Hans Fritzsche
A. POSITIONS HELD BY FRITZSCHE IN THE NAZI STATE.
Fritzsche's Party membership and his various positions in the propaganda
apparatus of the Nazi State are shown in two affidavits made by himself
(2976-PS; 3469-PS). Fritzsche became a member of the Nazi Party on 1
May 1933, and continued to be a member until Germany's collapse in 1945.
Fritzsche began his service with the staff of the Reich Ministry for
People's Enlightenment and Propaganda (hereinafter referred to as the
Propaganda Ministry on 1 May 1933, he remained within the Propaganda
Ministry until the Nazi downfall in the spring of 1945.
Before the Nazis seized political power in Germany, and beginning in
September 1932, Fritzsche was head of the Wireless News Service (Drahtloser
Dienst), an agency of the Reich Government, which at that time was the
government of von Papen. After the Wireless News Service was incorporated
into Dr. Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry in May 1933, Fritzsche continued
as its head until 1938. Upon entering the Propaganda Ministry in May
1933, Fritzsche also became head of the news section of the Press Division
of the Propaganda Ministry. He continued in this position until 1937.
In the summer of 1938 Fritzsche was appointed deputy to Alfred Ingemar
Berndt, who was then head of the German Press Division. (The German
Press Division, in the Indictment, is called the "Home Press Division."
Since "German Press Division" seems to be a more literal translation,
it is referred to as the German Press Division throughout this section.
It is sometimes otherwise known as the Domestic Press Division.) This
Division, as will be later shown, was the major section of the Press
Division of the Reich
In December 1938 Fritzsche succeeded Berndt as the head of the German
Press Division. Between 1938 and November 1942, Fritzsche was promoted
three times. He advanced in title from Superior Government Counsel to
Ministerial Counsel, then to Ministerialdirigent, and finally to Mnisterialdirektor.
In November 1942 Fritzsche was relieved of his position as head of
the German Press Division by Dr. Goebbels. In its place he accepted
from Dr. Goebbels a newly created position in the Propaganda Ministry,
that of Plenipotentiary for the Political Organization of the Greater
German Radio. At the same time he also became head of the Radio Division
of the Propaganda Ministry. He held both these positions in radio until
the Nazi- downfall.
There are two allegations in the Indictment concerning Fritzsche's
positions for which no proof is available. The first unsupported-allegation
states that Fritzsche was Editor-in-Chief of the official German News
Agency, Deutsche Nachrichten Buero. The second unsupported allegation
states that Fritzsche was head of the Radio Division of the Propaganda
Department of the Nazi Party. Fritzsche, in his affidavit, denies having
held either of these positions, and these two allegations must fall
for want of other proof.
B. FRITZSCHE'S PART IN THE CONSPIRACY TO CONSOLIDATE NAZI CONTROL
OVER GERMANY AND TO LAUNCH WARS OF AGGRESSION.
In one of his affidavits (8469-PS), which contains numerous statements
in the nature of self-serving declarations, Fritzsche state. that he
first became a successful journalist in the service of the Hugenberg
Press, the most important chain of newspaper enterprises in pre-Nazi
Germany. The Hugenberg concern owned papers of its own, but it was important
primarily because it served newspaper which principally supported the
so-called "national" parties of the Reich, including the NSDAP.
In paragraph 5 of this affidavit (3469-PS), Fritzsche relates that
in September 1932, when von Papen was Reich Chancellor, he was made
head of the Wireless News Service, replacing an official who was politically
unbearable to the Papen regime. The Wireless News Service was a government
agency for spreading news by radio. Fritzsche began making radio broadcasts
at about this time, with a success which Goebbels recognized and later
exploited on behalf of the Nazi conspirators.
On the evening of the day when the Nazis seized power, the 30 January
1933, two emissaries from Goebbels visited Fritzsche. One of them was
Dressler-Andrees, head of the Radio Division of the NSDAP; the other
was an assistant of Dressler-Andrees named Sadila-Mantau. These two
emissaries notified Fritzsche that although Goebbels was angry with
Fritzsche for writing an article critical of Hitler, still Goebbels
recognized Fritzsche's public success on the radio. They stated further
that Goebbels desired to retain Fritzsche as head of the Wireless News
Service on certain conditions: (1) that Fritzsche discharge all Jews;
(2 that he discharge all other personnel who would not join the NSDAP;
(3) that he employ with the Wireless News Service the second Goebbels'
emissary, Sadila-Mantau. Fritzsche refused all these conditions except
the hiring of Sadila-Mantau. (3469-PS)
Fritzsche continued to make radio broadcasts during this period in
which he supported the national National Socialist coalition government
then still existing.
In early 1933 SA troops several times called at the Wireless News Service
and Fritzsche prevented them, with some difficulty, from making news
broadcasts.
In April 1933 Goebbels called Fritzsche to him for a personal audience.
At paragraph 9 of his affidavit (3469-PS) Fritzsche has described his
prior relationship with Dr. Goebbels:
"I was acquainted with Dr. Goebbels since 1928. Apparently he
had taken a liking to me, besides the fact that in my press activities
I had always treated the National Socialists in a friendly way until
1931. Already before 1933, Goebbels, who was the editor of the 'Attack'
["Der Angriff" a Nazi newspaper, had frequently made flattering
remarks about the form and content of my work, which I did as contributor
of many 'National' newspapers and periodicals, among which were also
reactionary papers and periodicals." (3469-PS)
(1) Establishment of complete Nazi control over press and radio.
At the first Goebbels-Fritzsche discussion in early April 1933, Goebbels
informed Fritzsche of his decision to place the Wireless News Service
within the Propaganda Ministry as of 1 May 1933. He suggested that Fritzsche
make certain rearrangements in the personnel so as to remove Jews and
other persons who did not support the NSDAP. Fritzsche debated with
Goebbels concerning some of these steps. During this period Fritzsche
made some effort to place Jews in other jobs.
In a second conference with Goebbels shortly thereafter, Fritzsche
informed Goebbels about the steps he had taken in reorganizing the Wireless
News Service. Goebbels thereupon informed Fritzsche that he would like
to have him reorganize and modernize the entire news services of Germany
within the controls of the Propaganda Ministry. On 17 March 1933, approximately
two months before this time, the Propaganda Ministry had been created
by decree. (2029-PS) Fritzsche was intrigued by the Gobbles. offer.
He 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 and took the customary oath of unconditional
loyalty to the Fuehrer (3469-PS).
From this time on, whatever reservations Fritzsche may have had, either
then or later, to the course of events under the Nazis, Fritzsche was
completely within the Nazi camp. For the next 13 years he assisted in
creating and in using the propaganda devices which the conspirators
successfully employed in each of the principal phases.
From 1933 until 1942 Fritzsche held one or more positions within the
German Press Division. For four years, from 1938 to 1942 the period
when the Nazis undertook military invasions of neighboring countries
-- he headed this Division. 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. Thus, the already broad jurisdiction of the Propaganda
Ministry was extended as follows by a Hitler decree of 30 June 1933:
"The Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda has
jurisdiction over the whole field of spiritual indoctrination of the
nation, of propagandizing the State, of cultural and economic propaganda,
of enlightenment of the public at home and abroad. Furthermore, he
is in charge of the administration of all institutions serving those
purposes." (2030-PS)
An exposition of the general functions of the German Press Division
of the Propaganda Ministry is contained in an excerpt from a book by
George Wilhelm Mueller, a Ministerial Director in the Propaganda Ministry.
(2434-PS) Paragraphs 14, 15 and 16 of Fritzsche's affidavit contain
an exposition of the functions of the German Press Division, a description
which confirms and adds to the exposition in Mueller's book. Concerning
the German Press Division, Fritzsche's affidavit (3469-PS) states:
"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 aim
of this supervision and control, in the first years following 1933,
was to change basically the conditions existing in the press before
the seizure of power. That meant the coordination into the New Order
of those newspapers and periodicals which were in the service of capitalistic
special interests or party politics. While the administrative functions,
wherever possible, were exercised by the professional associations
and the Reich Press Chamber, the political leadership of the German
press was entrusted to the German Press Division. 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. These instructions
were transmitted daily, almost without exception, and mostly by telephone,
from headquarters by Dr. Otto Dietrich, Reich Press Chief, in a fixed
statement, the so-called 'Daily Parole of the Reich Press Chief.'
Before the statement was fixed the head of the German Press Division
submitted to him -- Dietrich -- the current press wishes expressed
by Dr. Goebbels and by other Ministries. This was the case especially
with the wishes of the Foreign Office, about which Dr. Dietrich always
wanted to make decisions personally or through his representatives
at the headquarters, Helmut Suendermann and chief editor Lorenz. The
practical use of the general directions in detail was thus left entirely
to the individual work of the individual editor. Therefore, it is
by no means true that the newspapers and periodicals were a monopoly
of the German Press Division or that essays and leading articles through
it had to be submitted to the Ministry. Even in war times this happened
in exceptional cases only. The less important newspapers and periodicals
which were not represented at the daily press conferences received
their information in a different way -- by providing them either with
ready-made articles and reports, or with a confidential printed instruction.
The publications of all other official agencies were directed and
coordinated likewise by the German Press Division. To enable the periodicals
to get acquainted with the daily political problems of newspapers
and to discuss these problems in greater detail, the Informationskorrepondenz
was issued especially for periodicals. Later on it was taken over
by the Periodical Press Division. The German Press Division likewise
was in charge of pictorial reporting in so far as it directed the
employment of pictorial reporters at important events. In this way,
and conditioned by the current political situation, the entire German
Press was made a permanent instrument of the Propaganda Ministry by
the German Press Division. Thereby, the entire German Press was subordinate
to the political aims of the Government. This was exemplified by the
timely measuring and the emphatic presentation of such press polemics
as appeared to be most useful, as shown for instance in the following
themes: the class struggle of the system era; the leadership principle
and the authoritarian state; the party and interest politics of the
system era; the Jewish problem; the conspiracy of World Jewry; the
Bolshevistic danger; the plutocratic Democracy abroad; the race problem
generally; the church; the economic misery abroad; the foreign policy;
and living space [lebensraum]."
This description of Fritzsche's establishes clearly that the German
Press Division was the instrument for subordinating the entire German
press to the political aims of the Nazi Government.
Fritzsche's early activities within the German Press Division on behalf
of the conspirators are described in his affidavit (3469-PS). In a conference
with Goebbels the following occurred:
"At this time Dr. Goebbels suggested to me, as a specialist
on news technique, the establishment and direction of a section 'News,'
within the Press Division of his Ministry, in order to organize fully
and to modernize the German news agencies. In executing this assignment
given to me by Dr. Goebbels I took for my field the entire news field
for the German Press and the radio in accordance with the directions
given by the Propaganda Ministry, at first with the exception of the
DNB, German News Agency." (3469-PS)
The reason why the DNB was excepted from Fritzsche's field at this
time is that it did not come into existence until 1934.
Later on in his affidavit Fritzsche mentions the sizeable funds put
at his disposal in building up the Nazi news services. Altogether, the
German news agencies received a ten-fold increase in their budget from
the Reich, an increase from 400,000 to 4,000,000 marks. Fritzsche himself
selected and employed the Chief Editor for the Transocean News Agency
and also for the Europa Press. Fritzsche states that some of the
" *** directions of the Propaganda Ministry which I had to follow
were *** increase of German news copy abroad at any cost *** spreading
of favorable news on the internal construction and peaceful intentions
of the National Socialistic System. ***"
About the summer of 1934 Funk, then Reich Press Chief, achieved the
fusion of the two most important domestic news agencies, the Wolff Telegraph
Agency and the Telegraph Union, and thus formed the official German
news agency known as DNB. Although Fritzsche held no position with DNB
at any time, nevertheless as head of the news section of the German
Press Division, Fritzsche's duties gave him official jurisdiction over
the DNB, which was the official domestic news agency of the Reich after
1934. Fritzsche admits that he coordinated the work of the various foreign
news agencies
"within the inland Europe and overseas foreign countries with
each other and in relationship to DNB" (3469-PS).
The Wireless News Service was headed by Fritzsche from 1930 to 1937.
After January 1933 the Wireless News Service was the official instrument
of the Nazi government in spreading news over the radio. During the
same time that Fritzsche headed the Wireless News Service, he personally
made radio broadcasts to the German people. These broadcasts were naturally
subject to the controls of the Propaganda Ministry and reflected its
purposes. The influence of Fritzsche's broadcasts to the German people,
during this period of consolidation of control by the Nazi conspirators,
is all the more important since Fritzsche was concurrently head of the
Wireless News Service, and thus in control of all radio news.
(2) Use of propaganda to prepare the way for aggressions. 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 net following aggression.
By the time of the occupation of the Sudetenland on 1 October 1938,
Fritzsche had become deputy head of the entire German Press Division.
Fritzsche states that the role of German propaganda before the Munich
Agreement on the Sudetenland was directed by his immediate chief, Berndt,
head of the German Press Division. Fritzsche describes Berndt's propaganda
as follows:
"He exaggerated minor events very strongly, used sometimes old
episodes as new -- and there even came complaints from the Sudetenland
itself that much of the news reported by the German press was untrustworthy.
As a matter of fact, after the great foreign political success at
Munich in September 1938, there came a noticeable crisis in confidence
of the German people in the trustworthiness of its press. This was
one reason for the recalling of Berndt, in December 1938 after the
conclusion of the Sudeten action and for my appointment as head of
the German Press Division. Beyond this, Berndt, by-his admittedly
successful but still primitive military-like orders to the German
Press, had lost the confidence of the German editors." (469-PS)
Fritzsche was accordingly made head of the German Press Division in
place of Berndt. Between December 1938 and 1942, Fritzsche, as head
of the German Press Division, personally gave to the representatives
of the principal German newspapers the "daily parole of the Reich
Press Chief." During this period he was the principal conspirator
directly- concerned with the manipulations of the press.
The first important foreign aggression after Fritzsche became head
of the German Press Division was the incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia.
Fritzsche describes the propaganda action surrounding the incorporation
of Bohemia and Moravia as follows:
"The action for the incorporation of Bohemia and Moravia, which
took place on 15 March 1939, while I was head of the German Press
Division, was not prepared for such a long period as the Sudeten action.
According to my memory, it was in February that I received the order
from the Reich Press Chief, Dr. Dietrich, which was repeated as a
request by the envoy Paul Schmidt of the Foreign Office, to bring
the attention of the press to the efforts for independence of Slovakia
and to the continued anti-German coalition politics of the Prague
government. I did this. The daily paroles of the Reich Press Chief
and the press conference minutes at that time show the wording of
the corresponding instructions. These were the typical headlines of
leading newspapers and the emphatic leading articles of the German
daily press at that time: (1) the terrorizing of Germans within the
Czech territory by arrest, shooting of Germans by the state police,
destruction and damaging of German homes by Czech gangsters; (2) the
concentration of Czech forces on the Sudeten frontier; (3) the kidnaping,
deporting, and persecuting of Slovakian minorities by the Czechs;
that the Czechs must get out of Slovakia; (4) secret meetings of Red
functionaries in Prague. Some few days before the visit of Hacha,
I received the instruction to publish in the press very emphatically
the incoming news on the unrest in Czechoslovakia. Such information
I received only partly from the German News Agency, DNB. Mostly it
came from the Press Division of the Foreign Office and some of it
came from big newspapers with their own news services. Among the newspapers
offering information was above all the 'Voelkischer Beobachter' which,
as I learned later on, received its information from the SS Standartenfuehrer
Gunter D'Alquen. He was at this time in Pressburg. I had forbidden
all news agencies and newspapers to issue news on unrest in Czechoslovakia
before I had seen it. I wanted to avoid a repetition of the very annoying
results of the Sudeten action propaganda, and I did not want to suffer
a loss of prestige caused by untrue news. Thus, all news checked by
me was admittedly full of tendency [voller Tendenz] however, not invented.
After the visit of Hacha in Berlin and after the beginning of the
invasion of the German Army, which took place on 15 March 1939, the
German press had enough material for describing those events. Historically
and politically the event was justified with the indication that the
declaration of independence of Slovakia had required an interference
and that Hacha with his signature had avoided a war and had reinstated
a thousand-year union between Bohemia and the Reich." (3469-PS)
The propaganda campaign of the press preceding the
invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 bears again the handiwork of
Fritzsche and his German Press Division. Fritzsche speaks of the conspirators'
treatment of this episode as follows:
"Very complicated and changing was the press and propagandistic
treatment in the case of Poland. Under the influence of the German-Polish
agreement, it was generally forbidden in the German press for many
years to publish anything on the situation of the German minority
in Poland. This remained also the case when in the Spring of 1939
the German press was asked to become somewhat more active as to the
problem of Danzig. Also, when the first Polish-English conversations
took place, and when the German press was instructed to use a sharper
tone against Poland, the question of the German minority still remained
in the background. But during the summer this problem was picked up
again and created immediately a noticeable sharpening of the situation,
namely, each larger German newspaper had for quite some time an abundance
of material on complaints of the Germans in Poland without the editors
having had a chance to use this material. The German papers, from
the time of the minority discussion at Geneva, still had correspondents
of free collaborators in Kattewitz, Bromberg, Posen, Thorn, etc. Their
material now came forth with a bound. 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.
The Polish Press replied particularly sharply." (3469-PS)
The press campaign preceding the invasion of Yugoslavia followed the
conventional pattern. The customary definitions, lies, incitement, and
threats, and the usual attempt to divide and weaken the victim, are
contained in Fritzsche's description of this propaganda action:
"During the period immediately preceding the invasion of Yugoslavia,
on 16 April 1941, the German press emphasized by headlines and leading
articles the following topics: (1) the planned persecution of Germans
in Yugoslavia, including the burning down of German villages by Serbian
soldiers; also the confining of Germans in concentration camps and
also the physical mishandling of German-speaking persons; (2) the
arming of Serbian bandits by the Serbian Government; (3) the incitement
of Yugoslavia by the plutocrats against Germany; (4) the increasing
anti-Serbian feeling in Croatia; (5) the chaotic economic and social
conditions in Yugoslavia."
Since Germany had a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, and
because the conspirators wanted the advantage of surprise, there was
no special propaganda campaign immediately preceding the attack on the
USSR. Fritzsche's affidavit discusses the propaganda line which was
given the German people in justification of this aggressive war:
"During the night from the 21st to the 22nd of June 1941 [21
June 1941-22 June 1941], Ribbentrop called me in for a conference
in the Foreign Office building at about 5 o'clock in the morning,
at which representatives of the domestic and foreign press were present.
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." (3469-PS)
Fritzsche, throughout his affidavit, constantly refers to his expert
technical assistance to the apparatus of the Propaganda Ministry. In
1939, apparently becoming dissatisfied with the efficiency of the existing
facilities of the German Press Division, he established a new instrument
for improving the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda:
"About the summer of 1939 I established within the German Press
Division a section called 'Speed-Service.' *** At the start it had
the task of checking the correctness of news from foreign countries.
Later on, about the Fall of 1939, this section also elaborated on
collecting materials which were put at the disposal of the entire
German press. For instance, dates from the British Colonial policy,
from political statements of the British Prime Minister in former
times, descriptions of social distress in hostile countries, etc.
Almost all German newspapers used such material as a basis for their
polemics. Hereby was achieved a great unification within the fighting
front of the German press. The title 'Speed Service' was chosen because
materials for current comments were supplied with unusual speed."
(3469-PS)
Throughout this entire period preceding and including the launching
of aggressive wars, Fritzsche made regular radio broadcasts to the German
people under the program titles of "Political Newspaper Review,"
"Political and Radio Show," and later "Hans Fritzsche
Speaks." His broadcasts naturally reflected the polemics and the
controls of his Ministry and thus of the conspiracy. Fritzsche, the
most eminent member of Goebbels propaganda team, helped substantially
in making possible, both within Germany and without, the conspirators'
plans for aggressive war.
C. FRITZSCHE'S USE OF PROPAGANDA TO FURTHER THE
CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT ATROCITIES AND EXPLOIT OCCUPIED TERRITORIES.
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.
(1) Persecution of the Jews. With respect to Jews, the Department
of Propaganda within the Propaganda Ministry had a special branch for
the "Enlightenment of the German people and of the world as to
the Jewish question, fighting with propagandistic weapons against enemies
of the State and hostile ideologies." This quotation is taken from
a book written in 1940 by Ministerial Director Mueller, entitled "The
Propaganda Ministry." (2434-PS)
In his radio broadcasts Fritzsche took a particularly active part in
this "enlightenment" concerning the Jewish question. These
broadcasts were full of provocative libels against Jews, the result
of which was to inflame Germans to further atrocities against Jews.
Even Streicher, the master Jew- baiter of all time, could scarcely outdo
Fritzsche in some of his anti-Jewish incitements. Broadcasts by Fritzsche
which were monitored and translated by the British Broadcasting Corporation
are quite revealing (3064-PS). These radio speeches of Fritzsche were
broadcast during the period 1941-1945, which was a period of intensified
anti- Jewish measures.
For instance, in a broadcast on 18 December 1941, Fritzsche declared:
"The fate of Jewry in Europe has turned out as unpleasant as
the Fuehrer predicted in the case of a European war. After the extension
of the war instigated by Jews, this unpleasant fate may-also spread
to the New World, for you can hardly assume that the nations of this
New World will pardon the Jews for the misery of which the nations
of the Old World did not absolve them." (3064-PS)
On 18 March 1941 Fritzsche broadcast as follows:
"But the crown of all wrongly-applied Rooseveltian logics is
the sentence 'There never was a race and there never will be a race
which can serve the rest of mankind as a master.' Here too we can
only applaud Mr. Roosevelt. Precisely because there exists no race
which can be the master. of the rest of mankind, we Germans have taken
the liberty to break the domination of Jewry and of its capital in
Germany, of Jewry which believed to have inherited the Crown of secret
world domination." (3064-PS)
On 9 October 1941 Fritzsche declared over the radio:
"We know very well that these German victories, unparalleled
in history, have not yet stopped the source of hatred, which, for
a long time, has fed the war mongers and from which this war originated.
The international Jewish-Democratic Bolshevistic campaign of incitement
against Germany still finds cover in this or that fox's lair or rat-hole.
We have seen only too frequently how the defeats suffered by the war
mongers only doubled their senseless and impotent fury." (3064-
PS)
And on 8 January 1944 Fritzsche broadcast the following:
"It is revealed clearly once more that not a system of Government,
not a young nationalism, not a new and well applied Socialism brought
about this war. The guilty ones are exclusively the Jews and the Plutocrats.
If discussion on the post-war problems brings this to light so clearly,
we welcome it as a contribution for later discussions and also as
a contribution to the fight we are waging now, for we refuse to believe
that world history will confide its future developments to those powers
which have brought about this war. This clique of Jews and Plutocrats
have invested their money in armaments and they had to see to it that
they would get their interests and sinking funds; hence they unleashed
this war (3064-PS)
Finally, in a broadcast on 13 January 1945, Fritzsche stated:
"If Jewry provided a link between divergent elements as Plutocracy
and Bolshevism and if Jewry was first able to work successfully in
the Democratic countries in preparing this war against Germany, it
has by now placed itself unreservedly on the side of Bolshevism which,
with its entirely mistaken slogans of racial freedom against racial
hatred, has created the very conditions the Jewish race requires in
its struggle for domination over other races."
"Not the last result of German resistance on the fronts, so
unexpected to the enemy, is the fruition of a development which began
in the pre-war years, the process of subordinating British policy
to far-reaching Jewish points of view. It began long before this when
Jewish emigrants from Germany started their war- mongering against
us from British and American soil."
"This whole attempt aiming at the establishment of Jewish world
domination, now increasingly recognizable, has come to a head at the
very moment when the people's understanding of their racial origins
has been far too much awakened to promise success to the undertaking."
(3064-PS)
(2) Ruthless treatment of peoples of the USSR. Fritzsche also
incited and encouraged ruthless measures against the peoples of the
USSR.
In his regular broadcasts Fritzsche's incitement against the peoples
of the USSR were often linked to, and were certainly as inflammatory
as, his rantings against the Jews. It is ironic that his propaganda
ascribing atrocities to the peoples of the USSR are accurate descriptions
of some of the many atrocities committed by the German invaders. Shortly
after the invasion of the USSR in June 1941 Fritzsche broadcast as follows:
"The evidence of letters reaching us from the front, of P. K.
[Propaganda Kompanie]- reporters and soldiers on leave demonstrates
that, in this struggle in the East, not one political system is pitted
against another, not one view of life is fighting another, but that
culture, civilization, and human decency make a stand against the
diabolical principle of a sub-human world."
"It was only the Fuehrer's decision to strike in time that saved
our homeland from the fate of being overrun by those sub-human creatures,
and our men, women, and children from the unspeakable horror of being
their prey." (3064-PS) In his broadcast on 10 July 1941 Fritzsche
spoke of the alleged inhuman deeds committed in various areas by the
Soviet Union, and he states that upon seeing the evidence of those
deeds one is " *** finally to make the holy resolve to give his
aid in he final destruction of those who are capable of such dastardly
acts."
*******
"The Bolshevist agitators make no effort to deny that in towns,
thousands, in the villages, hundreds, of corpses of men, women and
children have been found, who had been either killed or tortured to
death. Yet the Bolshevik agitators allege that this was not done by
Soviet Commissars but by German soldiers. Now we Germans know our
soldiers. No German woman, father, or mother requires proof that their
husband or their son cannot have committed such atrocious acts."
(3064-PS)
Evidence to be offered by the Soviet prosecuting staff will prove that
representatives of the Nazi conspirators did not hesitate to exterminate
Soviet soldiers and civilians by scientific mass methods. The incitements
by Fritzsche make him an accomplice in these crimes. His labeling of
the Soviet peoples as members of a "sub-human world" seeking
to "exterminate" the German people, and similar talk, helped
fashion the psychological atmosphere of unreason and hatred which not
only made possible these atrocities in the East, but made them appear
a holy duty.
(3) Exploitation of occupied territories. Fritzsche encouraged
and glorified the policy of the Nazi conspirators in ruthlessly exploiting
the occupied countries. In his radio broadcast of 9 October 1941 he
stated:
"Today we can only say: Blitzkrieg or no -- this German thunderstorm
has cleansed the atmosphere of Europe. It is quite true that the dangers
threatening us were eliminated one after the other with lightning
speed; but in these lightning blows which shattered England's allies
on the Continent, we saw not a proof of the weakness, but a proof
of the strength and superiority of the Fuehrer's gift as a statesman
and military leader; a proof of the German peoples' force; we saw
the proof that no opponent can stand up to the courage, discipline,
and readiness for sacrifice displayed by the German soldier; and we
are particularly grateful for these lightning, unmatched victories,
because as the Fuehrer emphasized last Friday -- they give us the
possibility of embarking on the organization of Europe and of lifting
of the treasures of this old continent, already now in the middle
of war, without it being necessary for millions and millions of German
soldiers to be on guard, fighting day and night along this or that
threatened frontier; and the possibilities of this continent are so
rich that they suffice for any need of peace or war." (3064-PS)
In his affidavit, Fritzsche admits having encouraged the exploitation
of foreign countries:
"The utilization of the productive capacity of the occupied countries
for the strengthening of the war potential, I have openly and gloriously
praised, chiefly because the competent authorities put at my disposal
much material, especially on the voluntary placement of manpower."
(3469-PS)
(4) Control of German radio. In addition to continuing as the
head of the German Press Division until after the conspirators had begun
the last of their aggression, Fritzsche was also the high commander
of the entire German radio system. In November 1942 Goebbels created
a new position, that of Plenipotentiary for the Political Organization
of the Greater German Radio, a position which Fritzsche was the first
and the last to hold. In his affidavit, Fritzsche narrates how the entire
German Radio and Television System was organized under his supervision:
"My office practically represented the high command of German
radio." (3469-PS)
As special Plenipotentiary for the Political Organization of the Greater
German Radio, Fritzsche issued orders to all the Reich propaganda offices
by teletype. These were used in conforming the entire radio apparatus
of Germany to the desires of the conspirators.
Goebbels customarily held an eleven o'clock conference with his closest
collaborators within the Propaganda Ministry. When both Goebbels and
his undersecretary, Dr. Naumann, were absent, Goebbels, after 1943,
entrusted Fritzsche with the holding of this eleven o'clock press conference.
In Goebbels' introduction to a book by Fritzsche, called "War
to the War Mongers," he took occasion to praise Fritzsche's broadcasts
in this fashion:
"Nobody knows better than I how much work is involved in those
broadcasts, how many times they were dictated within the last minutes
to find some minutes later a willing ear by the whole nation."
It is clear from Goebbels himself that the entire German nation was
prepared to lend willing ears to Fritzsche, after he had made his reputation
on the radio.
The rumor passed that Fritzsche was "His Master's Voice"
(Die Stimme seines Herren). This is borne out by Fritzsche's functions.
When Fritzsche spoke on the radio it was plain to the German people
that they were listening to the high command of the conspirators in
this field.
D. CONCLUSION.
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
he 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.
When Fritzsche entered the Propaganda Ministry, which has been called
the most fabulous "lie factory" of all time, and thus attached
himself to the conspiracy, he did so with more of an open mind than
most of the conspirators who had committed themselves at an earlier
date, before the seizure of power. He was in a particularly strategic
position to observe the frauds committed upon the German people and
the world by the conspirators.
In 1933, before Fritzsche took his Party oath of unconditional obedience
and subservience to the Fuehrer, he had observed at first hand the operations
of the storm troopers and the execution of Nazi race actions. When,
notwithstanding, Fritzsche undertook to bring all German news agencies
within Nazi control, he learned from the inside, indeed from Goebbels
himself, the intrigue and lies against opposition groups within and
without Germany.
He observed, for example, how opposition journalists, a profession
to which he had previously belonged, were either absorbed or eliminated.
He continued to support the conspiracy. He learned from day to day the
art of intrigue and quackery in the process of perverting the German
nation, and he grew in prestige and influence as he practiced this
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.
Nazi Germany and its press went into war with Fritzsche in control
of all German news, whether by press or radio.: In 1942, when Fritzsche
transferred from the field of the press to radio, he was not removed
for bungling, but because Goebbels then needed his talents most in the
field of radio. 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.
(See also Section 9 of Chapter VII on Propaganda, Censorship, and Supervision
of Cultural Activities.)
Sources: Nizkor.
Nazi Conspiracy & Aggression, Volume II, Chapter XVI, pp.1035-1052.
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