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Associated Press Helped Nazi Propaganda Machine, New Report Reveals

A new report has revealed that the Associated Press news agency (AP) worked alongside the Third Reich during Hitler’s reign to produce numerous photographs for use in Nazi propaganda.  AP provided the Nazi’s with images from their photo archive to be used in anti-Semitic and anti-Western propaganda campaigns, according German historian Harriet Scharnberg. Timesofisrael.com reports: When Adolf Hitler’s National Socialists rose to power in 1933, all international news agencies but the US-based AP were forced to leave Germany. The AP continued to operate in the Third Reich until 1941, when the United States joined World War II. According to German historian Harriet Scharnberg, the world’s biggest news agency was only allowed to remain in Germany because it signed a deal with the regime. The news agency lost control over its copy by submitting itself to the Schriftleitergesetz (editor’s law), agreeing not to print any material “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home,” she wrote in an article published in the academic journal Studies in Contemporary History. Scharnberg’s research was first reported by the UK-based Guardian newspaper. According to the paper, the Nazis’ so-called editor’s law forced AP employees to contribute material for the Nazi party’s propaganda division. [...]