Practices and Structures of Nazi Propaganda Among the Germans in Romania: Otto Rudolf Liess’ Report on the German-Language Press in Romania (1940–1944)

The article deals with the emergence and structure of the institutional system in charge with coordinating the Nazi propaganda activity among Romanian Germans and carrying out the Gleichschaltung of the German press in Romania. After providing an overview of the process of Nazification of the German periodicals in Romania, the article focuses on an archival document from 1958 authored by Otto Rudolf Liess, former head of a key department within the Office for Propaganda and Press of the German Ethnic Group in Romania. Although dominated by a tendency to justify his activity within this Nazi dominated political organization, the document drafted by Liess provides us useful information concerning the emergence, structure and everyday functioning of the Office for Propaganda and Press.