In a report documenting its relations with Nazi Germany, Covering Tyranny, The AP and Nazi Germany: 1933-1945.
the Associated Press found that its German photo service provided photos to German media after Nazis took power in 1933. The AP German photo service and all other German media companies were subsequently placed under the supervision of the Propaganda Ministry. While AP management insisted that its German photo service production stay neutral, German staff members faced constant pressure from Propaganda Ministry officials about the AP's photo output, with some doing a better job of resisting Nazi demands than others.
In 1935, AP’s German photo service let go six employees considered Jewish by the Nazis in accordance with an anti-Semitic edict that all people working in German media must be of German Aryan
origin. The AP made the difficult decision to comply because it believed it was critical for AP to remain in Germany and gather news and photos during this crucial period,
the report said. With AP’s help, all of these employees emigrated and survived the Holocaust.
AP protested Nazi attempts to censor its reports but did not do anything in response to their rewriting photo captions or using misleading or offensive headlines. Reports were also criticized by U.S. officials during 1939-41 as enabling the spread of German propaganda because Berlin-based American journalists and German photographers reported from the German side of the battle lines. AP executives disagreed.
Some of AP’s reporters supported the Nazis. Franz Roth, for example, was an ardent Nazi who traveled as a war photographer with the Waffen SS before and after the AP’s expulsion from Germany. He died as a combat photographer in 1943.
The report also found that after 1939, the German government drafted several AP German photo service employees to serve with propaganda units accompanying troops to cover the fighting, requiring that the resulting photos be pooled for use by German media while their salaries still were paid by AP Germany. AP management at the time believed their photography had news value in spite of the restrictions caused by traveling with German forces.
Source: David Crary, “AP releases in-depth review of its coverage of Nazi Germany,” Associated Press, (May 10, 2017).