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Wehrmachtbericht (German: "Armed Forces Report") was the daily Wehrmacht High Command mass-media communiqué and a key component of Nazi propaganda during World War II. Produced by the Propaganda Department of the OKW (Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops; WPr), it covered Germany's military situation and was broadcast daily on the Reich Broadcasting Corporation of Nazi Germany. All broadcasts were authorized by the Reich Ministry of Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels. Despite the latter's attempts to temper excessive optimism, they often failed to reflect realities on the ground or proved too exuberant.
Both civilian and military authorities considered the Wehrmachtbericht to be a vital instrument of German home-front mobilization, the civilian contribution to the German war effort, especially after the defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad. According to historians Wolfram Wette and Daniel Uziel, the final 9 May 1945 communiqué laid the foundation for the myth of the clean Wehrmacht, the notion that the Wehrmacht had fought honourably and was not implicated in the crimes of the Nazi regime, for which (according to the myth) only the SS bore responsibility.
Production
During World War II, the Wehrmacht communiqué (Wehrmachtbericht ) was the official news communication medium about the military situation of the Reich, and was intended for both domestic and foreign consumption. The communiqué was produced by a special propaganda department attached to the Wehrmacht Chief of Operation Staff, general Alfred Jodl, in the Wehmacht High Command (the OKW). Commanded by general Hasso von Wedel, the department oversaw the growing number of propaganda companies of the Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops (Wehrmachtpropaganda, or WPr), the propaganda wing of the Wehrmacht (in the army, the air force and the navy) and the Waffen-SS. At its peak in 1942, the propaganda troops included 15,000 men.
The planning for propaganda activities by the Wehrmacht began in 1938. Joseph Goebbels, the head of Ministry of Propaganda, sought to establish effective cooperation with the Wehrmacht to ensure a smooth flow of propaganda materials from the front. He deferred to the military in setting up and controlling the propaganda companies, but provided assistance in supplying personnel.
These troops, who were trained soldiers, were responsible for preparing the combat reports to be used as source material for the OKW communiqués. The propaganda companies were only news-reporting units in areas of military operation, as civilian news correspondents were prohibited from entering combat zones. The troops produced the written, audio and film materials from the front and sent them to a processing center in Germany, where they were reviewed by censors, mostly for security purposes. The filtered materials were then forwarded to the Ministry of Propaganda for immediate dissemination.
All Wehrmachtbericht broadcasts were authorized by Goebbels's ministy as the controlling institution of the German media. A Ministry of Propaganda official attended daily Wehrmacht conferences, where the initial versions of the communiqué were provided to state and party officials. While Goebbels did not have a final say in what went into the communiqués, he made sure that officials from his ministry worked closely with the Wehrmacht Propaganda Department.
The first communiqué aired with the start of World War II on 1 September 1939 and the last one was issued on 9 May 1945 by the Flensburg Government. The communiqués were broadcast daily on the Reich Broadcasting Corporation and published in the press. From 12 May 1940 onwards, Major Erich Murawski [de] of the OKW Propaganda Department was given the task of adding commentary to them, both on the radio (21:00 to 21:15) and in the press. The commentary was aimed at the civilian audience, and were written in layman's language so that the population could easily grasp the daily military developments. The communiqués were read twice, the first at a normal speed, and a second time more slowly, to enable them to be transcribed by listeners.
Operation Barbarossa
In the summer of 1941, during Operation Barbarossa, the communiqués created an image of uninterrupted successful advances by Germany deep into the Soviet territory, which was in stark contrast with the deteriorating situation on the ground. After the Soviet Yelnya Offensive east of Smolensk in early September 1941, a German infantryman wrote:
Officially it was called a "planned withdrawal" (...). But to me it was so much bullshit. The next day, we heard on the radio, in the 'news from the front' (Wehrmachtbericht) about the "successful front correction" in our Yelnya defensive lines and the enormous losses we inflicted on the enemy. But no single word was heard about a retreat, about the hopelessness of the situation, about the mental and emotional numbness of the German soldiers. In short, it was again a "victory". But we on the front line were running back like rabbits in front of the fox. This metamorphosis of the truth from "all shit" to "it was a victory" baffled me, and those of my comrades who dared to think.
During the initial and later stages of Barbarossa, Goebbels cautioned against the triumphant tone of the communiques, starting in August 1941, when it became clear to some in the Propaganda Ministry and the Wehrmacht high command that the war would likely extend into 1942. However, a string of spectacular victories in September, especially in the Battle of Kiev, removed any restraint from the texts, making propagandists's work more difficult later on, when they had to explain the Wehrmacht's failures to the German public which was rapidly losing confidence in a swift victory. Because of the contradictory goals and approaches, the propaganda materials produced by Goebbles's ministry, the OKW and Hitler's press chief, Otto Dietrich, did not always agree in tone or assessment of the situation.
The Battle of Stalingrad
The Wehrmachtbericht communiqués around the 1942 summer campaign and the defeat of the German army at Stalingrad provide a case study on their effects on Germany's population and the evolution of the propaganda efforts themselves. In August 1942, the name "Stalingrad" was featured prominently in the communiqués even before the Wehrmacht reached the outskirts of the city. The communiqués were factual and restrained; nevertheless, Goebbels issued instructions to the German press to exercise "cautious optimism" so as not to set expectations too high among the population.
The Soviet offensive (Operation Uranus) broke the German flanks on 19 November, and encircles the German 6th Army at Stalingrad three days later. The concern of the Nazi propaganda was then how to present this military catastrophe to the public. After the initial shock, every effort was made to hide the true scope of the setback from the population. The communiqués published between 19 and 24 November merely mentioned the Soviet attack on the southern sector in the East, not addressing the extent of Wehrmacht's difficulties.
From 24 November onward, the communiqués began acknowledging the Soviet breakthrough, and described "heavy fighting", but provided no references to the Soviet counteroffensive or the encirclement. The reports by the SD, the security and intelligence service of the SS, indicated that the 24 November communiqué caused alarm among the population. There were periods where the OKW dispatches did not mention Stalingrad at all. Wild rumors describing 100,000 German troops trapped in Stalingrad were beginning to circulate, as some German citizens were able to get the news from foreign radio stations.
The official silence on the Soviet encirclement was only broken on 16 January when the dispatch mentioned that the 6th Army was fighting the enemy "on all sides". Goebbels had been aware that the official policy on suppressing the news had been inadequate, so he was able to convince Hitler to release the communiqué for publication. Starting in the late winter of 1942, the state propaganda focused on the concept of "total war" with this message continuing through the rest of the war.
Impact
Despite occasional mis-alignment of messages, with the tone of the Wehrmacht communiqués being too exuberant for Goebbels, a self-described "realist", the relations between the military and civilian propaganda organizations proved successful throughout the war. Friction was low, even though several apologetic postwar publications, such as an account provided by Wedel, described the relations between them as problematic. Both Goebbels and Jodl considered the Wehrmachtbericht a vital instrument of the German home-front mobilization, the civilian contribution to the German war effort under the total war circumstances, especially after the defeat at Stalingrad.
From the onset, the Nazi propaganda machine regarded these communiqués as possessing a future value, beyond the immediate use as news delivery medium. The main message consistently presented the supposed superiority of the German soldier's spirit and character. The final broadcast aired on 9 May 1945 and read in part:
Since midnight the weapons on all the fronts are silent. By the order of the Grand Admiral Dönitz, the Wehrmacht ceased its hopeless fighting. With this, a nearly 6-year heroic struggle has ended. It brought us great victories but also heavy defeats. The Wehrmacht has been honorably defeated by superior forces. The German soldier, in accordance with his oath, has given his unforgettable effort to his people. Till the end the homeland supported him with all its strength, under the heaviest sacrifices. The singular performance of the front and Fatherland shall receive its final honor in the later, fair judgement. The achievements and sacrifices of German soldiers at sea, on the land and in the air has not escaped the notice of our enemy. Therefore, every soldier can hold his head high, and proudly lay his weapon down. He can start to work bravely and confidently the bitterest hour of our history, for the eternal life of our people.
Those words were intended for public consumption by the now defeated nation. According to historian Daniel Uziel, in this final radio address, the Wehrmacht propagandists hoped to set the frame of reference for the entire war effort of 1939–45. In this they were successful; the last communiqué helped lay the foundation for the legend of the "clean Wehrmacht", the notion that Wehrmacht had fought honourably and professionally, and was not in any way implicated in the crimes of the Nazi regime, for which (according to the myth) the SS bore sole responsibility. This assessment is echoed by Wolfram Wette in his 2006 work The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality.
See also
- Nazi propaganda
- Signal, a magazine published by the Wehrmacht
- Waffen-SS in popular culture
References
Citations
- ^ Wette 2006, pp. 204–206.
- ^ Uziel 2008, p. 339.
- Kallis 2005, p. 56.
- ^ Yad Vashem.
- ^ Kallis 2005, p. 57.
- ^ Kallis 2005, pp. 57–59.
- Uziel 2008, p. 270.
- Krockow 1992, p. 23.
- Stahel 2009, pp. 412–413.
- ^ Kallis 2005, p. 113.
- Uziel 2008, p. 296.
- Uziel 2008, p. 298.
- ^ Uziel 2008, pp. 298–299.
Bibliography
- Kallis, Aristotle (2005). Nazi Propaganda and the Second World War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-9251-2.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Krockow, Christian von (1992). The Hour Of The Women (First ed.). London: Harper Collins. ISBN 0-571-14320-2.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Longerich, Peter (2015). Goebbels: A Biography. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1400067510.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Stahel, David (2009). Operation Barbarossa and Germany's Defeat in the East. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-76847-4.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Uziel, Daniel (2008). The Propaganda Warriors: The Wehrmacht and the Consolidation of the German Home Front. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften. ISBN 978-3-03911-532-7.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Uziel, Daniel. "Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops and the Jews" (PDF). Yad Vashem. Retrieved 28 December 2015.
- Wette, Wolfram (2006). The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02577-6.
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