The Press: Westwall Dailies

No sooner had U. S. troops dug in on the Western Front in World War I than they started a newspaper. The Stars & Stripes made fun of lice and mud, pricked the vanity of many a martinet, nurtured young journalists like Alexander Woollcott, Columnist Franklin Pierce Adams, who were later to bloom luxuriantly in Manhattan’s literary gardens.

Last week Nazi efficiency, aping U. S. individualism, had established not one but ten newspapers for German soldiers fighting World War II. Some were published at the front, others in Berlin and Breslau for front-line distribution. All were strictly edited by agents of the Ministry for Propaganda; they gave news of the war but featured drawings and articles by soldiers, concentrated on entertainment.

Biggest is the Wacht im Westen, which resembles the Frankfurter Zeitung; smallest the Armee-Kurznachrichten, a single half-size sheet of Army notices. The Air Force has its own paper, Der Adler von Friesland (The Frisian Eagle).