Skip to content
Wehrmachtbericht
EntityQ700591· pop 17· linked from 102 articles

Wehrmachtbericht

Sign in to save

Also known as Wehrmacht communiqué, Wehrmacht report, Wehrmacht communique

thumb|upright=1.1|Joseph Goebbels with Wehrmacht propaganda officers, 1941 thumb|upright=1.1|Image taken by Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops|Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops on 30 June 1944. Original caption reads: "Fight against terrorists in France. Communist terrorist groups are attempting to disrupt the German security measures. The Wehrmachtbericht reports daily on successes against the saboteurs. In the marketplace the first interrogations take place." Wehrmachtbericht (, literally: "Armed forces report", usually translated as '''Wehrmacht communiqué or Wehrmacht report') was the daily Wehrmacht H

Wikidata facts

Country of origin
Germany
Show 2 more facts
Commons category
World War II propaganda
Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

~14 min read

Encyclopedic overview

11 sections
Contents
  • Production
  • Service record by campaign
  • Operation Barbarossa
  • The Battle of Stalingrad
  • Impact
  • Named reference
  • See also
  • References
  • Citations
  • Bibliography
  • External links

thumb|upright=1.1|Joseph Goebbels with Wehrmacht propaganda officers, 1941 thumb|upright=1.1|Image taken by Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops|Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops on 30 June 1944. Original caption reads: "Fight against terrorists in France. Communist terrorist groups are attempting to disrupt the German security measures. The Wehrmachtbericht reports daily on successes against the saboteurs. In the marketplace the first interrogations take place." Wehrmachtbericht (, literally: "Armed forces report", usually translated as '''Wehrmacht communiqué or Wehrmacht report') was the daily Wehrmacht High Command mass-media communiqué and a key component of Nazi propaganda during World War II. Produced by the Propaganda Department of the OKW (Wehrmacht'' Propaganda Troops), it covered Germany's military situation and was broadcast daily on the Reich Broadcasting Corporation of Nazi Germany. All broadcasts were authorized by the Reich Ministry of Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels. Despite the latter's attempts to temper excessive optimism, they often exaggerated the success of the German armed forces, the Wehrmacht, leading historian Aristotle Kallis to describe their tone as "triumphalist".

Both civilian and military authorities considered the Wehrmachtbericht to be a vital instrument of German home-front mobilisation, the civilian contribution to the German war effort, especially after the defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad. According to historians Wolfram Wette and Daniel Uziel, the final 9 May 1945 communiqué laid the foundation for the myth of the clean Wehrmacht, the notion that the Wehrmacht had fought honourably and was not implicated in the crimes of the Nazi regime, for which (according to the myth) only the SS bore responsibility.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Wehrmachtbericht” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (3)