Soviet information office

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Report from the Soviet Information Office about the occupation of Dresden on May 8, 1945
The troops of the 2nd Byelorussian Front completed the destruction of the German troop grouping around Danzig and took the city and fortress of Gdańsk by storm on March 30th. It is the most important port and a main German naval base in the Baltic Sea. March 30, 1945

The Soviet Information Office ( Russian Советское информационное бюро, Совинформбюро ( Sowetskoje Informazionnoje bjuro, Sowinformbjuro, Sowinform, SIB ) was an institution in the USSR that disseminated information on domestic and foreign information about the course of the war in the USSR from about 196 to about 1941 .

Foundation and purpose of the SIB

The SIB was established on June 24, 1941 by the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the establishment and tasks of the Soviet Information Office. The SIB worked from October 14, 1941 to March 3, 1942 in Kuibyshev , then in the German embassy in Moscow . The purpose of the SIB should be to bring about a concentration of leadership over the representation of international and national events in the USSR as well as the events of the war. The political leadership of the SIB lay with the Central Committee of the CPSU.

Task and management

The task of the SIB comprised three priorities, which were stated in the above-mentioned resolution:

  • directing the representation of international events and the inner life of the Soviet Union in the press and radio
  • the organization of counter-propaganda against German and other enemy propaganda
  • the presentation of the events and warlike occurrences on the fronts, the drafting and publication of the war reports on the basis of the material of the high command

The task could be based on the experience of ROSTA from the Russian Civil War . In the resolution, six people were named who should initially form the composition of the SIB:

From 1941 to 1949 Mikhail Borodin was editor-in-chief of the SIB. The SIB publication came out as a report and was named Sowka (plural: Sowki). Losowski was actually in charge of the SIB. He also held press conferences for foreign press representatives, sometimes sharing unofficial information that was withheld from the public. Ilya Ehrenburg , however, described in his memoirs that Losovsky was dependent on Shcherbakov and Vyacheslav Molotov for information and was unable to act independently. Some writers such as Ehrenburg, Nikolai Tichonow (1896–1979) and Alexei Surkow (1899–1983) wrote for the SIB.

Position on the TASS agency

In terms of reporting on events on the front lines, the SIB was the leader. A decree dealing with the working methods of correspondents on the front named the SIB before the TASS, which indicated a hierarchy. This was also evident in the Soviet publications of the reports from the front, which were mainly based on reports from the SIB. Only after the defeat of the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad in 1943 , when Chawinson was replaced as head of TASS by Nikolai Palgunow , did TASS play a larger role in war reporting .

Front reports and propaganda

The SIB collected information from the fronts, from the rear and from the partisans. It passed reports on to the press and radio, which until the end of the war had broadcast reports from the SIB in 2373. As Selesnew reported, the SIB also produced leaflets with photos of prisoners of war and other texts for the German and their allied troops in order to influence their morale. Shcherbakov also had a political impact on the German prisoners of Stalingrad, through the National Committee for Free Germany and the Association of German Officers . These actions in turn led to the German counter-propaganda dealing with the reports of the SIB.

The SIB prepared information for the following Soviet organizations:

  • Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Women
  • Anti-Fascist Committee of the Soviet Youth
  • All Slavic Committee
  • Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee
  • Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Scientists

In the times when the Red Army had to retreat, the SIB reports were formulated very cautiously. Only after the Battle of Moscow did the SIB issue a report on December 13, 1941 that the Soviet armed forces had succeeded in preventing Moscow from being encircled by the forces of the Wehrmacht and that a counter-offensive had been initiated. The publications about the losses of the German and Soviet armed forces were used more for propaganda in the early years of the war. On June 22, 1942, German losses were reported to be so high that they were never quoted again in Soviet publications after the war because of their lack of substance. Only with the clear advance of the Red Army did the SIB bring out details of every settlement and city it captured. The last SIB war report was published in Pravda on May 16, 1945.

Foreign Propaganda Department

From 1944 a special department was set up within the SIB to deal with propaganda for foreign countries. In total, the SIB supplied information to 23 countries, with documents being supplied to more than 1,000 newspapers, 500 magazines and 18 radio stations. Materials were also supplied to many organizations in these countries. After Shcherbakov died shortly after the war, Losowski took over the management of the SIB until 1948, which was now located in Moscow at 21 Schdanowstrasse, after the GDR had set up its embassy in the old German embassy building.

Post-war work and Novosti Agency

When Boris Ponomarjow took over the management of the SIB in 1948 until 1949, the SIB was subordinated to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union , as can be deduced from a curriculum vitae of Ponomarev. In 1957 the State Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries was established, which had its seat in Moscow on Kalinin Prospect 9. Peschler reported that this committee, in coordination with the agitation and propaganda department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, adopted the guidelines and a. intended for the SIB. Who took over the management of the SIB after 1949 is unclear. But the official website of the RIA Novosti also names Plokarkov as the head of the SIB, which could be the case after 1949. In any case, Novosti took over the tasks and parts of the organization of the SIB as a press agency from 1961. So the magazine Soviet Land , published in India, switched from SIB to Novosti as publisher. Likewise, Soviet Union Today , which appeared in Bonn , was published by Novosti from 1964 onwards.

It has not yet been proven when the SIB ceased its activities. The Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries was last listed in 1967 in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia . Presumably the SIB ended its work with this committee.

literature

  • Ortwin Buchbender: The sounding ore. German propaganda against the Red Army in World War II (= series of publications of the study society for time problems eV, military policy. Vol. 13). Seewald, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-512-00473-3 (At the same time: Hamburg, University, dissertation, 1978: German propaganda against the Red Army in World War II. ).
  • Ilja Ehrenburg : people, years, life. Autobiography. Volume 2. Kindler, Munich 1965.
  • Vladimir Ya. Eiderman, Mikhail V. Samokhin (Ed.): Selected topics in complex analysis. The S. Ya. Khavinson memorial volume (= Operator Theory. Vol. 158). Birkhäuser, Basel et al. 2005, ISBN 3-7643-7251-6 .
  • Alexander Fischer: Soviet policy on Germany in the Second World War 1941–1945 (= Studies on Contemporary History. Vol. 8). Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1975, ISBN 3-421-01739-5 (At the same time: Frankfurt am Main, University, habilitation paper, 1972: Antifascism and Democracy. ).
  • Jan Foitzik: Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD). 1945-1949. Structure and function (= sources and representations on contemporary history. Vol. 44). Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-05-002680-4 .
  • Wladislaw Hedeler : Chronicle of the Moscow show trials in 1936, 1937 and 1938. Planning, staging and effect. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-05-003869-1 .
  • Wladislaw Hedeler, Nadja Rosenblum: 1940 - Stalin's happy year. Basisdruck, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-86163-108-3 .
  • Eric A. Peschler: Private in Moscow. Encounters with art and artists. Econ-Verlag, Düsseldorf et al. 1966.
  • Paul Roth : The commanded public opinion. Soviet media policy (= series of publications of the study society for time problems eV Zeitpolitik. Vol. 25). Seewald, Stuttgart-Degerloch 1982, ISBN 3-512-00643-4 .
  • Paul Roth: The Soviet Novosti Agency (APN). Function, meaning, precursor. In: Eastern Europe. Vol. 29, Issue 3, 1979, ISSN  0030-6428 , pp 203-219.
  • Paul Roth: Sow-Inform. News and information policy of the Soviet Union (= journalism. NF vol. 14). Droste, Düsseldorf 1980, ISBN 3-7700-4034-1 .
  • Michael Voslensky : Nomenklatura. The ruling class of the Soviet Union, past and present. Molden, Vienna et al. 1980, ISBN 3-217-00564-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated February 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / de.rian.ru
  2. ↑ Roth: The commanded public opinion. 1982, p. 136.
  3. ↑ Roth: Sow-Inform. 1980, p. 138.
  4. ↑ Roth: The commanded public opinion. 1982, p. 137.
  5. ↑ Roth: Sow-Inform. 1980, p. 129.
  6. ↑ Hedeler: Chronicle of the Moscow Show Trials 1936, 1937 and 1938. 2003, p. 572.
  7. ↑ Eiderman, Samokhin: Selected topics in complex analysis. 2005, p. 1.
  8. ↑ Hedeler, Rosenblum: 1940 - Stalin's Happy Year. 2001, p. 228.
  9. ^ Foitzik: Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD). 1999, p. 36.
  10. ↑ Roth: Sow-Inform. 1980, p. 135.
  11. ^ Ehrenburg: people, years, life. Autobiography. Volume 2. 1965, p. 588.
  12. ↑ Roth: Sow-Inform. 1980, p. 135.
  13. ^ Roth: The Soviet Novosti Agency (APN). In: Eastern Europe. Vol. 29, 1979, p. 205.
  14. ^ Paul Roth: Sow-Inform. 1980, p. 130.
  15. ↑ Ivan A. Seleznev: War and ideological struggle. Military publishing house of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, Moscow 1964, p. 170 (Russian).
  16. ^ Fischer: Soviet policy on Germany in the Second World War 1941–1945. 1975, p. 189.
  17. ↑ Buchbender: Das tönende Erz. 1978, p. 119.
  18. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated February 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / de.rian.ru
  19. ↑ http://kriegsende.aktuell.ru/sowinform/
  20. ^ Paul Roth: Sow-Inform. 1980, p. 148.
  21. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated February 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / de.rian.ru
  22. ↑ Voslensky: nomenklatura. 1980, p. 321.
  23. ^ Roth: The Soviet Novosti Agency. P. 205.
  24. ↑ Peschler: Private in Moscow. 1966, p. 57.
  25. ↑ Roth: Sow-Inform. 1980, p. 182.
  26. ^ Roth: The Soviet Novosti Agency (APN). In: Eastern Europe. Vol. 29, 1979, p. 208.