11. In a Radical Departure From its Usual Journalistic Integrity, AP Fired its Jewish Staff to Appease Hitler’s Government
The Associated Press accepted the conditions imposed by the Third Reich to operate in Germany. To placate the authorities, it fired all of its local Jewish staff. It also self-censored and adjusted its reports in order to keep the Nazis sweet. For example, it downplayed the daily discrimination endured by Jews, refused to publish images that depicted such discrimination. It worked. By 1935, most contemporary international news organizations, such as Wide World Photos and Keystone, had been kicked out of Germany by the Nazis. AP was one of the few still allowed to operate in the country.
After America joined the war in 1941, AP’s Berlin office was closed, and its American staffers were arrested and interned, before they were swapped in a prisoner exchange. However, in order to continue to obtain photographs from Nazi-occupied Europe, AP made arrangements with news agencies in neutral countries to receive photos for the Third Reich. In exchange, they furnished the Germans with AP photos. The AP images provided to Germany appeared in evil Nazi propaganda, some were altered, and nearly all their captions were changed to conform to the official Nazi viewpoint.
