German news office

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro GmbH (abbreviated DNB ) was the official central press agency of the German Reich at the time of National Socialism .

The DNB was created on December 5, 1933 from the merger of the Wolffschen Telegraphen Bureau (WTB) , which belonged to the Continental Telegraphen Compagnie , and the Telegraphen-Union founded in 1913 , the two largest news bureaus in the Reich. The first report under the abbreviation DNB was published on January 1, 1934. Seat of the DNB was in Charlotte Street 15b in Berlin SW 68. In the same address also was Patria Literary Publishing registered and to move to the house of the Nazi press of the newspaper Service Graf Reischach , who had been specially created for the National Socialist Gaupresse. In addition to the headquarters of the DNB, there were initially 42 and later 45 branches due to German expansion policy. In addition to the regional services during the war, there was a "liaison office in the Führer Headquarters" manned by three journalists under the direction of the DNB chief editor Heinz Lorenz.

The so-called main editorial office in the Berlin headquarters was the central news hub of the Third Reich. In the main editorial office, an initial selection of the incoming material was made and this was passed on for processing. The communications from the Propaganda Ministry and other Third Reich institutions were also prepared there for the public. Official speeches by representatives from the state and party were only to be published in a binding form by the main editorial team. The press was only allowed to use these versions.

The second most important department next to the main editorial department, the information department, was the liaison office to government agencies, associations and organizations of all kinds. From there, the important dates and events were filled with reporters. The representative of the DNB in ​​the Reich Press Conference was also sent by the information desk.

From 1933 to 1939 Otto Mejer was the chairman of the DNB. His successor from 1939 to 1945 was Gustav Albrecht , who was already deputy under Mejer. Another deputy in 1937 was Max Freiherr von Besserer. Outwardly disguised as an independent, private company, it was in fact owned by the Reich and was subordinate to the press office of the Reich government, which belonged to Department IV of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda . The board members of the DNB were appointed by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels . The DNB was the transmission belt from the state and party leadership to the editorial offices.

In 1935, the DNB had 592 staff at the head office and 658 additional editors in the domestic branches. In 1940 the workforce reached its greatest extent with 687 editors in the head office and 687 in the Reich. The increase is mainly due to the acquisition of various Materndienste, the editors of which automatically became DNB employees, but also to the expansion of National Socialist Germany and the start of the war, which made it necessary to strengthen the staff in order to take account of the war-like intensification of propaganda.

Abroad, the number of employees grew from 58 in 1935 to 261 in 1942. Until the outbreak of the war, the agency had correspondent offices on all continents; in Europe, DNB correspondents were active in all countries except Luxembourg and Albania. In the countries of the war opponents, the DNB offices had to be closed after the war began.

The DNB existed until the end of the Second World War in 1945. On May 2, 1945, the last branch in Hamburg closed its service. The main editor and authorized signatory of the Hamburg branch was Ernst Wilhelm Evers. In the denazification process after 1945, the responsible bodies qualified the DNB employees either as "followers" or as "not affected".

For the press, the DNB was an indispensable universal agency that covered all areas of reporting. At the same time, the agency was also responsible for supplying news to government agencies and the NSDAP. The different groups of recipients received their information on colored paper specially designed for them. News material intended for verbatim publication was delivered on green paper. Yellow signaled the possibility of publication in a modified, non-literal form. Pink was confidential, non-public background information that journalists in the newspaper offices were supposed to use as a background for comments. News on blue paper was only available to a limited number of editors and officials. The red service introduced in 1936 took over the function of the blue one, which after this reform was available to a further reduced number of addressees. The white service, which was only accessible to the top management of the empire, had the highest level of confidentiality. This service was again divided into three categories, with the highest - called Weiß C - only allowed to be viewed by a maximum of seven members of the state and party leadership, including Hitler and Goebbels .

Structure of the services of the DNB 1937

The services from No. 1 to 11 were provided by the DNB, the services from No. 12 to 16 by Patria Verlag . The main editors of the service are given.

  1. General political service of the DNB: Ernst Saemisch, Frederic von La Trobe
  2. DNB press broadcast in English and French: Hermann Rau
  3. Special intelligence services were: German Service, International Information, Information-Political Special Service, Metger Special Service, Topic of the Week, Weather Service and Judicial Service
  4. There were 38 national services and various small representations of correspondents at the branches
  5. Berliner Nachrichten: Max Rogatzky
  6. German trade service, economic correspondence, world economy of the week and 30 local trade and economic services or matrices, domestic and foreign course services, distribution of news for foreign trade to newspapers
  7. Sports service of the DNB and 42 local sports services or mothers: Hans Bollmann
  8. German diplomatic correspondence: von Malottki
  9. DNB picture service: Alfred Ritter
  10. Three home picture services
  11. Three matern correspondences
  12. German express service: Károly Kampmann
  13. International letters from all over the world, articles from culture, “Outside and Inside”: Friedrich Heißmann
  14. Agricultural newsreel, agriculture and horticulture, Volksdeutscher Dienst: Frithjof Melzer
  15. What you want: Gerhard Bohlmann
  16. Popular sport and physical education: Rupert Naumann
  17. 36 national services

Messaging

The German News Office used various methods to receive news at the Berlin headquarters on the one hand and to issue reports on the other. Until 1943, the most important method was radiotelephone , also known as press radio . At certain times of the day, the messages were broadcast at a wavelength that radio equipment could not reach and put on paper by press stenographers at the receiver. The teleprinter , which was not widely used in the Weimar Republic or in the Third Reich, played a subordinate role. In 1934 there was a telex network with only around 500 receivers in the entire Reich. The DNB had rented 3,000 of the 20,000 kilometers of telex cables across Germany; these were only used for the internal transmission of messages.

From the mid-thirties onwards, the Hellschreiber was tested in Germany , and it was introduced to newspaper publishers nationwide in 1942. This device, developed by Siemens engineer Rudolf Hell in 1929 , combined the speed of radio transmission with the security of the telex line. It enabled the rapid, direct and inexpensive transmission of messages by radio. The DNB was the first news agency in the world to use this new technology. Previously agreed transmission times for the press radio were no longer necessary with the introduction of the Hellschreiber. The receiving device in the editorial offices could be activated by the DNB at any time without staff having to be held at the recipient.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reischach, Count . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1934, 1, p. 2019. "NSZeitgsdienst".
  2. ↑ DNB 128315911
  3. ↑ DNB 156555549
  4. ↑ Frithjof Melzer (Ed.): World history experienced! 7 days in Austria. DNB reports from Austria from March 9th to 15th, 1938 . Berlin, fountain 1938