The British Press and Nazi Germany

Reporting from the Reich, 1933-9

Kylie Galbraith

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781350102118
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: German History
• Index: History

What was known and understood about the nature of the Nazi dictatorship in Britain prior to war in 1939? How was Nazism viewed by those outside of Germany? The British Press and Nazi Germany considers these questions through the lens of the British press. Until now, studies that centre on British press attitudes to Nazi Germany have concentrated on issues of foreign policy. The focus of this book is quite different. In using material that has largely been neglected, Kylie Galbraith examines what the British press reported about life inside the Nazi dictatorship. In doing so, the book imparts important insights into what was known and understood about the Nazi revolution. And, because the overwhelming proportion of the British public's only means of news was the press, this volume shows what people in Britain could have known about the Nazi dictatorship. It reveals what the British people were being told about the regime, specifically the destruction of Weimar democracy, the ruthless persecution of minorities, the suppression of the churches and the violent factional infighting within Nazism itself. This pathbreaking examination of the British press' coverage of Nazism in the 1930s greatly enhances our knowledge of the fascist regime with which the British Government was attempting to reach agreement at the time.

1

The British press

In the early 1930s the newspaper press was the most popular means of conveying information to the vast majority of people in Britain. The ready availability of newspapers in Britain resulted in an extremely competitive market, as newspapers battled for the highest sales and circulation figures. The press covered every class and demographic – all audiences were catered for in different ways by different newspapers. In 1937 there were 1,577 newspapers and 3,119 magazines and periodicals being published in Great Britain alone.¹ In 1934 every 100 families bought 95 morning and 57½ evening newspapers each day, and 130 Sunday newspapers every week.²

The British press of the 1930s can be separated into distinct categories. There was the newspaper press, which is the primary interest of this study, as well as periodicals and magazines. Periodicals and magazines appeared weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly and annually. In most cases the periodicals and magazines were specialized, focusing on one or two interest areas. The newspaper press mostly appeared daily or weekly. There were three main types of newspapers: ‘quality’, ‘popular’ and ‘specialized’. The quality press had a readership of, primarily, the elite and educated of British society. This included the upper classes as well as politicians and prominent businessmen. Popular newspapers, as the title suggests, held popular appeal and were widely read by people of all classes across the country. ‘Specialized’ newspapers were aimed at particular groups of people or regions in Britain. For instance, those of Jewish faith were catered for by the Jewish Chronicle.³ Newspapers could also be separated another way – by political affiliation. On the right or centre-right stood the conservative press such as The Times and the Morning Post. On the liberal left was the Manchester Guardian and to the left of that was the Daily Herald.

Newspapers could be further categorized as either broadsheet, like The Times, or tabloid, like the Daily Express, both in terms of size and content of the newspaper. As a general rule, broadsheets were distinguished by a traditional approach to newspaper layout with six or more columns and detailed, in-depth articles. Tabloids, on the other hand, were smaller in size and often contained large sensational headlines and photographs to attract readers. A quality newspaper usually had a broadsheet layout while the popular newspapers were usually tabloid. The broadsheet of the 1930s differed considerably from a broadsheet newspaper of today. Perhaps the most important difference was the front page which, in the 1930s, usually contained detailed advertisements in small print across seven columns. This would often continue for six pages. The newspaper would then have pages devoted to puzzles, book reviews, court news and so on. The news itself would not begin until around page ten. There would be a main page with a table of contents and news in short, as well as leaders and editorials, which were the main news articles offering opinion and analysis generally written by a team of leader-writers. Following this would be local or national news and foreign news, often several pages of each. Both the Manchester Guardian and The Times followed this layout.

The layout of the tabloid newspaper has changed little since the 1930s. Unlike a broadsheet, the front page of a tabloid newspaper contained the major news stories of the day with large pictures and headlines to attract readers’ attention. The first three or four pages of the newspaper were dedicated to news stories, from local and national to foreign news. Depending on the newspaper, subsequent pages were a blend of letters to the editor, book reviews, gossip, women’s health, fictional short stories, court news, opinions, leaders, financial and business and sporting news. For instance, the Daily Mirror often had three to four pages devoted to what they believed was women’s news. This included gossip, romance stories and a page entitled ‘A Woman’s Point of View’.⁴ Unlike a broadsheet, the tabloid newspaper did not follow a strict six- or seven-column page layout of the news. The layout often contained large headlines that dominated the page, with photographs, then accompanying text. While the layout of a broadsheet newspaper like The Times changed very little from day to day, the layout of a tabloid was dictated by current news stories. For instance, a major story with an eye-catching large headline would dominate front-page coverage one day, while the next day the front page might contain four or five shorter stories accompanied by small photographs. While The Times had a separate page devoted to foreign news, tabloid newspapers had local, national and foreign news sharing front-page coverage.

The news was collected and processed in a few different ways. For national or local news, each newspaper had a team of reporters or journalists who would travel to local towns or cities and collect the news. Reporters were also sent out by the newspaper’s head office to cover a particular event or story for a feature article. News agencies helped to supplement what the reporters brought in. Local and national news was provided by Press Association, an agency which had been providing ‘home’ news service since its inception in 1868.

Foreign news, with which this study is concerned, was treated differently. Foreign news primarily came from abroad, but it could also be a foreign angle on a domestic issue, for instance, German reactions to the boycotting of German goods in Britain.⁵ Most newspapers had a team of correspondents stationed in the major cities of Europe who would report breaking news or emerging trends back to Britain. In Berlin alone, in August 1937, there were thirteen chief and assistant correspondents working for British newspapers, as well as four for Reuters and two for other agencies.⁶ One of the most important newspapers of the period, The Times, had 120 f oreign correspondents working around the world, of whom around 40 were on the permanent staff or retaining salary, with the rest on a casual list of contributors.⁷ Correspondents for The Times were kept anonymous, writing under the tagline ‘From our own correspondent’, while many of the popular newspapers liked to publish the names of their star reporters. Some of the weekly journals, such as The Spectator, also sometimes published the names of their reporters.

British newspapers also relied on foreign news services from agencies such as Reuters and Central News. Reuters had a long relationship with many British newspapers, notably the Manchester Guardian. The Manchester Guardian had been using Reuters for imperial and foreign news since the earliest days of the news agency in the nineteenth century.⁸ In fact, from the 1930s to the 1950s, three Manchester Guardian figures served on the board of Reuters – J. R. and L. P. Scott, and William Haley.⁹ For the Manchester Guardian, Reuters filled ‘a gap in the paper’s overseas coverage’.¹⁰ Donald Read, who has written extensively on the news agency, explains that Reuters operated under four tenets – speed, accuracy, equal dealing and impartiality. Reuters aimed to be first to provide news (and mostly was) ‘but not at the price of accuracy’. The news provided by Reuters was professed to be impartial, ‘without bias in what it said, and objective in what it chose to report (or not to report)’.¹¹ The news collected by Reuters was made available to all clients and newspapers ‘without exclusivity’ and irrespective of political leaning.¹²

The news reports provided by Reuters served a valuable function for British newspapers and those working for them. Reuters could fill gaps that newspapers might have in coverage, either because the correspondent was pursuing other news stories or because the newspaper did not have a correspondent stationed in that location. It allowed newspapers to keep its readers updated on news that they might otherwise have missed. But it also gave correspondents the chance to pursue news stories that they identified as warranting further investigation. The Manchester Guardian’s Darsie Gillie was one such reporter. The news service provided by Reuters allowed Gillie to ‘select the topics that interested him and leave the rest to Reuters and other news agencies’.¹³ The services offered by news agencies, including Reuters, were invaluable to the Manchester Guardian after the removal of its Berlin correspondent Alexander Werth in 1933. For much of 1933 the Manchester Guardian relied upon news agencies for updates and news of developments in Germany, while Werth who was forced to relocate to Paris and special correspondent F. A. Voigt focused on particular topics like the persecution and terror of political opponents.

Once the news was collected by foreign correspondents the story would be sent, often by telephone or telegraph, to London. If the article was a feature, and not pressing news, it was sent by mail. When a report arrived, it would often be sent directly to the foreign editor’s room. Foreign news was the responsibility of the foreign editor, who would enlist the help of his subeditors to check the story, as well as edit it to an appropriate length. The foreign newsroom would also send reports to all interested departments including leader-writers and, depending on the story, the editor.¹⁴ Most newspapers only minimally edited original messages, preferring to keep the correspondent’s voice or personality present. There were instances, however, where a foreign editor or editor altered an article to tone down the message of the article. There were also instances where an entire article would be cut to make way for another story breaking that day or because an editor did not want to take a particular line on a story or event.

There were many considerations about what was published and the way it was presented by the newspaper. On a broad level, the coverage of news could be affected, to varying degrees, by advertising contracts, circulation figures, readership concerns, the newspaper’s proprietor and the editor. While it is difficult to gauge how much these considerations influenced what the newspaper actually published, it is important to keep them in mind when analysing how a newspaper approached a particular topic.¹⁵ Advertising, for instance, was important revenue for newspapers and therefore could have considerable influence over the content and treatment of news. While an advertisers’ concern could impact the editorial policy of a newspaper, a newspaper would not risk running with a major story just to please advertisers. If the newspaper ignored a breaking story just to satisfy advertisers, it risked losing sales and a subsequent drop in its circulation.

Attracting advertisers was also dependent on high circulation. This meant that while a newspaper wanted to satisfy its advertisers, it also had to serve its readers and maintain its high circulation.¹⁶ This was the case for the Daily Mirror, a popular left-leaning pictorial newspaper that during the 1930s was in constant competition with the other high-circulation newspapers, including the centre-right Daily Express, and the more right-wing Daily Mail. Circulation had a significant impact on the way the many popular newspapers approached news. The popular press, especially, was in a constant circulation battle as each newspaper competed for the greatest daily sale. By 1938 the Daily Express had succeeded in gaining the title of ‘World’s Largest Daily Sale’, with over 2 million sold per day, easily overtaking its main competitor the Daily Mail.

The most important consideration which impacted editorial policy was the control over their newspapers held by proprietors and editors. The influence of a proprietor over their newspaper had a lot to do with the proprietor’s view of his role within the newspaper as well as his personality. In the 1930s the strongest newspaper proprietors were Harold Sydney Harmsworth (Lord Rothermere), who owned Associated Press including the Daily Mail, and William Maxwell Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook), who owned the London Express Newspaper Ltd. with the Daily Express at its forefront. Lord Rothermere took a keen interest in the Daily Mail’s approach to European news, especially the rise of Nazism. He helped to define the newspaper’s policy in the 1930s, initially voicing his support and admiration for the Nazi regime with contributions to the Daily Mail. Perhaps the most notable instance of this was his infamous ‘Youth Triumphant’ article in July 1933 which celebrated the ‘success’ of the regimes first six months. But he also used the pages of the Daily Mail to campaign for air rearmament, a cause he felt passionately about and on which he wrote his book Warnings and Predictions, published in 1939.¹⁷ Another of the big press barons, Lord Beaverbrook, also maintained tight control over his newspapers, particularly the Daily Express. With nearly 100 per cent shareholder interest in the Daily Express at one point, Beaverbrook was in a position to control every element of the newspaper.¹⁸

Not all new...