The ''Münchener Post'' (Engl. ''Munich Post'') was a socialist

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

published in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, from 1888 to 1933. The paper was known for its decade-long campaign against

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

and the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

before their accession to power. It was shut down by Hitler in March 1933 immediately after he became the

Reich Chancellor The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, is the head of the federal government of Germany. The chancellor is the chief executive of the Federal Cabinet and heads the executive branch. Th ...

History

The newspaper had been founded by the Bavarian Social Democratic Party, and its initial opposition to Hitler was based on ideological grounds, but quickly acquired a personal dimension both for the journalists involved and for Hitler himself. The newspaper was highly critical of Hitler and the Nazi Party and ran a series of extremely negative investigative exposés about Hitler in the 1920s and early 1930s.Ron Rosenbaum
Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil.

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

. 1998. In 1931, it broke the

Röhm scandal The Röhm scandal resulted from the outing, public disclosure of Nazi politician Ernst Röhm's homosexuality by anti-Nazis in 1931 and 1932. As a result of the scandal, Röhm became the first known gay politician. Röhm was an early member of ...

, revealing the homosexuality of SA leader

Ernst Röhm Ernst Julius Günther Röhm (; 28 November 1887 – 1 July 1934) was a German military officer, politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party. A close friend and early ally of Adolf Hitler, Röhm was the co-founder and leader of the (SA), t ...

and the Nazi Party called the newspaper and its editors “Giftküche” (The Poison Kitchen) and “Münchener Pest” (“Munich Pestilence” or “Munich Plague”). Hitler considered the paper one of his most vexing public adversaries, and the paper was the target of libel actions by the Nazi Party. The Post wrote from a

populist Populism is a contested concept used to refer to a variety of political stances that emphasize the idea of the " common people" and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite. It is frequently associated with anti-establis ...

perspective, viewing Hitler and his party as a dangerous band of gangsters rather than as ideological enemies, or as a

bona fide In human interactions, good faith () is a sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction. Some Latin phrases have lost their literal meaning over centuries, but that is not the case with , which is ...

political movement at all. In 1933, as part of the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

elimination of media opposition, they ordered the closure of certain news outlets across Germany. All Socialist newspapers’ buildings were taken over by the government. The newspaper’s offices were ransacked by the SA on 9 March 1933, ending publication of the ''Post'', and the paper’s staff went into hiding. They were eventually arrested and put in Munich jails. The journalists were banned from practicing their profession, struggled to find other work and deprived of their

pensions A pension (; ) is a fund into which amounts are paid regularly during an individual's working career, and from which periodic payments are made to support the person's retirement from work. A pension may be either a "defined benefit plan", wher ...

. Julius Zerfaß spent six months at the Dachau concentration camp.

Operations

The ''Munich Post'' did not pretend to be a neutral newspaper. The paper was one of the few early warning voices regarding the dangers posed by the rise of the

, although their warnings went largely unheeded at the time. The editors in charge of the Münchener Post's coverage of Hitler and the Nazis were Editor in Chief Erhard Auer, Editor Martin Gruber, Political Editor Edmund Goldschagg and Features Editor Julius Zerfaß.

Post-war importance to the Holocaust

In the 50th anniversary addition of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,

Ron Rosenbaum Ronald Rosenbaum (born November 27, 1946) is an American literary journalist, literary critic, and novelist. Early life and education Rosenbaum was born into a Jewish family in New York City and grew up in Bay Shore, New York, on Long Island. ...

discusses how the Post tried to expose the Nazi Party's plans of mass genocide and extermination of European Jews in the early 30s, to no avail.

References

Works cited

* Silvia Bittencourt (2013). A Cozinha Venenosa - Um Jornal contra Hitler. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Três Estrelas. . *

External links