The Media during the Cold War | 141Agitation and Propaganda in the Central Committee of the SED’, a govern-
ment agency once more controlled censorship and opinion-making. As had
been the case with National Socialism, dissatisfaction with their own propa-
ganda and monitoring apparatus led to constant restructuring (Holzweißig
2002: 1–31). Directives given to the press also tied in with pre-1945 prac-
tice. In the GDR there was a renewal of verbose and occasionally grotesquely
detailed guidelines issued for newspapers, and at the same time complaints
about the papers’ conformity. No reports are on record about journalists pro-
testing against these directives (cf. Wilke 2007: 316). There are hardly any
studies on how these directives were implemented, not even for the GDR.
As had been the case before 1945, the forced conformity of the news also
facilitated the existence of a national news agency with an absolute monop-
oly, the Allgemeine Deutsche Nachrichtenagentur (ADN), which broadcast
news acceptable to the SED. Since only the SED organ, Neues Deutschland,
was permitted to have foreign correspondents, news from abroad lay com-
pletely in the hands of the ADN. At the same time they wrote reports not
meant for publication but rather to serve as confidential background infor-
mation for the party leadership. Yet in spite of this key role played by the
ADN, hardly any research has been done on their modus operandi.
Like the National Socialists, the SED relied less on day-to-day censorship
than on channelling public opinion by their choice of journalists. The waves
of purges in 1948/49 affected not only middle-class and Socialist journalists
but numerous Communists as well. And once again journalists had to endure
show trials intended to intimidate their colleagues. The selection of journalists
on the basis of their ideological leanings was now effected less via professional
associations than by schooling. While the National Socialist Reichspresseschule
(school of journalism) had enjoyed only brief success, the Marxist-influenced
journalism course at the University of Leipzig now more or less guaranteed
employment, although it was still possible to enter the profession laterally.
Because of this system of pre-selection, media routine was characterised not so
much by daily censorship as by internalised conformity.
As was the case in other dictatorships, the GDR media left some cal-
culated leeway for free development in a few areas, but these were partic-
ularly restricted. Satirical journals like Eulenspiegel were allowed to make
jokes about daily life but not about the system itself. Even so, in 1988 there
were as many as thirty-four weeklies and magazines published by churches
and religious communities, with a total circulation of 376,000. They were,
however, subject to pre-censorship and therefore some sought to align them-
selves with the SED (Rosenstock 2002: 325–47). A diverse underground
press similar to that in Poland never developed in the GDR, either because
the system was more repressive or conformity was greater. Protest via the
media tended to be articulated through music or the secret reading of ‘illicit