Associated Press rejects charge that it co-operated with Nazis
But U.S. news service says it is reviewing work of photographer allegedly employed by SS division
A German historian says in new research that The Associated Press, the international news organization based in New York, formally co-operated with Nazi Germany in the 1930s, including the employment of a photographer who worked for a Nazi propaganda division.
The research by Harriet Scharnberg, of Martin Luther University, argued that AP was complicit in allowing the Nazis to “portray a war of extermination as a conventional war.” Her research was reported Wednesday in the Guardian.
The Nazi regime cracked down on local and international press with a restrictive law in 1933, but AP was able to report in Germany until 1941, when the United States joined the Second World War.
In a statement, AP said that until Scharnberg’s research, it “had no knowledge of any accusation that material may have been directly produced and selected by Nazi propaganda ministries.”
“The Associated Press rejects the suggestion that it collaborated with the Nazi regime at any time,” the company said. “Rather, the AP was subjected to pressure from the Nazi regime from the period of Hitler’s coming to power in1932 until the AP’s expulsion from Germany in 1941. The Associated Press staff resisted the pressure while doing its best to gather accurate, vital and objective news for the world in a dark and dangerous time.”
AP said Scharnberg’s research addressed a German photo agency subsidiary of The Associated Press Britain. The photographer, Franz Roth, was part of the SS propaganda division whose photographs were personally chosen by Adolf Hitler, the Guardian reported.
AP removed his photos from its website after Scharnberg’s research was published, according to the Guardian.
AP is reviewing any photos credited to Roth in light of Scharnberg’s “new-to-us reference to him,” Paul Colford, an AP spokesman, said in an email.
“The Associated Press archivists were unfamiliar with Franz Roth and his activities before and during World War II,” Colford said, adding that the archivists assisted Scharnberg in her research. “We have no record of him at all.”
Colford said AP does not have personnel records of German employees during the 1930s.
The records were most likely destroyed by the Russian military during an assault on Berlin, he said.
Photos that came from the Nazi government were labelled in captions or photo credits, AP said. U.S. newspapers would use their own editorial judgment to decide whether or not to publish the images.
“Images of that time from Germany had legitimate news value as editors and the public needed to learn more about the Nazis,” AP said.
In 1939, Louis P. Lochner, AP bureau chief, won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Nazi regime. AP said he resisted pressure to fire Jewish employees and eventually arranged for them to have AP jobs outside Germany, perhaps saving their lives.