Writing and Rewriting the Reich by Deborah Barton;

Author:Deborah Barton;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Women journalists / Journalism / Press / World War, 1939–1945 / Press coverage / Nazi propaganda
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2022-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

Part III

The Aftermath

Chapter Six

New Patrons, New Entanglements: Transitioning to the Post-War Press

In October 1946, Ilse Urbach published an article in the newly founded, British-licensed newspaper Die Zeit. The article was about contemporary life in the picturesque mountain town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria. Urbach’s style of writing was not far removed from the seemingly upbeat travel and cultural articles that she had published during the Third Reich. She wrote of the cozy houses and bustling atmosphere of the town, which was preparing for winter. At the same time, the article addressed the ramifications of the war and Germany’s defeat. Urbach described how the town was now “besieged” with American military and noted that one “often met Silesians,” a reference to German refugees from the country’s former territory in the East that had since been annexed to Poland.1 In her article, Urbach employed the same tactics that she had adopted in her wartime writing, in which she had cast Poles and Jews as a threat to Germany. In such pieces, she had written in a manner that communicated Nazi ideology in a softer and less overt way than much hard-news propaganda. This time, Urbach wrote about the displacement of locals in the face of refugees and the US occupation force. Her words provided an indirect critique of both as a new scourge on Germany. “That distinguished gentleman who now lives in the converted attic of his splendid house encounters difficulties,” she wrote, because “the evacuees on the lower floor were inconsiderate.” Finally, the article spoke to Allied denazification efforts and the punishment of those she termed “Nazi activists,” who were interned in the town’s former hunting barracks.2

Urbach herself had been an early member of the Nazi Party and had enjoyed a successful career during the Third Reich. Although she was required to go through a denazification process, the British occupation authorities quickly gave her the green light to continue her career. In spite of her contribution to Nazi discourse about the “inferiority” of Jews and Poles, British authorities considered Urbach’s past work in features, travel, and women’s news harmless enough to allow her to transition with ease to the post-war press. Her professional success grew in the first decade after the war. In 1946, she began to work in features for the British-licensed national daily newspaper Die Welt. By 1954, she had moved to Der Kurier, where she soon became the features editor. The French occupation force established Der Kurier in November 1945, and it was an immediate success.3 Urbach’s professional path from dictatorship to democracy and the nature of her writing provide insight into women journalists’ transition to the post-war press and the ways in which they used their public platform in the interests of the German population and state(s) after 1945.

The tangling of gender, politics, the press, and the ambiguous status of female journalists as both insiders and outsiders in the field during the Third Reich had complex ramifications for women in the post-war period. The transition to the post-war

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