APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7
newsprint demands. Factories and cooperative farms together publish about 600 news sheets. Unlike other publications, they are banned from export, probably because of their frank discussion of local economic problems. The 540 periodicals cover a broad span of interests in monthly, bimonthly, and weekly editions. The weeklies with the largest circulation are the Wochenpost, the illustrated journals FF-Dabei and Neue Berliner Illustrierte, the Zeit im Bild, the paper for foreign policy Horizont, the cultural paper Sonntag, and the satirical paper Eulenspiegel. The regime claims a combined circulation of about 6.9 million for all periodicals, journals, and magazines.
The party line is disseminated from East Berlin to provincial journals through two indigenous agencies other than Neues Deutschland. The SED's Departments of Agitation and Propaganda provide interpretations of domestic and international developments as well as special publishing instructions to agitation and propaganda bureaus at the district and county levels. The government-owned East German news agency, ADN, which is supervised by the Press Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, distributes important news items at home and abroad. The East German press also uses material distributed by the Soviet news agency TASS and the other Eastern European news agencies. Material of various Western news agencies, including the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI) of the United States, may be used when the subject matter coincides with Communist policy.
Despite efforts to improve the format and presentation of newspapers and periodicals through greater highlighting of sports news and human-interest stories, the East German press projects, for the most part, an aura of dull uniformity. The constant and predictable propaganda makes the press an unpopular medium. Subscriptions to non-Communist newspapers and magazines are not permitted to East Germans, and the authorities periodically screen non-Communist literature brought in by western travelers entering the country.
2. Books and libraries
The book publishing industry, which centers on Leipzig and East Berlin, published 5,234 new titles in 1970 in 122 million copies; 804 of the titles, or about 15%, were translations, mostly from the Russians. Of the new titles published, 4,500 or 86% were book length. These totals show that the steady decline in variety evident since 1962, when the industry published 6,540 titles, including 902 translations, has continued despite an all-time high in total book production. Book publishing concentrates on the classics, light literature, and scientific and technical works, but ideological treatises, both historical and contemporary, comprise a steady portion of the industry's output.
East Germany has more than 17,000 libraries, of which more than two-thirds are state-supported public libraries and the balance run by the trade unions at various industrial enterprises. These libraries have about 27 million holdings and loaned about 66 million volumes in 1970, or about 16 volumes per reader. The libraries are controlled by the Ministry for Cultural Affairs' Central Institute for Library Activities, and their collections are carefully selected. There are in addition 34 scholarly libraries with nearly 26 million volumes in their collections. Among the major East German collections are the German (formerly Prussian) State Library in East Berlin with 4 million volumes (of which 1.8 million are "illegally withheld" in West Germany and West Berlin) and the Deutsche Bucherei in Leipzig, which collects all publications in German regardless of national origin, with 3 million volumes.
3. Radio and television
East Germany has one of the highest per family ratios of radio and TV ownership of any Communist country. In 1970 nearly 70% of the East German households contained a TV set and nearly 92% had at least one radio. The authorities make extensive use of both media in their campaigns to indoctrinate their own citizenry and to present the regime in the best possible light to audiences abroad.
In 1968, the State Broadcasting Committee was split into two separate commissions, one for television and one for radio. Both are administratively subordinate to the Council of Ministers, but under the direct, day-to-day control of the SED Central Committee. There are five major stations (Sender): 1) Radio DDR I broadcasts 24 hours a day, divided between political and economic subjects and entertainment; 2) Radio DDR II broadcasts 14 hours a day, stressing educational and cultural programming; 3) Berliner Rundfunk, targeted at the East German population in the environs of that city is on the air 24 hours a day; 4) Stimme der DDR, the product of an amalgamation in 1971 of Deutschlandsender and Berliner Welle, broadcasting high-quality, prestige programs for East and West German consumption, is also on the air 24 hours a day; 5) Radio Berlin International, as its name implies, is beamed to foreign audiences and as of late 1971 was broadcasting a total of 275 hours per week in 13 languages, including German and Russian. In addition, there is a network of studios primarily located in district capitals
42
APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7
