Masthead of Der Angriff from 30. January 1933 (Machtergreifung of Adolf Hitler)

Der Angriff ("The Attack" in English) was a newspaper founded in 1927 by the Berlin Gau of the NSDAP. (Berlin chapter of the Nazi party.)

The newspaper was set up by Joseph Goebbels, after 1926 the Gauleiter of NSDAP in Berlin. The party provided most of the finances needed to run it. Willi Krause (under pen name Peter Hagen) was the first editor-in-chief. His successor was Julius Lippert, and from 1935 Goebbels' trusted friend Hans Schwarz van Berk.

Initially published as a weekly, later biweekly, it was turned into a daily in November 1930. The content was party propaganda, agitation against Weimar Republic, and antisemitism. The newspaper regularly attacked, among others, Bernhard Weiss, the Jewish vice-president of police in Berlin. ^[1] For this it was temporarily banned on November 4, 1931 by Albert Grzesinski, chief of police in Berlin.

The circulation in 1927 was around 2,000 copies, in 1936 146,694 copies and in 1944 306,000 copies.

After the Nazis seized political power in Germany (January 30, 1933), the importance of the newspaper slowly decreased. When Allies started bombing campaign against Berlin the circulation was increased to keep morale of Berliners up.

[edit] Trivia

In the movie Casablanca, a Nazi civilian whom Rick bars from the casino angrily says that he will report the snub to Der Angriff.

[edit] Notes

[edit] Literature

• Russel Lemmons: "Goebbels and Der Angriff", 1994, ISBN 978-0-8131-1848-2 (Google Books preview).
• Peter Stein: "Die NS-Gaupresse 1925-1933 Forschungsbericht - Quellenkritik - neue Bestandsaufnahme", 1987, ISBN 978-3-598-21299-4
• Joseph Goebbels: "Der Angriff. Aufsätze aus der Kampfzeit" (Der Angriff - essays from the time of struggle), Munich, 1935. Reprint of the essays in book form. Scanned version online.

[edit] External links

• Several pre-1933 essays by Goebbels from Der Angriff