ABSTRACT
The question of the ‘authenticity’ of the German wartime newsreels is somewhat confused: on the one hand the veracity and documentary character of the newsreels was always emphasized during the period of the ‘Third Reich’ itself, but on the other hand since the end of the war the same newsreels have been considered as a deception used by Propaganda Minister Goebbels. In a totalitarian state where the information media are extensively co-ordinated there is, however, a limit to such a media comparison. The image is a very authentic element of the newsreel, at least potentially. To avoid any misconceptions it should be stated that it is not the intention, as part of some ‘change of heart’, to state now that the newsreels of the Second World War are authentic, any more than the Nazi newspaper reporting in the Volkischer Beobachter can be called objective historical writing.
