚Why didn’t the press shout?‘: American Foreign Correspondents and the Holocaust

Summary: The Permanent Presence of the Foreign Press in Nazi Germany

Bibliography

Index

Über den Autor

NORMAN DOMEIER is DAAD Guest Professor for German and European History at the Charles University Prague, Czech Republic.