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Der Ruf (newspaper)
Der Ruf or The Call was a German language newspaper published in Fort Kearny in Narragansett, Rhode Island during World War II by captured prisoners of war (POWs). It was distributed to about 140 other POW camps in the United States. At the time, Fort Kearny was the headquarters of a secret campaign to deprogram German POWs from Nazi ideology and instill democratic ideas, in the hopes that on their return to Germany they would influence the democratization of the country.
According to historian Robert C. Doyle, "Der Ruf followed in the tradition of the Orgelsdorfer Eulenspiegel, a camp literary and satirical newspaper published by German internees during World War I, and became the anti-Nazi newspaper that circulated throughout the entire POW camp system. It achieved great popularity among the more literate German prisoners in the United States."
After returning to Germany, two of the former POWs founded a German newspaper of the same name until 1947, when it was banned by U.S. Occupation authorities on the official grounds that paper was scarce.
At the same time, however, Der Ruf represented a new beginning for German literature after more than a decade of strictly enforced government censorship in Nazi Germany and its literary legacy accordingly continues to this day.
Der Ruf was the brainchild of a military program called the prisoner of war special projects division. The special projects division was inspired in part by news articles claiming hard core Nazis dominated life inside prison camps, beating and intimidating prisoners who spoke out against Hitler. Eleanor Roosevelt met with Dorothy Thompson, who was one of the journalists writing about conditions in the prison camps, and Army Major Maxwell McKnight, and together they put pressure on President Franklin Roosevelt who authorized the creation of the division. Planning for the program began in the Office of the Provost Marshal General in the fall of 1943.
The Special Projects Division was led by Lt. Col. Edward Davison and was intended to promote American ideals among German POWs. Davison was a poet who had taught at Vassar College, the University of Miami, and the University of Colorado, Boulder before the war. Davidson was a strong believer in the power of words and ideas, and viewed his mission as one of persuasion rather than psychological warfare. Other leaders of the program included the Assistant Director of the program, Maxwell McKnight, a graduate of Yale Law School who had prior experience in the Prisoner of War division and who had been influential in convincing Roosevelt to authorize the program; and Curriculum Director Walter Shoenstedt, an exiled German novelist who had been assistant editor of Berliner Tageblatt, who had worked extensively on "know your enemy" brochures for the armed forces. Shoenstedt organized the production of Der Ruf, which was the foundation on which all of the division's attempts to reorient the worldview of the German prisoners relied.
The aim of the program was to "provide ideological alternatives to National Socialism" for the German prisoners. A War Department demonstrated an expectation that after the war the prisoners would "have a strong influence in future German affairs, and their conceptions of our form of government may determine to a great extent Germany’s postwar relations with the United States.”
One of the program's first objectives was to separate prisoners based on their level of adherence to Nazi ideals. Hard core Nazis were moved to a special camp in Alva, Oklahoma, while intellectuals who expressed anti-Nazi sentiments in their interrogations and who had literary talent were sent to camps on the east coast to work with the special projects division. Although it was fairly easy to identify the hard-core Nazi adherents, removing them from camps did little to reduce the internal cohesion and loyalties of the POWs. The Office of the Provost Marshal General viewed the struggle for control of the camps as one of ideas, and aimed to instill competing ideas in the minds of the prisoners in addition to removing those prisoners most committed to the ideals of National Socialism.
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Der Ruf (newspaper)
Der Ruf or The Call was a German language newspaper published in Fort Kearny in Narragansett, Rhode Island during World War II by captured prisoners of war (POWs). It was distributed to about 140 other POW camps in the United States. At the time, Fort Kearny was the headquarters of a secret campaign to deprogram German POWs from Nazi ideology and instill democratic ideas, in the hopes that on their return to Germany they would influence the democratization of the country.
According to historian Robert C. Doyle, "Der Ruf followed in the tradition of the Orgelsdorfer Eulenspiegel, a camp literary and satirical newspaper published by German internees during World War I, and became the anti-Nazi newspaper that circulated throughout the entire POW camp system. It achieved great popularity among the more literate German prisoners in the United States."
After returning to Germany, two of the former POWs founded a German newspaper of the same name until 1947, when it was banned by U.S. Occupation authorities on the official grounds that paper was scarce.
At the same time, however, Der Ruf represented a new beginning for German literature after more than a decade of strictly enforced government censorship in Nazi Germany and its literary legacy accordingly continues to this day.
Der Ruf was the brainchild of a military program called the prisoner of war special projects division. The special projects division was inspired in part by news articles claiming hard core Nazis dominated life inside prison camps, beating and intimidating prisoners who spoke out against Hitler. Eleanor Roosevelt met with Dorothy Thompson, who was one of the journalists writing about conditions in the prison camps, and Army Major Maxwell McKnight, and together they put pressure on President Franklin Roosevelt who authorized the creation of the division. Planning for the program began in the Office of the Provost Marshal General in the fall of 1943.
The Special Projects Division was led by Lt. Col. Edward Davison and was intended to promote American ideals among German POWs. Davison was a poet who had taught at Vassar College, the University of Miami, and the University of Colorado, Boulder before the war. Davidson was a strong believer in the power of words and ideas, and viewed his mission as one of persuasion rather than psychological warfare. Other leaders of the program included the Assistant Director of the program, Maxwell McKnight, a graduate of Yale Law School who had prior experience in the Prisoner of War division and who had been influential in convincing Roosevelt to authorize the program; and Curriculum Director Walter Shoenstedt, an exiled German novelist who had been assistant editor of Berliner Tageblatt, who had worked extensively on "know your enemy" brochures for the armed forces. Shoenstedt organized the production of Der Ruf, which was the foundation on which all of the division's attempts to reorient the worldview of the German prisoners relied.
The aim of the program was to "provide ideological alternatives to National Socialism" for the German prisoners. A War Department demonstrated an expectation that after the war the prisoners would "have a strong influence in future German affairs, and their conceptions of our form of government may determine to a great extent Germany’s postwar relations with the United States.”
One of the program's first objectives was to separate prisoners based on their level of adherence to Nazi ideals. Hard core Nazis were moved to a special camp in Alva, Oklahoma, while intellectuals who expressed anti-Nazi sentiments in their interrogations and who had literary talent were sent to camps on the east coast to work with the special projects division. Although it was fairly easy to identify the hard-core Nazi adherents, removing them from camps did little to reduce the internal cohesion and loyalties of the POWs. The Office of the Provost Marshal General viewed the struggle for control of the camps as one of ideas, and aimed to instill competing ideas in the minds of the prisoners in addition to removing those prisoners most committed to the ideals of National Socialism.