Historian Accuses AP of Collaborating with Nazi Regime

The Associated Press news agency entered a formal cooperation with the Hitler regime in the 1930s, supplying American newspapers with material directly produced and selected by the Nazi propaganda ministry, archive material unearthed by a German historian has revealed. (The Guardian)

The research by Harriet Scharnberg, of Martin Luther University, argued that The AP was complicit in allowing the Nazis to “portray a war of extermination as a conventional war.” The AP said Scharnberg’s research addressed a German photo agency subsidiary of A.P. Britain. The photographer, Franz Roth, was part of the S.S. propaganda division whose photographs were personally chosen by Adolf Hitler. (NYT)

AdWeek-The Morning Newsfeed report the AP responded to The Guardian with the following statement: "As we continue to research this matter, AP rejects any notion that it deliberately ‘collaborated’ with the Nazi regime. An accurate characterization is that the AP and other foreign news organizations were subjected to intense pressure from the Nazi regime from the year of Hitler’s coming to power in 1932 until the AP’s expulsion from Germany in 1941. AP management resisted the pressure while working to gather accurate, vital and objective news in a dark and dangerous time." (Mediaite)