On This Day in the Third Reich 1934

The Jewish owners of Frankfurter Zeitung sell their shares to IG Farben (who now own 98% of the paper). The family have seen the warning lights posted by the regime.

The incident is used to create favourable publicity for IG Farben at home & abroad. Goebbels, Minister of Propoganda and Hitler value the Frankfurter Zeitung’s reputation abroad and allow a more relaxed interpretation of the rules than is acceptable for other newspapers. The paper’s masthead continues to show the Leopold Sonnemann as the paper’s owner.

The Frankfurter Zeitung publishes articles about foreign criticism of regime into the mid 1930s. The editorial staff sometimes fail to print articles, even when ordered to do so by Goebbels, Minister of Propoganda.

Bibliography

The Third Reich in Power – Richard J Evans, Penguin 2006

The Twisted Road to Auschwitz – Karl A Schleunes, University of Illinois Press 1990