Journalismus unter Goebbels

Horst Pöttker

pp. 57-76

in: Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 28 (3), 1998.

Abstract

The journalistic report is characterized by four qualities: it is simultaneous, subjective, factually correct and vivid. These qualities aim at optimal authenticity. During the 1920s and 1930s, the new medium radio enhanced the potential for authenticity and communicative power of the report by making live transmissions in real-time and the recording of background sounds possible. Joseph Goebbels preferred to use radio reports for NS-propaganda because of the impression of authenticity and credibility. Despite this instrumentalization, some radio reports from the NS-era show the report's inherent power to convey to the listeners problematic realities hidden behind the propaganda facade. With this point of view, five reports from the years 1936–39 are presented and commented on: Hitler's arrival in Berlin after the ›Münchner Abkommen‹, 100-meter-finals at the Olympics, women workers in a shoe factory, assault on Hitler on November 8th, 1939, air raid precautions shortly before the war. Is the radio report avoided in present days also because of its power to break up enactments?