Death in Budapest
FABIAN, BELA & NELSON, WALTER
Reviving German Propaganda The Bonn Government's decision to open a publicity center in New York may be harmful to German-American relations, responsible officials feel By W. V....
...At one stage, the German intelligence service, the Amt fur Verfassungsschutz, was also to be put under the jurisdiction of the proposed Herr Bundes minister fur Information...
...This is due to the fact that most of the diplomats in the Bonn Foreign Service who served under Herr von Ribbentrop 34 per cent of the total were wisely kept at home...
...These same people, a tight little clique who helped each other weather the turbulent denazification period, also feel it is time for Germany to blow her horn a little louder...
...He also reported to his superiors, including Chancellor Adenauer, that all of new Germany's friends, like former U.S...
...Quite naturally, the many Americans whom Lilienfeld contacted favor every reasonable effort to promote better understanding among the free contries, including Germany...
...Since this might still, at this stage of the game, embarrass the diplomatic missions, private German industry is to sponsor and finance it...
...High Commissioner's Office in Germany reports that they now want to try their hand abroad, particularly in the United States...
...Reviving German Propaganda The Bonn Government's decision to open a publicity center in New York may be harmful to German-American relations, responsible officials feel By W. V. Eckardt Washington Our State Department people in West Germany are so proud of their reoriented pupil the way he voted, his determined rejection of Communism, and his fine grasp of the European Defense Community that they are apt to overlook some blemishes in his performance (like the three Cabinet ministers in Bonn who were once members of something called the National Socialist German Workers party...
...and found it crying...
...Denazified with the aid of his American-born wife and some collections with Allen W. Dulles's wartime OSS in Switzerland, Lilienfeld now heads the Amerika Ahteilnng in Bonn's Federal Press Office...
...It now turns out that none of these distinguished Americans have ever heard of the propaganda idea...
...The Ribbentrop alumni pushed him as a test case...
...Closely resembling Dr...
...And the routine press and public relations of the West German Republic are well taken care of by the German diplomatic missions here...
...The projected German propaganda center in New York, they say, might just be too much of a good thing...
...High Commissioner John J. McCloy, George N. Shuster of Hunter College, and Otto Tolischus of the New York Times, are enthusiastically in favor of his plan...
...Stone, "is not what the Germans say in New York, but what they do in Bonn...
...One of the authors of this plan is one Georg von Lilienfeld, who gained some experience in German propaganda in the U.S...
...Lilienfeld made a trip to this country last winter to survey the need for German propaganda in the U.S...
...But a special propaganda effort, say those who wish Germany well, would only arouse suspicion and revive unpleasant memories...
...McCloy's former public-affairs director in Germany, "it is entirely proper for the German diplomatic missions here to increase the staff of their press attache...
...Presumably, the new Germany does not have any new or startling ideological message to impart to the people of the United States...
...Lenz right out of office...
...So far, by and large, they have been doing fine...
...Hitler's personal envoy to Mussolini's North Italian stronghold during the last stages of the war...
...As Germany begins to conduct her own foreign policy and diplomacy, she must have her own propaganda setup...
...Particularly since some of its authors' backgrounds may easily evoke associations of a period in German-American relations which both governments are trying hard to forget...
...They go out of their way to overcome anti-German sentiment and are well liked and respected...
...Last fall, a number of people in Chancellor Adenauer's immediate entourage, notably Dr...
...Just what this information center is to tell us is not entirely clear...
...If public interest warrants it," said Shepard Stone, Mr...
...Those who know Pfeiffer say he is a serious, capable man whose Nazi affiliation should not be held against him...
...It is with this aim, reportedly, that one of them, Dr...
...He later distinguished himself as an aide to Ambassador Rudolf Rahn...
...It now seems, however, that these former Nazi officials are longing to see the world again...
...According to present plans, on which our people have not been officially consulted, the Bonn Government wishes to sponsor a German Information Center in New York which is to be financed by German industry...
...The Germans, like our own advertising-conscious Administration, think highly of governmental public relations...
...as an exchange student during the early Hitler years...
...When this plan leaked to the German press, it collapsed in a storm of protest which swept the ambitious Dr...
...This experience, however, has apparently done little to discourage the German propagandists...
...In Washington and other free-world capitals, Chancellor Adenauer and the new German Foreign Office operate with tact and quiet dignity...
...Paul Joseph Goebbels's old organization, the new ministry was to include press, radio and film sections, as well as a department for indoctrinating the new German army, a foreign feature service, and an organization to survey public opinion...
...Otto Lenz, chief of the Chancellery, actually proposed a Federal Information Ministry...
...The U.S...
...Some of them seem to feel it is high time that Americans, like most Germans, learned to accept the idea that they served Hitler only "nominally" and that their membership in the Nazi party must no longer be considered a social disgrace...
...Peter Pfeiffer, was appointed to represent Germany as an observer at the United Nations...
...They are therefore somewhat concerned about the Bonn Government's apparent decision to tout its virtues a bit more loudly in this country...
...For what matters," says Mr...
...The interests of German industry are amply represented by the German-American Trade Committee in New York...
Vol. 37 • May 1954 • No. 20
