Censorship in Nazi Germany was extreme and strictly enforced by the governingNazi Party, but specifically byJoseph Goebbels and hisReich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Similarly to many otherpolice states both before and since, censorship withinNazi Germany included the silencing of all past and present dissenting voices. In addition to the further propaganda weaponization of all forms of mass communication, including newspaper, music, literature, radio, and film, by the State,[1] the Ministry of Propaganda also produced and disseminated their own literature, which was solely devoted to spreadingNazi ideology and theHitler Myth.
With disturbingly close similarities toSocialist Realism in theSoviet Union, crude caricatures were used to dehumanize and stir up hatred against thesingle party state's both real and imagined opponents. This lay at the core of the Ministry's output, especially in anti-Semitic propaganda films such asJud Süß andThe Eternal Jew. Also similarly to the Soviet film industry underJoseph Stalin, the Ministry also promoted a secular messianiccult of personality surroundingAdolf Hitler, particularly through films such asLeni Riefenstahl'sTriumph of the Will.
What is worse, a highly ironic parallel to the many cases ofStalinistdamnatio memoriae andcensoring of photographs exposed inDavid King'sThe Commissar Vanishes, may be seen in the events surrounding Leni Riefenstahl's 1933 Nazi propaganda filmThe Victory of Faith. It was almost immediately banned, however, after high levelNazi Party memberErnst Röhm, whose close friendship with Hitler is very visible and prominently emphasized in the film, was shot without trial in the 1934political purge known as theNight of the Long Knives.
Meanwhile, as many otherOrwellian political parties have done both before and since, the Nazis set out in manyother ways tocompletely rewriteGerman history and the history ofGerman literature to conform toNazi ideology and condemned everything that contradictedtheir fictitious claims to "the memory hole" ofhistorical negationism. They were harshly criticized for this at the time by figures includingClemens von Galen,Sigrid Undset,Dietrich von Hildebrand,[2]J.R.R. Tolkien, andJorge Luis Borges.[3]
Among the thousands of booksburned on Berlin'sOpernplatz in 1933, following theNazi raid on theInstitut für Sexualwissenschaft, were works by one of the most iconic individuals ever to write in theGerman language, theGerman JewishRomantic poetHeinrich Heine (1797–1856). To both memorialize and criticize Nazi ideological censorship, the oft-quoted and eerily prophetic lines from Heine's 1821stage playAlmansor, were put in a plaque at the site: (German:"Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.") ("That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.")[4]
Even though theGerman people aretraditionally stereotyped as blindly obedient to authority, excessive government censorship stirred up the same backlash commonly seen in many other countries. Despite the extremely high risks involved, public demand created ablack market for banned literature, which continued to be published throughout the globalGerman diaspora byExilliteratur firms, and especially for allegedly "degenerate" AmericanJazz andSwing Music, which were acquired anyway and devoured in secret by the early beginnings of an anti-Nazi youthdissident movement.
Moreover, Nazi ideological censorship triggered abrain drain that proved devastating to Germany and Austria's once dynamic literary, artistic, and cultural life and to the once radically innovative and pioneering German film industry. Many cities throughout the world became population centers of anti-Nazi German and Austrian refugees, including many highly important poets, writers, scientists, and intellectuals who had fled to maintain theirfreedom of expression. Many of Germany and Austria's best actors, directors, and film technicians, includingFritz Lang,Max Reinhardt,William Dieterle,Fred Zinnemann,Conrad Veidt,Marlene Dietrich,Hedy Lamar,Peter Lorre, and many others like them often emigrated for very similar reasons and continued their careers by aiding the Allied war effort as anti-Nazi filmmakers inHollywood. It was even more damaging to Austria and Germany's intellectual, literary, and cultural life that, despite the eventual end of Nazi Party rule in 1945, most of these highly talented refugees never returned.
Even so, many Allied policy makers and propagandists took the claims of Goebbels Ministry about German history and culture at face value, particularly following the outbreak ofWorld War II. This lack of insight led to both widespreadAnti-German sentiment and calls by influential figures likeIlya Ehrenberg,Edvard Beneš,Theodore N. Kaufman, andAbba Kovner, fortotal war tactics and even forethnic cleansing andgenocide against theGerman people following the end of the war, which were far morewidely carried out in the postwarSoviet Bloc, than in what becameWest Germany.
In actual practice, giving German POWs easy access to banned art, music, motion pictures, and literary works was found in theUnited States to be avery effective tool of deprogramming them from Nazi ideology. For this reason, several former POWs held in the United States went on to highly influential positions in the literary and cultural life of theFederal Republic of Germany, where theMarshall Plan, instead of a secondVersailles Treaty or the even more vengefulMorgenthau Plan, helped set the stage for theWest German economic miracle. Also following the end of Nazi Party rule in 1945, the deliberate falsification of history, art, literature, and current events by the Ministry of Propaganda were satirized as the ironically namedMinistry of Truth inGeorge Orwell's classicdystopian novelNineteen Eighty-Four.[5]
Ever since it opened in 1980, theMemorial to the German Resistance inBerlin has included exhibits about Nazi propaganda, censorship, and those, likeThe White Rose student movement, who defied them at extremely high risk and often with terrible costs.
All innovation in art starting withImpressionism, especiallyCubism andExpressionism, were ruleddegenerate art and banned by the Ministry. All works by composers of popular orClassical music with Jewish ancestry likeMendelssohn,Mahler, andSchoenberg were banned asdegenerate music.[6]
In a particularly egregious example, the Ministry banned andblacklisted legendaryavante garde stage directorMax Reinhardt, whomToby Cole andHelen Krich Chinoy have dubbed "one of the most picturesque actor-directors of modern times". Reinhardt, whoseMax Reinhardt Seminar acting school was later refounded in post-World War IIVienna, eventually fled to theUnited States as arefugee from the imminentNazi takeover of Austria. His arrival in America had followed a long and distinguished career, "inspired by the example of social participation in theancient Greek andMedieval theatres", of seeking "to bridge theseparation between actors and audiences".[7]
When Reinhardt's briefHollywood career resulted in his acclaimed1935 film adaptation ofWilliam Shakespeare'sA Midsummer Night's Dream, the film was banned from German theatres by the Ministry, as well. This was due not only toJoseph Goebbels' belief that Reinhardt's filmmaking style, which drew heavily upon the pre-1933 tradition ofGerman expressionist cinema, wasdegenerate art, but even more so due to the Jewish ancestry of Reinhardt,Classical music composer Felix Mendelsohn, and soundtrack arrangerErich Wolfgang Korngold.[8]
Amongst thoseauthors and artists who were suppressed both during theNazi book burnings and the attempt to destroy modernist fine art in the"degenerate" art exhibition were:[9]
Artists banned include:
Composers banned include:
Dramatists and filmmakers banned include:
Philosophers, scientists, and sociologists suppressed byNazi Germany include:
Politicians suppressed byNazi Germany include:
Even though theGerman people aretraditionally stereotyped as blindly obedient to authority,[11][12] it should not be pretended that Nazi censorship was left unchallenged.[1]
Between 1933 and 1939, large numbers of German-speakers fled into exile. These included manydissident writers, poets, and artists. Many refugees hadJewish ancestry, but there were also large numbers of "Aryans", too, who heldanti-Nazi religious or political beliefs.[13]
Population centers of anti-Nazi émigrés who continued to speak and write in the German language and theExilliteratur publishing firms catering to their readers swiftly emerged in several European cities, includingParis,Amsterdam, Stockholm, Zürich,London, Prague,Moscow as well as across the Atlantic inNew York City,Chicago,Los Angeles,Mexico City, and many other cities. Well known for their publications were the publishersQuerido Verlag andVerlag Allert de Lange in Amsterdam,Berman-Fischer Verlag inStockholm, and Oprecht in Zürich.[14]
Likeanti-communist Russian poets, writers, and publishing houses inPrague,Berlin, Paris, London, and New York after theOctober Revolution, anti-Nazi German poets and writers saw themselves as the continuation of an older and better Germany, which had been taken over and perverted by theNazi Party.[13] A particularly effective example wasRudolf Roessler'sVita Nova Verlag, based inLucerne,Switzerland, which published anti-Nazi German writers, anti-communist Russian writers, and anti-Franco Spanish writers. Vita Nova also commissioned and published translations into theGerman language ofChristian literature by writers from multiple denominations, but all of whom had been banned by Goebbels' Ministry, such asNikolai Berdyaev,William Ralph Inge,Emanuel Rádl,Emmanuel Mounier, andSigrid Undset.[15][16]
With this in mind, they supplied theGerman diaspora with both banned literary works and withAlternative media critical of the regime, and, in defiance of Nazi censorship laws, their books, newspapers, and magazines were smuggled into the homeland and both read and distributed in secret by theGerman people.[14]
Similarly,Jazz andSwing music, due to the vitally important role played byAfrican American andJewish American musicians in creating and performing both genres, were banned asNegermusik, but remained very popular among theSwingjugendcounterculture anyway and were always in very high demand onNazi Germany's thrivingblack market.[17]
Furthermore, before he was sent back to theWehrmacht in disgrace,[18] conscripted Catholic seminarianGereon Goldmann used hisWaffen-SS uniform as a cover for both black marketeering and the deliberate subversion ofNazi anti-Catholicism and ideological censorship. He secretly purchased large numbers of strictly illegal German-language Catholic books from second-hand bookshops inoccupied France. Goldmann and several other conscripted seminarians then smuggled these same books back intoNazi Germany in boxes stampedTOP SECRET: SS MAIL. Some fellow SS men assisted out of sympathy, others because they werebribed.[19]
Goldmann later wrote, "The drivers knew their contents and consented, for money, to watch over them and deliver them to ourMonastery in Gorheim-Sigmaringen, to Dr. Heinrich Hofler, the leader of the German Catholic group who ministered to the spiritual needs of the army. It was very difficult and dangerous, of course, but so rewarding. Sometimes we even when so far to send them by plane! The men helping were soldiers of the SS; I was in the SS. The drivers we bribed were Nazis, soldiers of the Reich. And yet, no one ever betrayed us. No traitor ever rose up from the ranks to reveal our activities.[20]... Reports came back to us about how our religious superiors had succeeded in receiving the material and distributing it to the spiritually hungry Christians... We knew by this that the angels were truly on our side; and though it went somewhat against the grain to conspire against our own country, we felt that the sooner these despised men were defeated, the sooner we could return our Fatherland to her rightful rulers – the people – and her rightful King – Christ."[21]
The written anti-Nazi sermons of BishopClemens August Graf von Galen and thepapal encyclicalMit brennender Sorge were secretly copied and distributed in Nazi Germany at equally serious risk and ultimately inspiredThe White Rose studentdissident movement to act similarly.[22]
To evade being correctly identified duringGestapo raids,Exilliteratur andunderground media sources often produced black market editions of banned books which were bound within innocent-looking covers with deliberately misleading titles. These illegal books were termedTarnschriften.[23]
In his 1938 essay "A Disturbing Exposition", Argentine author and anti-NaziGermanophileJorge Luis Borges had harsh words for howJohannes Rohr, in the service of the Ministry of Propaganda, had, "revised, rewritten, and Germanized the very GermanicGeschichte der deutschen National-Literatur [History of German Literature] byA.F.C. Vilmar. In editions previous to theThird Reich, Vilmar's book was decidedly mediocre; now it is alarming". Borges proceeded to harshly critique how, in this new edition of Vilmar's book and in many other books like it, everyone and everything inGerman history,literature, andculture which in any way contradictedNazi ideology was either subjected todamnatio memoriae or carefully rewritten to conform. After listing many of the greatest writers in theGerman language who were no longer even mentioned in the new edition, an enraged Borges concluded:[24]
As if that were not enough,Goethe,Lessing, andNietzsche have been distorted and mutilated.Fichte andHegel appear, but there is no mention ofSchopenhauer. OfStefan George we are informed only of a lively preamble that advantageously prefiguresAdolf Hitler.Things areworse inRussia, I hear people say. I infinitely agree, but Russia does not interest us as much as Germany. Germany – along withFrance, England, and theUnited States – is one of the essential nations of the western world. Hence we feel devastated by its chaotic descent into darkness, hence the symptomatic seriousness of books like this. I find it normal forthe Germans to reject theTreaty of Versailles. (There is no good European who does not detest that ruthless contrivance.) I find it normal to detestthe Republic, an opportunistic (and servile)scheme toappeaseWilson. I find it normal to support with fervor a man who promises to defend their honor. I find it insane to sacrifice to that honor their culture, their past, and their honesty, and to perfect the criminal arts of barbarians.
As aphilologist which a specialty inGermanic languages, their mythology, and earlyChristian literature, such as theHeliand andThe Dream of the Rood,J.R.R. Tolkien was equally as disgusted as Borges was by the Propaganda Ministry's claims that theGerman people had always believed inGermanic paganism andNazi ideology. In a 1941 letter to his sonMichael Tolkien, who was attending theRoyal Military Academy, Sandhurst, an incensed Tolkien wrote, "I have spent most of my life, since I was your age, studying Germanic matters (in the general sense that includesEngland andScandinavia). There is a great deal more force (and truth) than ignorant people imagine in the Germanic ideal. I was very much attracted by it as an undergraduate (when Hitler was, I suppose, dabbling in paint, and had not heard of it), in reaction against theClassics. You have to understand the good in things, to detect the real evil. But no one ever calls on me, [unlikeC.S. Lewis] to broadcast or do a PostScript! Yet, I suppose I know more than most what is the truth about thisNordic nonsense. Anyway, I have in this war a burning, private grudge... against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler [for] ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making forever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution toEurope, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light. Nowhere, incidentally, was it nobler than in England, nor more early sanctified andChristianized."[25]
For this reason, Tolkien reacted with anger to Allied politicians and propagandists during World War II, whom he felt foolishly accepted Nazi claims about German history and culture at face value. Particularlyanti-German propagandists and policy-makers who accordingly called for the complete destruction of theGerman people after the war horrified Tolkien just as much as Nazi ideology. In a 1944 letter to his son Christopher, he wrote:[26]
...it is distressing to see the [British] press grovelling in the gutter as low asGoebbels in his prime, shrieking that any German commander who holds out in a desperate situation (when, too, the military needs of his side clearly benefit) is a drunkard, and a besotted fanatic. ... There was a solemn article in the local [Oxford] paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakes, and don't know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the Poles and Jews exterminable vermin, subhuman, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done.[26]
In a highly effective tool of deprogrammingGerman POWs from Nazi ideology, as demanded byU.S. First LadyEleanor Roosevelt afterAmerican entry into World War II, the lending libraries of POW camps in theUnited States were stocked withBerman-Fischer inStockholm's cheap paperback editions of the great works ofGerman literature that remained strictly illegal to acquire on the black market or be caught reading in Nazi Germany. Particularly in demand among POWs were works ofExilliteratur and other books by writers subjected tohistorical negationism such asErich Maria Remarque'sAll Quiet on the Western Front,Thomas Mann'sZauberberg, andFranz Werfel'sThe Song of Bernadette. In an article for the anti-Nazi POWliterary journalDer Ruf, which represented a new beginning forGerman literature after more than a decade of strangulation by Government censorship, POWliterary critic Curt Vinz opined, "Had we only had the opportunity to read these books before, our introduction to life, to war, and the expanse of politics would have been different."[27]
After the repatriation of German POWs following the end of theSecond World War, two former writers forDer Ruf,Alfred Andersch andHans Werner Richter, first revived the journal in the American Zone of occupied Germany and then helped found the hugely influentialGroup 47literary movement in what becameWest Germany.[28]
Furthermore, ever since its opening in 1980, theMemorial to the German Resistance inBerlin has included museum exhibits showing illegalTarnschriften and anti-NaziSamizdat literature, which were written and distributed by groups like theWhite Rose student movement in high risk defiance of Nazi censorship laws.[29]
Even thoughcensorship in the Federal Republic of Germany still continues,U.S. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy praised theFederal Republic of Germany on 25 June 1963 for having carefully studied and learned what he considered themorally correct lessons from both the best and worst chapters ofGerman history, and how this understanding was still being used to build a future forpost-war Germany with a democratically elected government and membership in theNATOmilitary alliance.[30]
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