Weimar and Nazi Germany (1918-1939): The Nazis and the Media

Unlike today, the main sources of media were the newspapers and radio. These were huge industries and many people read newspapers everyday as there was no other way to find out what was going on.

The Nazis wanted to control all aspects of this media so that their message was pure and no one could criticise what the Nazis were doing.

The Ministry of People’s Enlightenment and Propaganda managed journalists carefully. In some cases journalists were told they could not report on something as it might make the Nazis look bad. This practice is known as censorship.

In addition to censorship there were also large amounts of propaganda fed to journalists for their stories. The Ministry provided regular updates and briefings to the press for them to them to write about. This effort effectively meant that all newspapers could not be critical of the Nazis and were to support everything that the Nazis did.

Radio was also censored in the same way as newspapers. Goebbels and the Nazis controlled all output on them and made sure that all Germans could hear. The Nazis created cheap radios which were sold to Germans in order that they could hear the Nazi messages at home. Furthermore, the Nazis placed loudspeakers in public places so that no matter where you were you would hear the Nazi propaganda over the airwaves.