I dedicate this piece to all who had to work through the poorly annotated volumes of Dr. Goebbels' diaries, without having any help to describe the structure of his ministry.
[By Georg Wilhelm Mueller, Ministerial Counsellor, Junker and Duennhaupt Verlag/Berlin, 1940]
Through the decree concerning the creation of the Reichministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, dated 3/13/1933, the basis for a central government agency for enlightenment and propaganda was created, the like of which heretofore existed nowhere in the world. The responsibility for creating, organizing, and directing the agency was given to the conqueror of "Red" Berlin, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, who already since 1929 had been in charge of Reich propaganda for the NSDAP.
Dr. Goebbels started his difficult and responsible office immediately after appointment as "Reichminister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda" in the former Friedrich Leopold Palais at 8-9 Wilhelmsplatz, formerly the offices of the press department of the interim governments. Without being guided by any precedence, he started to build up this new kind of Reichministry, the duties of which were to deal with all affairs of enlightenment and propaganda among the population concerning the policy of the Reich cabinet, Reichregierung, and Germany's national reconstruction, particularly all phases of cultural influences upon the nation, advertising for the state, for cultural enterprises, for economy and tourist trade. Furthermore, this office has the responsibility for informing the public at home and abroad about the above matters and for administering all visitations which serve such purposes. At the same time this ministry shall not only be the voice of the government, but also its listening post. It must submit reports about unfavorable conditions and advise the government whether the effect of its decrees corresponds to its original intentions.
[Page 7, lines 25-35] The following chronological table covering the most important events in the history of the department may give some idea as to its development and its manifold activities:
5/19/1933: Law for the protection of national symbols.
6/23/1933: Creation of the national committee for tourist traffic.
6/30/1933: Definition of the tasks of the ministry by decree of the Fuehrer.
7/4/1933: Law for the protection of music, creation of a unified company for utilization of music [STAGMA].
10/4/1933:
7/1933: Creation of regional offices of the ministry in every Gau of the NSDAP (now called Reich propaganda offices).
7/14/1933: Creation of a preliminary film office.
9/12/1933: Creation of a committee for propagandizing German industry.
9/13/1933: Order of the Fuehrer to one minister to carry out the winter relief campaign of the German people.
9/22/1933: Law for creation of a national cultural office [Reichskulturkammer].
11/15/1933: Law for editors. Solemn inauguration of the national cultural office in the Philharmony at Berlin.
1/18/1934: The Reich taking over the people's theater. [Theater des Volkes].
2/16/1934: Changing of the laws concerning movies along national socialist principles.
5/1/1934: The national prize for books and movies given out for the first time.
5/15/1934: Law pertaining to theaters.
6/28/1934: The government takes over the Philharmonic Orchestra in Berlin.
7/1/1934: Creation of a Reich office for publications [Reichsschrifttumstelle].
7/1/1934 The government takes over the German Opera House.
7/1934: The government takes over the administration of the Leipzig fair.
7/22/1935: The government takes over the people's opera located in the "Theater des Westens." 8/1/1935: Government takes over "Deutsches Theater" in Wiesbaden.
10/14/1935: Decreed by the Fuehrer creating an office of Reich deputy for artistic Creations [Reichsbeauftragter fuer kuenstlerische Formgebung]
12/11/1935: Definition of duties in the field of television by decree of the Fuehrer.
3/26/1936: Creation of an association for tourist business in the Reich.
4/3/1936: Definition of the authority of the ministry of police in its field through decision of the Fuehrer.
7/11/1936: Law concerning the showing of foreign films.
10/29/1936: Creation of the Dr. Goebbels foundation.
12/1/1936: Law concerning the winter relief campaign.
1/30/1937: Creation of a national prize for art and science.
9/9/1937: Elevating the regional offices of the ministry [Landesstellen] to national offices with the title offices for Reich propaganda.
9/30/1937: Making the Institute of Political Sciences a government institution [Hochschule fuer Politik].
3/1/1938: Making provisions for the care of retired actors.
3/18/1938: Creation of the German Film Academy.
3/31/1938: Creating a Reich propaganda office for Austria.
5/1/1938: Making provisions for retired members of the "Kultur-Orchester."
5/28/1938: Creating a national music prize.
5/31/1938: Law for the withdrawal of degenerate art [entartete Kunst].
6/14/1938: Laying the foundation stone for the house of German tourist.
7/12/1938: Creation of seven Reich propaganda offices in Austria.
11/28/1938: Opening a Reich propaganda office in Sudetenland.
1/26/1939: National radio prize.
1/27/1939: Creating an office of the state secretary for tourism.
3/20/1939: Foundation of Reich archives for pictures and phonograph records.
9/1/1939: Decree about Special measures concerning the radio.
[Page 10, lines 14-19]
It is no accident, therefore, that the great majority of official office workers and other personnel of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda consists of reliable national socialist fighters of which almost 100 bear the golden badge of the party.
[Page 11, lines 1-17]
II. Leadership and Organization of the Ministry.
The head of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda is Reich Minister Dr. Goebbels, who, at the same time, is director for Reich propaganda of the NSDAP, president of the Reichskulturkammer and Gauleiter of Berlin.
His office, together with the adjutant's office, forms the connecting link between the various departments and to the outside.
Three state secretaries are in charge of this office:
a. The General State Secretary and permanent executive of the Minister.
b. The State Secretary and Reich press Chief.
c. The State Secretary and Director of German Tourism.
Since the ministry is in charge of all fields having to do with the intellectual development of the nation, it has undergone a manifold branching off. The division into separate departments therefore, is very practical.
1. Administrative Department. The administrative department has two kinds of tasks:
a. The administration of the own resources of the ministry,
b. The supervision over financial matters of the various agencies, bodies, and societies which are active within the realm of the ministry.
[Page 12, lines 11-28]
2. The Personnel Department. The personnel department is the central agency which gives directives for a unified personnel policy for the entire ministry, according to the minister's instructions, and is responsible for their execution. It has influence on all important questions which come within the sphere of the department concerning questions of rights of officials and employment in the public service.
It administers all personnel files of officials, employees, and manual workers of the ministry, about a thousand in all.
When assigning leading positions of all subordinate agencies, the personnel administration is also checked whether it is carried out according to regulations and whether there is a unified application of these regulations. In agreement with the corresponding departments it exercises a general supervision -- another responsibility of the ministry -- over the personnel policy of public art institutions within the entire Reich as well as over principal policies of wages and salaries of the trades and professions belonging to the National Cultural Office.
3. Legal Department. The activity of the legal department consists mainly in dealing with judicial questions concerning the press, music, propaganda, and other matters. This department is constantly in close touch with all fields of the ministry and it enjoys a special position since all departments have to deal with this one and only legal department. The main task of the legal department was and is to create the judicial organizational form for this new great function of the state, known as "Public Enlightenment and Propaganda." Due to the liberal principles of freedom of opinion and freedom of the intellect art and literature two fields which form an integral part for which the ministry is responsible -- were until the seizure of power left to the individual and no state leadership was exercised upon them.
With the "right of the individual," national socialism finished once and for all at the point where the general public, the people are endangered. The press, radio, film, theater, literature, music, and creative art make only sense as part of a whole. To shape them according to this entity for the welfare of the entire nation forms one of the essential tasks of the ministry. The nuclear task of the law department is the creation and execution of a national socialist cultural law. The professions and institutions of literature and art had to be transformed from carriers of a liberal individualistic intellectual movement to the carrier of the tasks of public propaganda and leadership. To reach this goal the enactment of governmental decrees was partly sufficient; for the major part it was achieved through legislation of the ministry.
4. Department of Propaganda. This department consists of special branches for all important fields of endeavor of the German people. There are branches also for the preparation of mass demonstrations, expositions, etc., fields where the ministry has to exercise its leadership. The individual branches have the task to suggest necessary propaganda activities to the authoritative ministries responsible for the territories concerned to work out plans for the execution of these activities, to make the necessary preparations by means of propaganda media (press, radio, film, literature, posters, leaflets, and pamphlets etc.) and then to supervise the propaganda campaign itself and direct it. Furthermore, propaganda campaigns suggested by other agencies are being carried out together with these agencies by using the propaganda media of the ministry.
The most important tasks of the various branches are:
a. Enlightenment as to the policy of the German Reich, propaganda for the party program and for its realization. Cooperation with the director of Reich propaganda of the party and its affiliations, cooperation with the director of election campaigns.
b. Propagandistic execution of national propaganda. Enlightenment of the German people as to the problem of Germans abroad. Propagandistic superior border territories and of the German cultural groups outside of Germany.
c. Enlightenment of the German people and of the world as to the Jewish question, fighting with propagandistic weapons against enemies of the state and hostile ideologies.
f. Public enlightenment in and through the schools, in cooperation with the national socialist teachers' association, with the Reich minister for science, education, and public education, and with the students' publications. To cooperate in matters of propaganda with the labor service, the NS student league, the national air protection league, etc.
[Pages 16-17]
5. German Press Division [Abteilung Deutsche Presse (DP)]. The German Press Division [Abteilung Deutsche Presse], together with the Foreign Press Division [Abteilung Auslandspresse], forms the Press Division of the Reich Cabinet [Reichsregierung]. Its task is to take care of the entire domestic press and to provide it with directions which make the division an efficient instrument in the hands of the Government [Staatsfuehrung]. About 2300 German daily newspapers and around 18000 periodicals are today serving the interests of the community. Until the assumption of power [Machtuebernahme], most of those papers and periodicals were in the pay [standen in Dienste] of some special interests of a capitalistic nature or connected with party politics.
While the administrative functions wherever possible are discharged by the affiliated occupational branch associations [berufsstaendischen Fachverdaenden] and by the Central Press Chamber [Reichspressekammer], the German Press Division [Abteilung D.P.] has been entrusted with the real leadership of the German press. In a daily press conference in a room of the Ministry, where all prominent papers of the Reich are represented, all necessary instructions are given. The practical use in detail of the general directions is thus left absolutely to the individual work of the individual editors; it is therefore not at all true that the newspapers and periodicals are taken over as a monopoly by the German Press Division, or that essays and editorials are submitted to them by the Ministry.
The smaller newspapers and periodicals, which are not represented directly at the press conference, obtain their information in a different way. The publications of all other official agencies are moreover formed and directed likewise by the German Press Division.
In order to enable the periodicals to make themselves familiar with the daily political problems of the newspapers, and to represent them more thoroughly, a special news correspondence [Informationskorrespondenz] is issued for them.
The Division also takes charge of the pictorial reporting [Bildberichterstattung] in so far as it directs the employment of pictorial reporters for important events.
Finally, a main reference section "Archives and Lectorate" [Archiv und Lektorat] is attached to the Division, which by production of newspaper clippings, extracts and summaries of the contents of domestic and foreign papers and periodicals, establishes the basis for the entire work of the division. All of the material collected by the process will also be put at the disposal of all the Supreme Reich authorities currently and, if necessary, individually.
In a special section working day and night service, all news, inquiries, suggestions and further inquiries are constantly collected.
It is certainly the nerve center of the Division [Hier liegt gewissermassen der Zentralnerv der Abteilung]. All newspapers represented in Berlin are among the permanent customers of this section.
By these measures and by constantly educating Germans in the editorial profession in the National Socialist spirit, it was insured that the German press would stand as a united fighting front in all vital problems of the German nation, and that even in wartime we could renounce that precensorship which in the ostensibly free" democracies of the West leads to the fact that the newspapers have to appear with large white spaces.
[Page 18, lines 1-16]
6. Foreign Press Department. The foreign press department has to mobilize all means and resources at its disposal and unite them in strong leadership that is apt to explain the happenings in the national socialist greater Germany to the foreign press. To see to it that news pertaining to it concurs with the truth; and on the basis of painstaking observation and exact analysis of the world press, the hostile ideological and political tendencies should be counteracted and rectifying and repudiating the misrepresentations and lies of the press. The work of this department is carried out in close cooperation with the press department of the foreign office daily information bulletin for foreign press associations and for foreign press correspondents working in Berlin serves the aims of this department. Furthermore, there are social gatherings with foreign correspondents as well as conferences.
[Page 19, lines 8-22]
7. Foreign Department. This department is to inform the public abroad as to the nature and institutions of the nation and to supervise all institutions which serve this purpose. It is organized for the fight against political lies in circulation in Germany and abroad and the clarification and development of relations with foreign countries. It is further responsible for the political direction of all the propagandistic activities abroad as carried out by the department of the ministry, its agencies, organizations, etc., pamphlets, phonograph records, and radio, especially through international associations, through the German students exchange service, and through the foreign office for university instructors. A special branch aims at serving foreigners in conjunction with the department of tourism.
[Page 20, lines 1-7]
8. Department for Tourism. Through the annexation of Austria, Sudetenland, Bohemia, and Moravia, Germany has become the biggest and most important tourist country in Europe. In order to carry out all tasks which serve the increase of tourist business in Germany a department for tourism has been created.
[Page 21, lines 15-24]
The department for tourism supports the work of the German railway office for tourism in Germany with 31 offices abroad. It further cooperates with the offices of the inspector general for German highways, the highest national agency for German automobilism and the national socialist aviation corp. The propagandistic endeavors of the German railways, of the German post offices, and of ocean and inland waterways transportation companies are to be carried out in agreement with the department of tourism.
[Pages 22-23]
9. Radio Division [Rundfunkbteilung RFK]. The Radio Division is the Commanding Center [Befehlszentrale] of the German Radio System. It elaborates the entire planning for the whole of the German Radio and Television system, in accordance with the political and cultural directives issued by the Minister, and issues orders to the subordinate units and makes suggestions to other agencies of the Reich [Dienststellen des Reiches].
Due to the fact that the director of the Division is simultaneously Reich Director of Radio in the Reich-Propaganda-Management of the National Socialist party and chairman of the German Radio Cooperative Association [Vorsitzender der Deutschen Rundfunkarbeitsgemeinschaft, Rundfunkwirtschaft], to the centralized direction of the entire German Radio system is guaranteed.
The Radio Division is subdivided into the following main sections [Hauptsachgebiete]:
a. Cultural Affairs and Radio Broadcasts for Foreign Countries. This section includes the cultural formation of the German Radio, especially the work of the German Radio directed to foreign countries. This means the following individual tasks:
Political radio relays and transmission, the celebrations of national holidays, radio cultural exchange with other countries, establishment and maintenance of German Radio broadcasts abroad, scientific work on Radio, Radio for schools, cultural international affairs of the Radio, World Radio-Union, Radio and Press
b. Special tasks [Sonderaufgaben]. All mobilization tasks of the Radio, organization of the Radio system in case of war, use of war, use of Radio as a propaganda weapon.
c. Radio economy [Rundfunkwirtschaft], radio-law and radio propaganda. This section analyzes with the help of statistics the development of Radio and Television and systematically directs the economic, legal, and propagandist measures leading to the expansion of Radio.
[Page 23, lines 18-33]
10. Motion Picture Department. While before 1933 the state merely censored the products of the motion picture industry the national socialist state has taken over the leadership in this field. It is therefore the task of the motion picture department to which a dramatic critic is also attached to guide generally the film industry, artistically, economically, and technically, to supervise its activities and keep them in line, and to be responsible for the harmonious cooperation of all personnel engaged in motion picture production.
Thus the department for motion picture production exercises decisive influence upon the production of movie, plays and cultural subjects as well as the production of movies as a whole. Even though the main responsibility for the production of the state controlled motion picture companies rests with the producers, the department, since recently, is also in charge of the checking of plans for proposed motion pictures.
[Page 25, lines 1-3]
In order to grant the necessary financial support to independent producers, a film credit bank has been established.
[Page 25, lines 19-33]
11. Department for Literature. The department for literature is concerned with the questions of cultural and political leadership and support of the German literature at home and abroad. It has to be especially concerned with bringing wider circles of the German people in contact with the work of German poets and writers. In closest cooperation with the profession as organized in the German office for literature [Reichsschrifttumskammer] writers, publishers, booksellers, and libraries it carries out great propaganda campaigns. In this connection the annual week of the German book, scheduled in the fall and the "spring campaign for German technical literature" deserve special mention.
With the aid of a subordinate office "the office for propaganda and counsel for German literature" it plans a systematic selection of the best products of German literature in all fields of endeavor, in order to popularize those books first of all.
[Page 27, lines 1-6 ] The department for literature is also responsible for all necessary suppression of books within the Reich.
The entire task is carried out in constant cooperation with other interested ministerial offices of the Reich especially with the central party agencies and the German labor front.
12. Department for Theaters. The department for the theaters is in charge of personnel, subsidies, and program policies of German theater life. It is divided into seven branches.
a. Personnel policies: Advice for appointment of producers. Confirmation of producers and artistic directors with the aid of the Reich Propaganda Offices, Reich theater office of states and cities as lawfully responsible bodies and of the party.
b. Reich agency for dramaturgy: Selection and supervision of the entire dramatic production (drama, opera, and operetta) with the cooperation of the association of dramatic publishers; supervising and influencing the programs of all German theaters.
c. Dancing and ballet.
d. Theater budgeting.
e. Organization.
f. Theater legislation.
g. The theater abroad. To work out all guest performances abroad, as well as the appearances of foreign ensembles and artists in Germany. Taking care of German theaters abroad.
13. Department for Creative Arts. A special task of this department is the supervision for the execution of the law for the protection of national symbols.
14. Department for Music. The department for music is charged with the entire cultural and political leadership of German musical life. As agencies carrying out this policy, the German office for music, the office for music abroad, and the Reich censoring office for music are subordinated to it.
15. Department for Special Cultural Tasks. This department serves mainly the purpose to eliminate all Jews from the cultural life.
[Page 32] IV. Subordinate offices, agencies working under supervision of the ministry, semi-public bodies, etc.
1. 41 Reich propaganda offices function under the supervision of the ministry. They have been established in places where the Gauleiters of the NSDAP reside. Their purpose is the planning, execution, and supervision of tasks which were given to them by the various departments of the ministry.
2. The group for cultural and political tasks attached to the Reich protector in Prague.
3. The office for promoting and advising German literature.
4. The Reich deputy for artistic creation.
5. The Reich committee for tourism.
6. The office for film censorship decides whether motion pictures should be licensed for public performances. Complaints against the decision of the office for film censorship are finally decided by the chief office for film censorship.
7. The German opera house.
8. The German theater at Wiesbaden.
9. The Reich cultural office.
10. The Reich league for the German Press.
11. The council for promoting German economy.
12. The office of the Leipzig fair.
13. The Reich committee for the prevention of damages and accidents.
14. The German central agency for congresses.
15. The German motion picture academy.