Paper check
During the Second World War, a paper check was the name of a form on which print jobs were linked to the approval of paper consumption.
Even before the Second World War put a planning paper management in case of war one. On October 10, 1939, the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVP) commissioned the German Book Trade's Office (WiBU) to take over the paper management of the book publishers and, as a "consumer", to supply the Reich Office for Paper and Packaging with the printing paper for the production of printed matter to steer. On November 25, 1939, the "Order on paper consumption statistics" was issued to all branches of the economy that needed paper. According to it, from January 1, 1940, every book publisher was obliged to record the exact number of copies and the amount of paper used for new publications, new editions or new editions. The initially only retrospective recording of book production was eventually converted into pre-censorship and the management of the publishing industry via paper allocation. From February 1940, all publishers were required to submit books and brochures to the relevant offices in the RMVP in good time for review. The economic office of the German book trade and the literature office of the RMVP established a close cooperation in 1940. The publishing world felt the change after the invasion of Russia when general raw material rationing was introduced. From now on, applications for allocation had to be made for every book title. The regulation applied to new and subsequent editions.
The "requirement cover slip" was replaced a little later by the "paper check" as the more detailed control instrument. With instruction No. 1 of the German book trade's office in mid-1942, all publishers were obliged to have the WiBu approve the removal of stocks, new acquisitions of paper and the transfer of printing abroad. From now on, paper should only be used for printing that was deemed necessary by the raw materials office and the Ministry of Propaganda. According to the procedure, economic planning allocated raw material volumes to the contingent carriers every quarter. Contingent carriers were all those who were able to register a need for paper: the WiBu, with its responsibility for the civil book trade, the headquarters of the front bookstores to manage their supply of the front, the individual branches of the armed forces and, last but not least, a large number of privileged institutions in the party and state from the Reich Youth Leadership to the Organization Todt .
Each print job had to be broken down on its own numbered paper check in its details - titles to be printed, required paper quantity, raw material costs, sales price of the print run - and signed by the client and the contracted company. The authority route of the approval process was specifically advertised for each contingent carrier.
"Wehrmacht paper checks ", which noted the order and had been signed by the Wehrmacht by the publisher and the customer , first had to be presented to the "Wehrmacht service office responsible for managing contingents".
Two more stamps came from subordinate bodies - in the case of the Wehrmacht check, the approval of the OKW / AWA / J (III) department was required - AWA stood for General Economic Office. This is where the judgment of the military censorship that was exercised in the Propaganda Ministry was received. The "Distribution Office of the Reich Office for Paper" finally countersigned this stamp. Only now did the check entitle the publisher that carried out the order to contact a paper dealer to purchase raw materials or to take them from their own warehouse and to initiate printing.
Bureaucratization and corruption
If the paper check was introduced in order to make a control process traceable, the control procedure created only limited transparency. On the one hand, the decision-making processes became confusing, which called on people who short-circuited the business partners and promoted the trade. On the other hand, the decision-making processes became lengthy, which ultimately encouraged the trading partners not to wait for approvals. For more information on the system's susceptibility to corruption, see the article on Matthias Lackas .
In the end, it was only possible to limit paper consumption to a limited extent with the bureaucratic procedure. Institutions that were granted paper quotas and processed print jobs using the paper check method tried to use the quotas as fully as possible. A paper check trade began behind the scenes and was balanced with bribes and commissions paid by publishers interested in business. At the end of 1943, the Wehrmacht and Air Force units involved got caught up in a wave of arrests in corruption proceedings that were lost in the military collapse of the Third Reich.
literature
- Hans-Eugen Bühler / Olaf Simons: The brilliant business of Matthias Lackas. Corruption investigations in the publishing world of the Third Reich . Cologne: Pierre Marteau, 2004. ISBN 3-00-013343-7