The Information Control Division (ICD) was a department of the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS) during the early part of the post-war American occupation of Germany beginning in 1945, following World War II. Mission The ICD was focused on controlling and altering German media to promote democratic values and to move Germany away from Nazism. Formed on 12 May 1945 from the Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF (PWD/SHAEF), the ICD was led by U.S. Army General Robert A. McClure, with a mission defined as:
Its initial task was seizing control of the German media, removing figures with Nazi associations or histories and prohibiting overly nationalist or militarized content. It was charged with licensing the German newspapers, selecting editors who favored creating a democratic society, and pre-approving content before it was published - although from August 1945 the model switched to approval post-publication. Initially entirely independent of the military government of Germany, it was merged into OMGUS in February 1946.
As the Cold War became a priority in United States foreign policy, the ICD focused on using Germany as "the first battlefront of psychological warfare between the U.S. and the USSR", forcing licensed newspapers to publish content compatible with the direction of U.S. foreign policy and revoking the licenses of those that would not. The ICD faced some controversy over this shift in focus, along with its relationship with Hollywood and its handling of its Radio Control branch. The ICD relinquished central control over German mass media to the German people in 1949.
Origin Many within the Allied Forces of World War II − France, Soviet Union, United States, Britain, etc.− wanted to prevent any future signs of militaristic and cultural aggression from Germany. Britain and the U.S. specifically, with the agreement of Soviet and French Military governors, pursued a coordinated post-war peacetime effort that centered around the control of information and media dissemination in post-war Germany. Two months after the end of the World War II in Europe, the "Anglo American Psychological Warfare Division" and the "British Political Warfare Executive" were re-designated as Information Control Division in the American sector and the Information Services Division in the British zone of control.
The Information Control Division was part of a larger campaign on the part of the United States and Britain to facilitate peaceful post-war time relations and to reeducate the German people to rid them of Nazism under the Office of Military Government, United States. The United States wanted to influence the German psyche and address the issue of "hypernationalism" and Nazism that had developed in Germany. Through the use of propaganda and media control, the ICD was one of the key facets by which the United States pursued this campaign.
The inclination of a significant portion of Germany's population towards nationalism was first identified before Hitler took his reign during World War II. Saul Padover, political scientist and historian, describes the "German problem" as: "hostility to democracy (shared power), reliance on authoritarianism, respect for force and acceptance of military virtues, belief in German superiority, cultural or racial".
Padover was not alone in criticizing the developments of the "German problem", with many government officials sharing the same concern. British propaganda surrounding the image of the German people made its way into American media and influenced many American outlooks on the German people and ultimately helped solidify the United States' decision to deploy psychological warfare divisions within Germany following World War I. Many of these feelings towards Germany by academic and military personnel contributed to the British and American pursuit of psychological control and influence within American and British occupied sectors in post-war Germany.
Activities
The main goal of the ICD was to place German media in the American-controlled territory of Germany under the control of the American military in order to influence its production under the American standard of democratic values. The ICD strived to accomplish this in three phases: the first phase was to shut down "all media of public expression in Germany", the second phase was to seize control of their public media operations, and the third phase sought to return the media of public expression to back German officials who, American officials believed, displayed sufficiently anti-Nazi, democratic ideals.
The ICD consisted of two divisions that facilitated: the surveil of staff work and the surveil of the operations of the division. Those within the staff division recruited necessary staff, drafted up ICD policies and strategies, sent out operational instructions and important information for other divisions within ICD, and gathered on the ground information. The operations division carried out the instructions and strategies of the staff work division to influence media within post-war Germany. The four media groups that the ICD controlled in post-war Germany were: Press Publications Radio Film, theater, and music
Institutions such as publishers, libraries, radio outlets, etc. within the four categories were privy to ICD regulation based on the U.S. occupied sector in Germany they were in and each of the four media groups had corresponding control branches that oversaw the production of their respective media. The Press Control branch created regulations and policy for the operations within German newspaper organizations and controlled which publishing organizations associated with Germany's newspaper industry. One notable newspaper published by the ICD during the American occupation was Die Neue Zeitung.
The Publications Control branch concerned regulation of the production of books and magazines and drafted policy around what kind of literary works were appropriate for publishing. The ICD believed that books were one of the most influential forms of media for the German people and would be emphasized as one of the main ways in which the ICD would reinforce their reeducation ideals. The Publications branch controlled 500 publishers that would produce acceptable reeducation material for the German public. The first literary journals to be published under the monitoring of the ICD was Die Wandlung. Another important journal published under the monitoring of the ICD was Horizont, a literary piece meant to educate German youth and deemphasize German's militaristic past.
The Radio Control branch supervised what kind of media and messaging was broadcast over the radio. The United States controlled five radio outlets in Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Munich, Bremen, and Berlin. The ICD emphasized that there needed to be minimal German governmental influence over what was broadcast over the radio as this was what contributed to Nazi propaganda and influence during the war. Additionally, the ICD Radio Control branch was charged with preventing information monopolies and subsidies from the German government in radio media. The first radio outlet under complete ICD control was Radio Stuttgart.
ICD's radio broadcasting of the Nuremberg trials followed specific requirements – like all content that came out of the radio broadcasting branch – that focused on framing military policies in the way they thought would be best for the demilitarization and reeducation of the German people. The ICD encouraged radio stations to broadcast different perspectives and opinions from German civilians on their station so as to stray further away from the monopoly that the German government had in radio broadcasting during the war. Before the official affordance of mass media control to the German people in 1949, radio stations under ICD control, like Radio Stuttgart, broadcast content that promoted American culture and music.
Lastly, the Film, Theater, and Music control branch determined which films and other media productions were allowed to be played in Germany. Through film licensing hand-outs for German producers, and through the screenings of potential American films to be broadcast, the ICD selectively chose what kind of films, music, and theater productions the German public in the U.S. occupied sector would consume. After the war, all theaters and film-viewing institutions were ordered to be shut down and many of the film studios were converted into storage spaces. The law regarding this shutdown was amended in 1945, but in the absence of the German film content and German dominance within their film industry, American films and media were shipped in and broadcast with content that emphasized democratic values and ideals for the stated purpose of reeducating the German public. Many of the films from American film industries that were banned were ones that touched on specific political topics and representations that reflected the recent events of World War II. The ICD brought in American civilians with experience in the American film industry to help the reeducation process on this front.
In late 1946, there was a considerable uptick in the amount of criticism of American-occupied Germany polices coming from the Soviet-occupied territory of Germany through their Soviet-controlled press. Shortly after, in response to this criticism, the ICD launched a covert campaign to produce anti-communist propaganda in the U.S. zone to fight the charges produced by Soviet propaganda. One of the most important ways they broadcast this propaganda was through the radio control branch.
The ICD and many other military activities in the American-occupied Germany shifted from anti-Nazism and anti-fascism messaging to anti-communist propaganda – to the disapproval of a number of ICD employees. In 1947, the ICD led Radio Stuttgart hosted a talk series called "The America View", wherein the host would explicitly call on listeners to denounce communism, labeling it as a "threat". This new direction, and the beginning of tense relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, also caused many ICD employees to fall under scrutiny of having communist or Marxian ties.
Locations After World War II, the post-war Yalta Conference declared that Germany would be split into four occupational zones occupied, respectively, by the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union. The American-occupied sector in Germany "encompassed Bavaria, Hesse, Württemberg-Baden (now Baden-Württemberg), the Bremen enclave, and the U.S Sector of Berlin". Each of these occupied zones held offices wherein the ICD would handle the administrative tasks to help the United States exert influence over German media through the different control branches of the ICD. ICD main headquarters were located in Berlin.
Personnel