War in Germany

When the Western powers occupied Germany, they tried to re-establish a democratic press by the paradoxical method of rigid controls. The U.S. Military Government, like the British and French, carefully screened all applicants, barred former Nazis, and gradually licensed a small number (57) of papers in its zone. The licensees were told they would be closed down if they advocated anti-democratic ideas.

Last month, when the Western powers gave their blessing to the revival of a

central German Government, they recon sidered the question of the press. The British kept their controls on. But the U.S. authorities dropped licensing and gave the Germans a virtually free press. Ugly Note. By this week, the number of newspapers in the U.S. zone had jumped from 57 to 198; in Bavaria alone, 77 new papers had rushed into print. The ugly note in the new dawn of press freedom was that many of the newcomers were former Nazi and super-nationalist editors and publishers, originally barred because of unsavory political records. Max Willmay, who used to publish Julius Streicher's anti-Semitic Der Sturmer, was now pub lishing two Bavarian papers. Dr. Othmar Best, editor of the Deutsche Allgemeim Zeitung in its Nazi heyday, had started the Nlirnberg Neue Kurier, and ex-Brownshirt Gustav Schellenberger inaugurated the Wiesbadener Tageblatt this week. Immediate effect of the new newspapers was not political but economic. In im poverished Germany, where the average reader can afford only one newspaper, and advertising is scarce, papers were fighting a cut-throat war this week for scanty circulation and advertising revenue. It was too soon to tell which papers would survive. But one small democratic newspaper, Straubing's Niederbayrische Nachrichten, had already succumbed; it was driven out by the Straubinger Tage blatt, revived by Dr. Georg Huber, who had published it under the Nazis. Hard hit by six new competitors, another licensed paper had dropped 9,000 readers. New Score. Military Government offi cials hoped that the democratic press could weather the economic war, but the battles would be bitter. The nationalists had banded together into a new press association and raised a war chest, to wage the fight. A majority of the former Nazis had another blackjack in their pockets. Though they had not been allowed to publish, the occupation authorities had not taken away their ownership of the presses on which most of the licensed papers were printed under five-year leases. Democratic publishers feared that the new publishers could break the leases and force them out of business. This week U.S. High Commissioner John McCloy joined the British and French commissioners in strengthening new laws designed to keep a curb on the German press. Chief provisions : stringent penalties for disseminating undemocratic propaganda or undermining Allied prestige.

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