The Press: News for Germans

When Hitler's SS bullies were still in knee pants, the Frankfurter Zeitung was a great and influential liberal newspaper, respected the world over as "the Manchester Guardian of Germany." In 1934 the Zeitung was briefly suppressed for printing Franz von Papen's one & only anti-Nazi bleat (attacking the "fanatical" wing of the Party). After that the Zeitung kept its tongue in cheek. Skillfully buried in its dreary business columns were more facts about Hitler's Germany than were reported anywhere else; its editorials condemned anti-Nazi incidents as a means of reporting them, and slyly quoted with approval early Hitler speeches to show how he had strayed from them.

The Nazis were not fooled. They gradually took over the paper, allowed it an illusion of independence, and traded on its former prestige to argue the German case abroad. Finally, in 1943, the Nazis gave up pretending and killed the 86-year-old Zeitung outright.

Last week, in the rubble of Frankfurt, the Zeitung presses were once again rolling out honest news for the German people. American Army units (of the Psychological Warfare Branch) had taken over. With the assistance of former Zeitung employes, the U.S. Army printed 620,000 copies of a new free, four-page paper for German civilians, the Frankfurter Presse. It was the third and largest U.S.-edited German language paper (others: in Aachen and Cologne), all edited by Hungarian-born Hans Habe (4 Thousand Shall Fall), now a U.S. Army captain.