The Media during the Cold War | 147continuity of 57 per cent (Sonntag 2006: 297; Führer 2008: 118), and after
1949 not only did former publishers reappear, but key positions in many
supraregional papers were in the hands of journalists who had supported
National Socialism prior to 1945 (Hachmeister and Siering 2002).
On the other hand, there was a break with the past in the structure of
the daily press. The retention of old newspaper names was prohibited, and
licensing limitations fostered the formation of a regional press with wide
circulation – and this continues to be characteristic of the German media
landscape today. This resulted in a total of 178 licensed daily newspapers
in 753 editions by 1948. The British granted licences to party-affiliated
Germans, with the most recent free elections determining the ratio. The
Americans, on the other hand, experimented with editorial staffs made up
of journalists with different political backgrounds. Both these approaches
were intended to secure democratic pluralism, but they favoured journalists
with recognizable party leanings. Part of the ‘re-education’ was an attempt to
entrench Anglo-Saxon journalistic techniques. Training courses, trips to the
United States and guidelines communicated standards such as the separa-
tion of news and opinion and fact-oriented objective reporting. One leading
newspaper per occupation zone served as a model and a part of cultural
diplomacy. Nevertheless, the success of these efforts was at first limited (cf.
Gienow-Hecht 1999) and licensed print media like Die ZEIT criticised the
Allies harshly – in particular their de-Nazification and reform programmes
(Janßen, von Kuenheim and Sommer 2006: 44–67). By contrast, the news-
reels remained in Allied hands until 1949, as they were apparently credited
with being particularly influential.
Media content was also an important element of the Western Allies’ pro-
gramme of ‘re-education’. Radio, print media and newsreels reported on the
crimes of the National Socialists, the trials of Nazi war criminals and the
achievements of democracy. However, viewing the shocking documentary
films about the concentration camps that were shown in 1945/46 was not
compulsory, as has often been claimed, and most of the public considered
them to be reliable documentation (Weckel 2006). Seen in this light, the
effect of this ‘education by shock’ should not be underestimated. After 1946
the Allies relied more on entertaining and promotional films – for example,
the so-called ‘Marshall Plan Films’. But here, too the Germans countered
with their own pictorial interpretation of history. Pictures of cities in rubble
replaced the images of concentration camps, and this became the symbol of
German victimhood (Glasenapp 2008: 106–23). Starting in the early 1950s,
photographs of German refugees fleeing from the former Eastern Provinces
fulfilled the same purpose (Knoch 2001: 284–323).
The Allies also worked to democratise radio programming. In place of
government supervision a state-owned model was put into place, patterned