4 An American print and broadcast journalist named Richard C. American writer Dorothy Thompson had published a highly critical piece on Hitler before he came to power, and she was expelled from Germany in 1934. While foreign correspondents did not have to follow German press regulations, they faced other challenges and dangers. American reporters in Nazi Germany were well aware of how the domestic press was restricted, and they sometimes took risks to use informers or other unofficial sources in their stories. Those who violated these guidelines could lose their right to report and publish-or even be sent to a concentration camp. Each day, the German press chief issued secret instructions on what stories German journalists could report and how they were to be reported. Under Nazi rule, German media was heavily censored. However, German authorities in Joseph Goebbels’s Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and the German Foreign Office wanted to make sure that what journalists published was positive. In the 1930s, Americans were eager for news about the Third Reich, and a position reporting from Nazi Germany was a prized assignment for any ambitious reporter. Unlike private citizens, they faced a different set of challenges. In contrast to these moving accounts by ordinary Americans, there were other US citizens who tried to shape public opinion about Nazi Germany by using their talents as journalists, photographers, and filmmakers.

What he saw there-death, starvation, and the traumatic impact on the surviving prisoners-left him with unforgettable memories that he only later recounted in oral testimonies and public lectures. Leon Bass, a Black soldier in the (then segregated) US Army, entered the liberated Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald. She recorded some of these experiences on film with a home movie camera. In Vienna, she witnessed a boycott of a Jewish business and learned about the impact of anti-Jewish policies. In 1938, Helen Baker and her husband Ross traveled to Austria, shortly after it was annexed by Nazi Germany. Those who arrived in 1945 saw the evidence of horrific crimes in liberated concentration camps. In the first years of the Nazi era, US citizens witnessed firsthand examples of the persecution of Jewish people and others deemed to be “enemies” by Nazi authorities. 2 These experiences all differed greatly. 1 From 1944 to 1945, many more Americans came to Germany as soldiers fighting to defeat Nazi Germany. Many came as tourists, reporters, exchange students, or diplomats.

These sources highlight what Americans knew about Nazism and the Holocaust-and how they responded.ĭuring the 1930s, thousands of Americans traveled to Nazi Germany. They include articles from newspapers and magazines, photographs, films, and oral testimonies. This collection features sources from Americans who documented their experiences in Nazi Germany.

Travellers to the third reich