Information Control Division

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Information Control Division (ICD) was a propaganda and censorship department of the American zone of occupation in Germany with the aim of democratization of speech after the Second World War .

history

The ICD was founded by renaming the Psychological Warfare Division of the SHAEF under Robert A. McClure . McClure described it as a "transition from propaganda to control phase". It initially worked independently with OMGUS , but was incorporated in February 1946.

The aim of the ICD was initially to "consolidate propaganda" in order to get the German population to cooperate in the reconstruction of the necessary infrastructure (communication) and to generate public opinion that corresponded to the post-war goals of the Allies (control and restoration). According to the Potsdam Agreement , these goals consisted of demilitarization , re- democratization , denazification and decentralization . The re-education was planned in three phases: After the complete shutdown of all media, the operation of individual information instruments began by the US Army , which were finally licensed to carefully selected Germans.

The ICD was an integral part of the US military government USFET and consisted of five control units, each responsible for radio, press, film, theater and music as well as publications. A sixth unit, the Intelligence Branch , observed public opinion with a focus on the church, youth and German administration. Two main agencies were maintained : the Theater Information Services Control Command (TISCC) and the Information Control Section in the American sector of Berlin .

Initially, eight German daily newspapers were published with a circulation of one million copies a day, as well as foreign-language daily newspapers for displaced persons and prisoners of war in double the amount. In July 1946, McClure wrote to his friend and professional colleague Charles Douglas Jackson that the ICD now controls 37 daily newspapers, 6 radio stations, 314 theaters, 642 cinemas, 101 journals, 7384 booksellers and printers and 237 book publishers. She herself conducted 15 opinion polls a month, published a newspaper with 1.5 million copies a day and 3 magazines. It operated DANA , the forerunner of dpa , and 20 library centers. At the time, press licenses had been granted to 73 Germans, mostly Social Democrats. From August 1945 the ICD switched from pre-censorship to post-censorship of the media.

In order to achieve the desired goals, the ICD also produced propaganda short films, for example about German concentration camps and the Nuremberg Trials , which were mostly disseminated via newsreel and were intended to influence political education . However, only entertainment films that conveyed the American way of life brought real success .

On a black list of the ICD were among others Norbert Schultze and Wilhelm Furtwängler , Siegfried's funeral march from Wagner's Götterdämmerung , Strauss' Ein Heldenleben (game ban on Hitler's birthday), Sibelius Finlandia and Chopin's revolutionary study .

With the Cold War , an internal dispute began about employees like Saul K. Padover and Cedric Belfrage , who were themselves communists and had granted licenses or functions to such. The beneficiaries were Wilhelm Gerst (Editor, Frankfurter Rundschau), Emil Carlebach , Hans Mayer (Political Director at Radio Frankfurt ), Rudolf Agricola (DENA) and Heinz Norden . Some then fled to the Soviet occupation zone , others had to answer to the Committee for Un-American Activities .

Licensed media and productions (selection)

ICD publications and documents

  • Fair Practice Guide for German Journalists / Guide to good journalism . An Informal Document . Published by the Office of Military Government for Bavaria, Information Control Division, Press Control Branch, Munich 1947 (22 pages, in English and German).
  • Fair Practice Guide for Bavarian Newspapers. An Informal Document . Edited by the Office of Military Government for Bavaria, Information Control Division, Press Control Branch, Munich 1947 (31 pages).
  • Coburg press conference 1947. Speeches and discussion speeches. Meeting of German newspaper publishers from the American zone with representatives of the foreign press / Coburg Press Convention . Office of Military Government for Bavaria, Information Control Division, Press Branch, Munich 1947 (53, 46 pp.).
  • Brewster S. Chamberlin (Ed.): Culture on Ruins. Berlin reports of the American Information Control Section July – December 1945 . DVA, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-421-01918-5 (series of the quarterly books for contemporary history, volume 39).

literature

  • Eva-Juliane Welsch: The Hessian license holders and their newspapers . Dortmund 2003 ( urn : nbn: de: 101: 1-201103291535 , dissertation, Dortmund 2002).
  • Bernd R. Gruschka: The controlled book market. American communication policy in Bavaria and the rise of the Kurt Desch publishing house from 1945 to 1950 . Booksellers Association, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-7657-1880-7 (also dissertation, Munich 1993).
  • Ulrich M. Bausch: The cultural policy of the US-American Information Control Division in Württemberg-Baden from 1945 to 1949. Between military functionalism and Swabian authorities . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-608-91369-6 (Publications of the Archive of the City of Stuttgart, Volume 55; also dissertation, Tübingen 1991).
  • Rüdiger Liedtke: The press given away. The history of newspaper licensing after 1945 . Berlin 1982.
  • Harold Hurwitz: The zero hour of the German press. American press policy in Germany 1945–1949 . Cologne 1972.
  • Lawrence Raymond Hartenian: Propaganda and the Control of Information in Occupied Germany. The US Information Control Division at Radio Frankfurt 1945-1949 . University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor 1987 (also dissertation, New Brunswick 1984).
  • Edward C. Breitenkamp: The US Information Control Division and its Effect on German Publishers and Writers 1945-1949 . University Station, Grand Forks, ND 1953 (101 pp.).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cora Sol Goldstein: A strategic failure: American information control policy in occupied Iraq . ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 751 kB) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Military Review , March / April 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.carlisle.army.mil
  2. ^ ICD Organization and Policy . In: Earl F. Ziemke: The US Army in the Occupation of Germany . Center of Military History. United States Army, Washington DC 1990.
  3. ^ Freda Utley : The High Cost of Vengeance . H. Regenry Comp., Chicago 1949.