Spezialpropaganda: The East German Military’s Covert Information-Warfare Program

Joe Cheravitch
©2026 Joe Cheravitch

ABSTRACT: This article details the East German military’s extensive, innovative covert-propaganda program, which was designed to influence West German attitudes for almost two decades during the Cold War. Unlike existing scholarship that primarily addresses intelligence-led disinformation, this study uniquely analyzes military-led information warfare. The article uses previously classified East German military records to examine capabilities and tactics ranging from fake conscription notices to radio broadcasts. The findings offer contemporary US military planners and practitioners insight into the complexities of integrating information-warfare capabilities, measuring the effectiveness of propaganda, and understanding adversarial influence campaigns, with direct implications for current Joint Force planning and doctrine.

Keywords: information warfare, information operations, propaganda, East Germany, intelligence

State-sponsored propaganda disseminated through digital means in the twenty-first century has invigorated interest in related Cold War–era activities such as intelligence services’ generation of disinformation. But, the role militaries played in foreign-facing propaganda efforts during the Cold War remains largely unexplored. For example, the East German People’s Army—in German, the Volksarmee or Nationale Volksarmee (NVA)—waged information warfare by smuggling leaflets and magazines across the East German–West German border, managing a radio station, and working with an association of former Wehrmacht (armed forces of the Third Reich) officers, among several other methods of influencing target audiences in West Germany. This kind of work was orchestrated by NVA political officers under the Main Political Administration—in German, the Politische Hauptverwaltung (PHV)—and specifically, by officers in the PHV 10th Independent Directorate, which was dedicated to information warfare. This article uses different terms (directorate versus department) when referring to the 10th Independent Directorate and its subordinate units, like the 14th Department, despite the fact they are all similarly referred to in German as abteilung. The article uses different translations of abteilung for these military formations simply to alleviate potential confusion about the subordination of units like the 14th Department to the 10th Independent Directorate (see figure 1).¹

This article uses previously classified NVA documents to illustrate the history of the East German People’s Army’s information-warfare program from its inception in the mid-1950s until 1972, when new policies surrounding détente drove East German leadership to cease almost all work on covert, foreign propaganda within the East German People’s Army. A few historical accounts, mostly published by veteran NVA propagandists, provide useful context and insight. The concluding section discusses the crossover between East German information warfare and modern states’ efforts to influence target audiences abroad.²

Defining Special Propaganda

The foremost responsibility of the Main Political Administration was to carry out the political and ideological education of friendly troops through lectures, print propaganda, and radio broadcasts, among other venues and methods. Nevertheless, the Main Political Administration’s propaganda-production infrastructure, plus its relative proximity to the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany—in German, the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands—which provided overarching guidelines for agitation and propaganda, meant the Main Political Administration was the most logical host for information warfare in the East German People’s Army. The Soviet military had entrusted political officers with information warfare since 1918, and the East German People’s Army based much of its information-warfare doctrine on the Soviet military’s experience. The Soviet military commonly referred to its brand of information warfare as special propaganda, a term the East German People’s Army adopted (spezialpropaganda).³

Special propaganda fixated on class conflict, mainly the notion that an imperialist system at war invariably consists of a ruling elite cynically goading ordinary soldiers to fight and die for the benefit of the elite. Effective special propaganda could expose this contradiction to enemy soldiers when persuading them to surrender, defect, or even mutiny. In 1963, the East German defense ministry’s formative guidance on special propaganda defined it as “ideological warfare against a likely enemy” that represented “an inseparable part of the ideological class struggle waged between the socialist and imperialist world systems.” Done effectively, special propaganda could achieve the disintegration (zersetzung) of an enemy. The East German People’s Army’s use of zersetzung is likely distinct from how the Stasi (East German secret police) used the term. The Stasi described psychological efforts to break down targeted individuals, such as political dissidents, as zersetzung. In 1964, for instance, PHV information-warfare officers referred to serialized magazines and gazettes provided to the West German military as “disintegration publications.” Special propaganda was likewise rooted in the idea that the intangible factors in warfare, such as morale, were as important as firepower or technological supremacy. Proponents of special propaganda within the East German People’s Army employed this argument to counter beliefs that the sheer destructiveness of nuclear arms and advanced technology obviated the need to influence foreign audiences. The notion special propaganda was “superfluous” because of modern weapons was “completely unfounded,” according to a lecture from April 1967, since a human “need for information” in difficult circumstances, alongside advances in psychology and cybernetics, meant special propaganda was more important than ever.⁴

For example, the Main Political Administration prepared to engage in special propaganda during a full-scale war with NATO by using enemy prisoners in captivity to conduct loudspeaker testimonials about good conditions on the front or by dropping leaflets from aircraft. The overarching objective of peacetime special propaganda was to reduce West Germany’s preparedness and willingness to go to war. West German military (Bundeswehr) personnel were the main—though not exclusive—audience for the 10th Independent Directorate’s leaflets, illustrated magazines, and radio broadcasts.⁵

The Main Political Administration’s 10th Independent Directorate engaged in peacetime special-propaganda activities for several reasons. Had war erupted, proximity to NATO forces may have thrust the East German People’s Army into the vanguard, and undermining the Bundeswehr and its allies’ morale and cohesion ahead of a conflict could help blunt NATO’s advance. Another leading driver of covert special propaganda was the perceived need to thwart West Germany’s acquisition of nuclear arms beginning in the 1950s: a fear exacerbated by West Germany’s accession to NATO.Finally, East Germany prioritized attaining diplomatic recognition, which elevated the importance of shaping public opinion in West Germany. Relatedly, border provocations and territorial violations were particularly important to national security, which ensured the NVA border troops and the navy (Volksmarine) would play a role in special propaganda.⁶

Former Officers and Early Covert Operations

East Germany’s defense ministry inaugurated a program to undermine perceived West German militarization in December 1954, when the ministry established an “Independent Department” under the Main Political Administration to carry out “anti-militaristic work” by using “existing contacts” among war veterans and military personnel in West Germany. The “existing contacts” at the department’s disposal amounted to the Association of Former Officers—in German, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemaliger Offiziere (AeO)—comprising high-ranking Wehrmacht officers who assisted the Soviet Union in distributing special propaganda after being captured during World War II. The 10th Independent Directorate, in a retrospective analysis completed in 1971, claimed the impetus for establishing the Association of Former Officers was the “increasingly aggressive policy of German militarism and imperialism” in West Germany that was exacerbated by “American help” in the late 1950s. As of its foundation, a secondary goal of the Association of Former Officers was to mount vigorous opposition to anti-Soviet propaganda emanating from West Germany.⁷

Shortly after its foundation, the Independent Department became the Main Political Administration’s 10th Independent Directorate and it gained a subordinate unit, the 14th Department, which managed covert operations such as conducting outreach to German war veterans (figure 1). The “basis and starting point” for the 14th Department was helping to organize a “Soldiers’ Conference” in East Berlin in late June 1955, which involved a group of West and East German war veterans signing a proclamation that was later posted in “clearly visible places” in West Germany. A CIA report about the event claimed its purpose was to establish “loose organizations” across East and West Germany, as participants were provided with printed copies of speeches delivered during the event so they could “discuss the points made in the various speeches.” The CIA assessed that 400 to 450 members attended the June conference, though the 14th Department reported similar engagements in September and October 1955 attracted 1,500 participants. In early November 1955, conference attendees also began printing two serial publications, the National Review and the Military-Political Forum, which received secret support from the 14th Department’s “Sector C.”⁸

Figure 1. Command and control of special propaganda, 1954–72
(Source: Created by author)

Yet this effort faltered for two main reasons. First, Sector C halted its operations in April 1958 and was disbanded a few months later because of an officer’s defection and the subsequent arrest of five volunteers in West Germany. In 1959, the 14th Department disbanded its foreign-language editorial teams, transferring three officers to the West German editorial office and the operational departments, because of a perceived need for a “fundamental change” in the department’s structure after “Comrade Höfer’s” defection. Second, the 14th Department was reportedly unable to influence the content of these veteran groups’ periodicals adequately, as officers failed to “assert themselves sufficiently” among West German partners to plant messages in either the National Review or Military-Political Forum. In particular, the 14th Department believed the National Review was a failure because of its “Nazi ideology” and “unfair attitude” toward East Germany. According to Sector C’s assessment of Military-Political Forum in 1957, the unpopularity of the Bundeswehr with West German veterans meant they rejected Military-Political Forum simply because of its title. Per its official history, the 14th Department received “little assistance” in its early work with covert agents. For instance, the department received minimal assistance from the more experienced Stasi, though the 14th Department claimed to have established a “direct connection” to the Stasi in 1960. Ultimately, the 14th Department assessed that its work in 1955 did not achieve the “main goal of working in the armed forces of the [Konrad] Adenauer regime” and failed to establish “independent bases” in West Germany.⁹

The Association of Former Officers remained a part of special propaganda until 1972. In 1961, the organization conducted a reportedly effective “special action” involving a brochure titled Overcoming War and Barbarism, ahead of West German elections in September. The brochure was supposedly well received by the German Peace Union Party. Beside this campaign, in 1961, the Association of Former Officers attempted to discover the addresses of veterans living in West Germany to broaden its list of letter recipients. In 1964, the Association of Former Officers recognized the number of Nazi veteran officers in East Germany was dwindling, which raised “the question of whether membership in the AeO should be restricted to war veterans.” As of 1965, the 10th Independent Directorate planned to use the AeO newsletter alongside radio broadcasts, serial publications, and “special campaigns” to portray West Germany as a state ruled by warmongers and to highlight “resistance forces” opposing the acquisition of nuclear arms and unspecified “war preparations.” The Association of Former Officers developed a new statute in 1966 that explicitly aligned the organization with East Germany and emphasized the organization’s roots in the National Committee for a Free Germany and the League of German Officers, which were Soviet-backed national fronts composed of German prisoners of war during World War II, and all “under the leadership of the German working class.” Regardless, much of the association’s routine work had remained unchanged since the 1950s. The fact that many war veterans had retired or passed away by the 1960s cast doubt on the AeO mission. Consequently, receding concerns about the potential for ex-Nazis in West Germany to drive a modern war influenced the 1971 decision to disband the Association of Former Officers. A main reason for this disbandment in late 1971 was because former Nazi officers in West Germany were becoming too old to participate in “potential aggression” toward East Germany.¹⁰

Aside from working with the Association of Former Officers, the 14th Department experimented with other channels for special propaganda in its early years. The department mailed letters and brochures directly to Bundeswehr personnel and potential draftees, including members of the “white generation,” or Germans who were born too early to serve during World War II but were too old to serve in the Bundeswehr. Special-propaganda letters began targeting Bundeswehr soldiers and officers between August and December 1956. The 14th Department reorganized itself, augmented its editorial staff, and gained two foreign-language editorial departments: one focused on the United States and the United Kingdom and the other focused on France. As part of its reorganization, the department was split into six sectors: Sector A for special propaganda targeting the Bundeswehr, Sector B for distribution, Sector C for outreach to veteran and other associations, Sector D for planning and logistics, Sector E for technology in “operational work”; and Sector F for the West German editorial staff. Also in 1956, Sector C was tasked with agitating resettled Germans who were expelled from land ceded to Poland after the war, turning them against “Bohner’s military policy.” Although the department eventually abandoned this effort later in the year in favor of targeting military-aged youth in West Germany more broadly. Between 1958 and 1960, the 14th Department also augmented its editorial staff and founded a “graphic artist collective” with two freelance illustrators to increase the visual appeal of its propaganda.¹¹

Correspondingly, the 14th Department broadened its work with agents in East and West Germany. East Germans with contacts across the border, referred to as “insulators,” voluntarily began providing the department with the addresses of Bundeswehr personnel. Insulators sometimes offered their personal correspondence with Bundeswehr personnel to help the 14th Department better understand its target audience, and insulators assisted in recruiting other agents and establishing ties to printing companies. The 14th Department also obtained addresses for “all social classes” through “scrapings” of entry permits for West Germans entering East Germany, and through telephone books. In 1957, the department reportedly established a “relatively stable organization” that included 60 agents to distribute materials in West Germany, including through shipping routes along the Elbe River. By 1958, the 14th Department had established seven regional centers in East Germany to assist in distributing covert special propaganda, including in Rostock, Erfurt, Halle, Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz), Suhl, and Schwerin. By 1959, the Department relied on “Operational Groups” in West Germany to deliver leaflets and brochures to Bundeswehr units garrisoned near the border. In 1959, the 14th Department reportedly expanded its mailing list for special propaganda from 43,903 addresses in January to 117,660 addresses by the end of the year, almost 11,000 belonging to Bundeswehr personnel and more than 21,000 belonging to potential Bundeswehr draftees. Abandoned suitcases capable of carrying up to 2,000 fake letters and suitcases with false bottoms were a popular way to smuggle special propaganda on cross-border trains or through express mail. By 1960, suitcases were sometimes placed in the ceiling hatch (deckenklappe) in the restrooms of West German train cars.¹²

The 14th Department’s Patrolman Meier brochures, aimed at West German border guards and riot police, provide a snapshot of the department’s covert-propaganda products. The Patrolman Meier brochures represent an early example of an important avenue of covert special propaganda: special actions (sonderaktionen) that focused on specific issues and target audiences. The brochures were bookended by pictures of women without any text: a tactic to attract readers and allow them to hold onto the brochures without raising suspicion from superiors (figure 2). The Patrolman Meier brochures, which ran from December 1956 through October 1957, featured reports purporting the cost of goods in West Germany was rising as border guards’ salaries shrank and state defense spending climbed. A total of 18,500 copies of the Patrolman Meier brochures were published and disseminated. Separately, in January 1957, the 14th Department began publishing a brochure titled Border Guard, with a circulation of 34,000 copies. The department temporarily stopped producing leaflets and brochures aimed at West German border troops in 1958, likely because its measurements indicated the campaign’s impact was insufficient. A year later, the 14th Department ran similar campaigns targeting the West German navy and airborne troops, though these campaigns, too, were canceled because of their apparent inefficacy. Nevertheless, in the first half of 1961, special actions comprised slightly less than 43 percent of the more than 1,500,000 propaganda products the 14th Department circulated. Based on a later summary of covert special propaganda, leaflets used in special actions made up around 40 percent of the 36,643,430 copies of secret “anti-militarist agitation and propaganda,” many of which misled the intended audience about their authorship.¹³

Figure 2. Cover and insert of Patrolman Meier 3 Says . . . circa 1957–58
(Source: Wachtmeister Meier 3 Meint, Harvard College Library Pamphlet Digitization Program, Harvard College Library, circa December 1956)

In some cases, the 14th Department granted the Operational Groups considerable autonomy to produce and disseminate leaflets for special actions. As of late 1958, the 14th Department maintained a network of 22 working groups in West Germany that consisted of 272 agents and two “printing works” capable of printing 60,000 to 80,000 leaflet copies monthly. In 1959, these working groups ran 30 campaigns involving 2,328,180 printed propaganda products “produced and distributed in West Germany.” The groups also managed 70 addresses in West Germany, to which the 14th Department delivered shipments of special propaganda. Of the 195 “actions” reported in 1959, 122 were “decentralized,” or carried out by Operational Groups, and roughly 38 percent of the products used in these operations were printed in West Germany. In 1959, the department hoped to empower agents to produce decentralized publications in their respective regions, particularly in regions where the Bundeswehr’s mountain and airborne divisions were based. Decentralized campaigns were given code names like “Saturn” and “Mercury,” some of them involving as many as 100,000 copies of a given propaganda product. Separately, posters offered a unique opportunity to have “mass impact,” because they “had the advantage of addressing a larger circle of recipients publicly” and they gave the impression that an organized opposition existed in West Germany. Reportedly, posters focused on depicting West German militarism, discrediting the US military, and other themes, and a total of 17,890 posters based on 16 different templates were used between the late 1950s and early 1970s.¹⁴

Special actions included disinformation, chiefly between the late 1950s and early 1960s. As of 1956, only two officers were available to print the “first forgeries” of conscription notices for West Germans eligible for military service. One officer, a Captain Bahle, also supposedly used a handheld printing press to generate 1,000 copies of the 14th Department’s first leaflet, titled Sexi. Insulators sometimes provided the 14th Department with forged documents it could use in special actions, like military discharge paperwork and deportation notices. In October 1956, a West German paper reported on a “fake letter” from an unknown source to “various people born in 1937.” On January 20, 1957, the paper Welt am Sonntag (World on Sunday) also published a warning from the West German defense ministry about fake conscription notices. Forgeries were mostly tied to the 14th Department’s goal of exacerbating West Germans’ supposed frustrations with the efforts to bring more soldiers into the Bundeswehr through “citizens in uniform,” though forgeries were canceled in 1960 because of a lack of perceptible impact.¹⁵

The East German People’s Army’s special-propaganda doctrine discouraged disinformation because it could achieve only temporary effects, it reduced a source’s credibility, and it raised suspicion. On disinformation and special propaganda, an East German defense ministry directive from early 1963 explained, “special propaganda must be truthful and credible, because justice and truth are on the side of socialism.” A manual from 1976 stated target audiences were a “partner” in communication that should not be misled. Yet, lying about the identity of a message’s author—a tactic broadly referred to as black propaganda—was supposedly necessary to avoid censorship and West Germans’ reflexive dismissals of messages overtly authored by East Germany. As of spring 1963, the Main Political Administration believed gray propaganda, which left authorship ambiguous, or black propaganda was necessary because “imperialist countries and armies” were undertaking widespread counterpropaganda efforts to promote anticommunist messages, which could lead to target audiences disregarding any message openly and officially authored by East Germany. An October 1968 manual stated covert special propaganda, in its “gray” and “black” forms, was “also possible and effective,” though its use “must be carefully considered.”¹⁶

Reversal campaigns (umkehr-aktionen) were another type of special action, which involved East German propagandists planting messages in magazines and journals made to resemble existing West German military publications or publications belonging to fake opposition groups within the Bundeswehr. For example, in March 1957, the 14th Department began publishing forged versions of the West German magazine Bundeswehr Correspondence. Unlike forged conscription notices and letters, reversal campaigns continued well into the 1960s. Similar to the forgeries of the mid-1950s, reversal actions could be undone through a “few small errors in the layout and text,” as was the case in an attempt to mimic a Bundeswehr magazine in fall 1967.¹⁷

The 14th Department also began printing long-running, serial propaganda products. These gazettes and magazines became a staple of covert special propaganda between the late 1950s and the early 1970s. Some of these serials were described as being the work of West German authors, whereas others lacked clear authorship. One of the earliest examples of the Department’s serialized propaganda was the magazine Soldatenfreund (Soldier’s Friend), which targeted younger Bundeswehr members. In 1961, the 14th Department reported West German workers and students were increasingly interested in Soldatenfreund, though only 37 of the gazette’s 212 subscribers were members of the Bundeswehr. Soldatenfreund was canceled in 1962 because it “no longer met growing demands” to meet the “special interests of young readership.” As observed in a declassified US military counterintelligence report, the February 1962 issue of Soldatenfreund highlighted a book published in the United States about US soldiers’ misconduct as prisoners of war on the Korean Peninsula. The report stated the book, “by innuendo,” attempted to “stress to the West German soldier the unreliability of his ally.” In April 1958, the 14th Department began publishing Wehrpolitik (Military Policy), which featured a “sober and serious” design and invited readers to provide comments and opinions. The 14th Department began soliciting feedback from readers of its serial publications in earnest in 1959, when the Department reported public statements from the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and the defense ministry inspired readers to submit 206 letters with “positive content,” though 201 letters were negative. Another long-running serial was Wahre Information für die Truppe (True Information for the Troops), made to resemble a publication by oppositionists in the Bundeswehr. Wahre Information für die Truppe ran from 1960 to 1972 and targeted junior Bundeswehr officers with a variety of messages, including messages that sought to antagonize junior officers against US soldiers based in West Germany.¹⁸

Working with defectors to East Germany became another important aspect of covert special propaganda, and such work became an explicit task of the 14th Department’s Sector A in 1957. The sector relied on Stasi officers and volunteers at reception centers to interview defectors indirectly, though the sector possibly met directly with 44 Bundeswehr defectors in 1958. In mid-1958, the 14th Department tentatively began collaborating in “discussions” with the Stasi to gain information from defectors. A year later, the Department reported meeting another 64 Bundeswehr defectors and 523 “young people,” mostly “draft dodgers.” Between May 1961 and July 1962, the 14th Department held five meetings with groups of defectors, usually comprising between 10 and 15 participants. Collaborating with Stasi departments on agitation and military counterintelligence enabled the 14th Department’s editorial personnel to work with a notable defector, Major Bruno Winzer, who began writing and reviewing articles and working with other defectors on behalf of the 14th Department. Winzer fled back to West Germany in 1987. Winzer also became an AeO member and contributed to that organization’s conferences. By the early 1960s, the 14th Department targeted Bundeswehr formations with appeals to defect to East Germany. Some of the appeals were authored by individuals who had already defected and were featured in serial publications like Kaserne (Barracks) and Soldatenfreund and were printed as stand-alone leaflets. As an example of a stand-alone leaflet, in 1961, the 14th Department employed four defectors to write personal appeals that were covertly disseminated as leaflets to soldiers in a Bundeswehr panzer battalion.¹⁹

Between the late 1950s and early 1960s, the 14th Department’s work suffered from severe shortcomings and hindrances, especially with agents in West Germany, who were overworked and underresourced. The Department’s inability to address these problems quickly may explain why it briefly ceded control over one of its serial propaganda publications, Kaserne, to the Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, a confederation of East German trade unions, between 1959 and 1960. In 1959, the Department was forced to cease contact with 117 of its existing agents, not to mention the 23 arrests and detainments that occurred that year. Of another 1,065 agents recruited in 1959, some 329 agents were released because of operational-security problems. West German countermeasures to restrict the distribution of covert propaganda exacerbated these difficulties. Relatedly, restrictions on border travel made distributing covert special propaganda more difficult. Because of the “enemy’s defensive measures,” 14th Department agents from East Germany had to travel 2,000 meters into West Germany to drop off covert-propaganda products, which West German volunteers then retrieved for delivery. In 1960, the 14th Department’s Operational Group in Magdeburg was forced to relocate due to the arrest of an agent named “Bensch,” who was also supposedly in contact with the CIA. Other shortcomings included a “significant reduction in foreign currency” in fall 1961 and the almost complete halting of cross-border traffic in the wake of the construction of the Berlin Wall. A closed border forced one Operational Group to stuff waterproof bags with leaflets and throw them into rivers along the border to be “fished out and read by the population.” The 14th Department placed some 30,000 propaganda products in rivers and on the Baltic Sea so they would wash ashore in West German territory, and Operational Groups also started using “specially prepared balls” filled with leaflets that instructed whoever found the balls to cut them open. Nonetheless, in 1960, the 14th Department reported success in establishing a few printing stations in the “capitalist abroad.”²⁰

To overcome some of its problems, the 14th Department’s Sector E pursued technical improvements in its operations. In the mid- to late 1950s, printing operations commonly used outsourcing to circumvent personnel and equipment deficiencies. In 1956, the 14th Department’s printers established a relationship with a “family business” in Katzhütte, which printed covert special-propaganda leaflets and brochures and early versions of Soldatenfreund and Defense Policy. Due to the distance between operatives and the Katzhütte firm, plus complaints about the quality of the firm’s printing, 14th Department printers contracted with a company called Ostsachsendruck in Görlitz, which—between August 1958 and August 1960—published Wahre Information für die Truppe and Defense Policy. The 14th Department also began conducting research on ways to improve its communications technology to ensure the security of its covert work with agents. This research led the Department to conduct experiments in signals intelligence and reportedly eavesdrop on “the enemy’s intelligence services.” In 1958, a volunteer helping the operational specialists develop secure radio communications established the “first connection to West Germany.” By 1959, the 14th Department was using the defense ministry’s telex network to maintain contact with agents in West Germany, with one officer receiving training in encryption. Additionally, operational technicians began researching smaller cameras, which were Operational Groups’ “main demand” for meetings and “work on the state border,” leading to the deployment of Minox cameras and tape recorders in 1960. The 14th Department also gained a photography laboratory to improve the quality of its propaganda products. Judging from West German press excerpts collected by the 14th Department, this laboratory improved the quality of the forgeries the Department used in special propaganda, though not without notable failures. An early example of 14th Department specialists engaging in graphic design and probable photo editing is a brochure that denigrated West German Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss by promoting rumors of adultery, corruption, and violent efforts to cover up criminal activity, combined with a picture of Strauss rapaciously trying to undress an anonymous woman. Whereas West Germany’s Rhineland Mercury reported in February 1957, “forgeries with the letterhead of military authorities” were sometimes “masterfully produced,” a January 1961 article in a West German military magazine claimed an attempt to fake Strauss’s signature represented a “clumsy attempt to accuse the Federal Government of nationalist, revanchist and warmongering intentions.”²¹

Sector E’s researchers also experimented with using rockets and balloons as a means of delivering propaganda to West Germans. The researchers prepared the equipment needed for “balloon actions,” which were first executed in mid-1958. Early balloon research was impeded by a catastrophic setback, when lithium hydroxide had “corrosive effects” on the “skin of those involved” in an experiment. Rockets, however, were more promising. Whereas in 1957, only one agent used a rocket to disseminate leaflets near a West German military installation, by 1961, Operational Groups reported carrying out 24 successful operations with rockets. Another experimental mechanism was the ball bomb (kugelbombe), a spherical projectile stuffed with leaflets, which was made available to Operational Groups in the early 1960s.²²

On September 27, 1963, in the wake of a West German “balloon campaign,” the 10th Independent Directorate launched a retaliatory, large-scale operation targeting border guards and local civilians. The operation, overseen by de facto head of state Walter Ulbricht, his eventual successor Erich Honecker, and Stasi Director Erich Mielke, involved 500 leaflet ball bombs, an equal number of handheld leaflet launchers, and 60 rockets to disseminate leaflets at 30 main points along the border. Nonetheless, because of strong, countervailing winds, many of the leaflets failed to reach their targets, with some drifting back into East Germany. Also in September 1963, the 14th Department’s technicians were confident enough in their work to exhibit propaganda-dissemination technology during a Warsaw Pact exercise in front of Ulbricht and representatives of the “sister socialist armies.”²³

Nonetheless, cooperation with Warsaw Pact partners on special propaganda before the mid-1960s was infrequent and limited in scope. In mid-1958, Rudolf Dölling, the outgoing head of the Main Political Administration and future ambassador to the Soviet Union, told future Defense Minister Heinz Hoffmann that the Main Political Administration had no plans to work directly with the Czechoslovak army on special propaganda despite conducting bilateral “consultations” on special propaganda in 1957. Yet, the Main Political Administration did not rule out a meeting between Czechoslovak political officers and the German Institute for Contemporary History, which served as a front for much of the Association of Former Officers’ work. The head of the Czechoslovak army’s Main Political Administration felt previous consultations had increased “operational readiness.” The East German People’s Army’s Czechoslovak counterparts were reportedly interested in how it organized special propaganda as well as its “experiences from agitation and propaganda work” in West Berlin, its experiences with counterpropaganda, its “experiences from the Second World War” involving work with prisoners of war, and other topics.²⁴

One-off demonstrations and rare exchanges slowly evolved into a more regular and formalized method of coordinating special propaganda across the Warsaw Pact, most likely under Soviet auspices. In late July 1961, Hoffmann sent reports about NVA covert special propaganda to Rodion Malinovsky, his Soviet counterpart, and asked the latter to forward the reports to the supreme commander of Warsaw Pact forces, Andrey Grechko. Also in 1961, the 14th Department conducted a demonstration of leaflet rockets for its Czechoslovak and Polish counterparts. According to a brief on special propaganda, the Soviet, Czechoslovak, and Polish militaries were identified as “extremely useful” partners in coordinating assessments of potential enemy states’ armed forces and societies. The first joint conference on special propaganda, held in 1965 in Jelenia Góra, Poland, catalyzed cooperation between Warsaw Pact members. The 1965 conference reportedly took place at the request of “Polish comrades.” By fall 1968, Warsaw Pact members’ respective special-propaganda departments aspired to share—in the event of a war—intelligence, experience, and “technical means.” Specialists in the East German People’s Army assisted their Warsaw Pact counterparts in “ideological warfare” by translating propaganda into German. As of April 1965, the Main Political Administration planned to cooperate with allied special-propaganda officers at the army and front-level commands through joint “operational groups.” As an example of technical means, in 1964, East German air force officers hoped to meet with their Soviet colleagues to discuss the potential use of Soviet remote-controlled aircraft to disseminate propaganda. In 1966, East German air force special-propaganda officers planned to meet with their Gruppe der Sowjetischen Streitkräfte in Deutschland (Group of Soviet Forces in Germany) colleagues to discuss “issues with radio propaganda.” The Hungarian army was seen as another useful partner in developing the East German People’s Army’s approach to disseminating special propaganda through radio. In March 1967, special-propaganda officers in the East German air force met with Polish air force officers to discuss future cooperation and a potential division of labor, in which East German officers would provide their Polish counterparts with information about West Germany, so the latter could focus on other NATO members.²⁵

Covert Ideological Struggle

Throughout the 1960s, the Main Political Administration’s 10th Independent Directorate expanded its covert special-propaganda operations targeting West Germany. Many of these operations were based on smuggling and distributing print propaganda. Yet, more personnel and resources led to new forms of clandestine operations, like radio broadcasts under the 9th Department, which was established in 1960. Between 1960 and the conclusion of the Basic Treaty in 1972, the 10th Independent Directorate’s specialists infused their work with new techniques and capabilities while engaging more with target audiences. For instance, to coordinate leaflet production more effectively, between November 1967 and April 1968, the 10th Independent Directorate established a “leaflet group” composed of leaders from the 7th, 9th, and 11th Departments.²⁶

Senior NVA and Socialist Unity Party of Germany leadership remained informed about developments related to covert special propaganda. In late July 1965, Admiral Waldemar Verner, head of the Main Political Administration, sent copies of a fabricated issue of the West German Der Spiegel (The Mirror) to Ulbricht, Honecker, and the East German People’s Army’s representative to the Warsaw Pact in Moscow. This operation was described as retaliation for a “very defamatory article” published about the East German People’s Army in an earlier, genuine edition of Der Spiegel. By 1967, the 10th Independent Directorate apprised military intelligence, the chief of the General Staff, and the secretary for West German affairs of its covert work, whereas Verner informed the Politburo about products disseminated in West Germany.²⁷

Activities performed by the Volksmarine exemplified the expansion of special propaganda beginning in the 1960s. As of 1968, the Main Political Administration assessed the West German navy had respective psychological-warfare detachments for the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Naval special propaganda was deemed important because of frequent encounters with foreign vessels, a perceived need to assert territorial control in the Baltic Sea, and naval officers’ roles in military diplomacy. For instance, in May 1966, the Volksmarine’s political department organized a visit by the French Communist Party—an event Ulbricht attended. Volksmarine special-propaganda officers, trained at military academies and civilian institutions, honed their skills by regularly contributing “military-political” material to a radio station based in Rostock. Senior special-propaganda instructors in the 7th Department’s first subdivision were expected to help manage special propaganda in the Volksmarine, among many other duties. In determining the distribution of special-propaganda responsibilities between land forces and the Volksmarine, by late 1968, the “rule of thumb” (by which any maritime matters were the responsibility of the navy, whereas any land-based target audiences were the responsibility of the land forces) was “unsustainable,” as many targets of naval interest were land-based. As of November 1968, the Volksmarine had established connections to the Greifswald Nordic Institute and the political department of the merchant marine to obtain better information on NATO members operating in the Baltic Sea.²⁸

One of the earliest examples of the Volksmarine’s covert special propaganda occurred on the night of August 11, 1964, in the North Sea in front of the East Frisian Islands, when Volksmarine ships lowered capsules filled with propaganda leaflets into the water so they would drift ashore in West Germany. Similarly, on April 30, 1969, a Volksmarine vessel released East German newspapers, which West German sailors on a speedboat reportedly picked up and read. A month earlier, a West German fishing boat allegedly violated territorial waters, and a Volksmarine ship opened fire on the fishing boat with small arms, though no casualties resulted. The Western press’s reported reaction to the incident led the Volksmarine’s political department to believe the event was part of a “conscious and prepared action.”²⁹

Between the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Volksmarine worked out a system of “offensive reactions” that involved using special propaganda if harassed and provoked. These reactions included using loudspeakers, conducting “skillful” naval maneuvering, and disseminating leaflets. By late 1968, the Volksmarine had adopted “amplified loudspeaker technology” for the 1st Flotilla and 6th Coastal Border Brigade to use in special propaganda. After spring 1968, the land forces assessed some of their printing equipment to be inadequate and handed it down to the Volksmarine, likely demonstrating the Volksmarine’s preference for loudspeakers over leaflets. Understanding the Volksmarine’s target audiences, like West German and Danish sailors, necessitated close cooperation with naval intelligence, and the relationship between special propaganda officers and naval intelligence was judged to be “very good” as of the mid-1960s. In fact, by 1968, the Volksmarine’s special-propaganda department received a “daily briefing” from a naval intelligence officer. By early 1968, the East German navy had established a “permanent listening service” to collect intelligence on the West German navy for special-propaganda purposes. The equipment was incapable of carrying out the continuous, “seamless interception” of West German radio traffic. The Volksmarine’s subdepartment for special propaganda was responsible for studying enemy “military policy” and analyzing target audiences such as West German naval personnel and civilians along “the coastal area.” Specific target audiences for Volksmarine special propaganda included the Danish “naval home guard,” West German naval pilots, and enemy submarine crews, who would receive the message: “Submarines in the Baltic Sea are like carp in a bathtub—quick to catch.”³⁰

The Volksmarine also gradually began to cooperate with Warsaw Pact partners more frequently, especially partners with a stake in Baltic security. In July 1968, the East German, Polish, and Soviet navies performed special-propaganda tasks during an exercise called “North,” which reportedly demonstrated a need to collaborate more closely on related issues, establish a “command of the Russian language” when conducting joint operations, and make a permanent position concerning special propaganda for naval liaison officers. Volksmarine officers later conducted special propaganda alongside representatives from the Soviet Baltic Fleet and the Polish navy during the Baltika-72 exercise. Additionally, Volksmarine special propagandists supposedly helped partners prepare for the Third International Conference on Special Propaganda, which was held in Berlin in late April 1969.³¹

Beginning in the mid-1960s, special propaganda was further integrated with signals intelligence, though much of this integration had to do with a wartime contingency. The proliferation of radio equipment meant the need for radio-based “ideological-psychological” operations and “psychological effects” was growing, though successfully executing these operations would involve considerable time and resources. For example, as of the mid-1960s, East German air force officers assessed radio was the best means of influencing enemy pilots and personnel at ground stations—but problems with “penetrating the networks” of enemy pilots required further study. As of 1964, East German air force officers believed they would have to coordinate with electronic warfare specialists in their efforts to penetrate enemy radio networks for special-propaganda tasks. As of mid-1966, the East German air force hoped to improve its understanding of how jamming could apply to its special-propaganda operations.³²

The successful merging of signals intelligence with special propaganda relied heavily on improving technical training, which translated to providing instruction at specific NVA facilities and units. For example, in 1970, the 10th Independent Directorate reportedly planned to train some of its officers at an unspecified unit based in Dessau, and a year later, the Main Political Administration identified the East German People’s Army’s 2nd Radio Reconnaissance Regiment (Funkaufklärungsregiment) as a provider of “special training.” By the early 1970s, the East German People’s Army was likely capable of standing up impromptu “radio groups” for special propaganda before the onset of an imminent war. These groups were led by a senior special-propaganda instructor who was responsible for delivering all radio messaging, handling logistics, and maintaining contact with the superior political unit. According to a 1971 PHV study, officers assigned to “radio groups” needed at least a 10th-grade education, “dialect-free” High German, the ability to learn other dialects, a basic knowledge of English, and the ability to obtain a “level II” clearance. The use of signals intelligence for special-propaganda purposes continued well into the 1980s—one of the few covert activities that was still permissible following the conclusion of the Basic Treaty. For example, in April 1983, the NVA Military District V reported difficulties with monitoring and processing the “enemy’s radio and television broadcasts,” partly because “daily wiretapping was not guaranteed.” Additionally, using this information for “political work”—which probably included creating lectures and briefings on subversive propaganda for NVA units—was time consuming. Ahead of the “Brotherhood in Arms Week” and other joint activities in 1986, Military District V was to increase its collaboration with intelligence units to achieve “realistic assessments” of the enemy. Orders from 1986 called for the “constant interception and analysis of enemy transmissions,” which would be “verified, processed and presented once a week” to leadership.³³

Meanwhile, the 14th Department continued its involvement in covert special propaganda, though the department was stripped of some of its editorial staff and became focused on managing agent networks and distribution. By 1964, other duties had been assigned to the 7th Department, which had two subdivisions—one for conducting analysis, publishing regular bulletins and “special information,” and informing leadership about important issues, and another subdivision for “ensuring the measures of special propaganda” targeting West Germany and training reservists and allied liaisons. In 1967, the 7th Department’s first subdivision was transformed into a new 11th Department, initially staffed by at least 38 military officers and civilians and headquartered at the defense ministry in Strausberg. The 11th Department described itself as the “gray” voice of the East German People’s Army, referring to gray propaganda. The 11th Department also worked “in close cooperation” with the 7th Department, primarily in determining which audiences to target. As of mid-1970, the 11th Department’s tasks included increasing the “effectiveness of agitational means used on the western state border” and propagandizing the “troops and the population in West Germany.”³⁴

Although propagandists were discouraged from fabricating information, the information in leaflets, magazines, and radio broadcasts was often presented selectively and without necessary context. As an example, a 10th Independent Directorate leaflet from 1965 used vague language and an image originally from an atomic-mine test in the United States—republished in a Bundeswehr journal—to imply West Germany planned to deploy American-made atomic mines along the German border (figure 3). That leaflet was part of a larger campaign in summer 1965, which involved some 724,000 leaflets called “border crosser” (grenzlandfahrer) that targeted West German civilians living near or transiting the border, customs officials, and military personnel. Related to the 1965 atomic-mine leaflet, Joseph Gordon, a US defense scholar in the late 1980s, explained, “Although these leaflets perpetrated no lies, which the assertion that atomic mines were in place on the inner-German border would have been, they conveyed the impression that the border was a death zone in which every atomic-mine explosion would bring a repetition of Hiroshima.”³⁵

Figure 3. Leaflet featuring atomic mines, 1965
(Source: BMA-F, DVP 1/12815, 199)

Attaining better and more reliable ways to measure the impact of printed products helped special-propaganda officers determine what worked. Officers increasingly emphasized the feedback readers submitted via letters to editors and annual reports on subscription requests when qualitatively and quantitatively evaluating the resonance of publications. Officers included positive and negative feedback in reports. For example, in 1963, the 14th Department reported 9.6 percent of letters other than subscription requests were positive, and 12.5 percent reflected negative viewpoints. In 1965, the 14th Department reported much of the negative feedback from readers was directed at the “anti-fascist protective wall” and Ulbricht. In December 1968, the 11th Department reported that, though the number of negative responses submitted via mail increased from 84 to 138 between 1967 and 1968, the number of positive responses grew from 261 to 338 over the same period. The 11th Department’s editors supposedly responded to all letters and sometimes even published negative letters from readers in its magazines, such as Contra and Rührt Euch (At Ease).³⁶

Officers continued monitoring West German press for reverberations of their work, coverage of which vacillated between characterizing the work as “anti-communist incitement” and providing objective accounts of the propaganda’s “scope and effectiveness.” In 1966, the 11th Department reported West German press and authorities’ defector statements and reactions to operations confirmed the efficacy of the department’s work. Between 1961 and 1967, the serial publication Soldatenbriefe (Soldiers’ Letters) often featured appeals from Bundeswehr defectors and servicemembers’ families, written in a familiar and personal style. The 11th Department also continued the practice of occasionally soliciting content from outside authors and maintained a pool of “verified freelancers” who worked in various governmental and state-media positions.³⁷

Contra, the successor to Kaserne, was the flagship covert special-propaganda magazine throughout the 1960s, and its purported resonance among West Germans was attributed to its journalistic techniques, such as providing commentary, featuring permanent columns, and using a “modern, casual, tasteful design.” In a review of its work from 1964, the 14th Department credited Contra’s improved journalistic quality with inspiring an unprecedented level of reader engagement. In December 1968, the department head praised Contra’s ability to engage readers with “democratic” and pacifist messaging. A positive response from a Contra reader claimed the magazine finally changed his mind about the “state of affairs of the Bonn government,” indicating Contra and similar publications had at least a minimal effect on ideologically unaligned readers. Yet, other feedback on Contra showed mixed results, and quantitatively, Contra’s ratio of total copies printed to reader engagement in the form of letters and subscriptions was lower than many other serial publications (table 1). In the mid-1960s, the 11th Department reported Contra attracted too much attention at West German “postal control points,” suggesting West German efforts to suppress Contra may have contributed to the magazine’s low feedback-to-subscription ratio. As an example of negative feedback on Contra, a reader named “Heinrich” described an instance when, despite her earlier travel to East Germany, the state repeatedly denied entry to a West German woman who wanted to visit friends. The reader stated this story made the messages published in Contra “hard to believe.” Reportedly, in 1966, “greater expertise” allowed for better covert special-propaganda content, since this expertise provided more details on internal Bundeswehr affairs and better allowed propagandists to adapt to changing circumstances.³⁸

One of the more provocative tactics employed to gain potential readers’ attention was adding nude photographs of women to serial productions (particularly Rührt Euch and Contra) beginning between 1963 and 1964, to appeal to the “mindset of young soldiers.” Similar to the photographs used years earlier in the Patrolman Meier brochure series, the 11th Department saw “pictures of girls” as a means of boosting subscription requests and as a gateway to political content. In 1966, the 10th Independent Directorate reported issue 11 of Rührt Euch informed its readers they could request photos of women, which led to a twofold surge in reader engagement by the following issue. As reported in late 1969, requests for pictures of women were “increasingly linked” to opinions on political content in Rührt Euch. In 1965, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany central committee brought to Verner’s attention a recent West German press report about the pictures of women featured in covert special propaganda—including the pictures in Rührt Euch—as well as soccer balls filled with leaflets. Whether the tactic of publishing photos of women drew more readers to engage with special propaganda’s messaging is dubious. A Bundeswehr psychological-warfare officer, appearing on television in the mid-1960s, reportedly claimed these pictures demonstrated “the communists are learning” and were adaptable. Nevertheless, the 11th Department reportedly received only a “relatively small number of letters” from Bundeswehr personnel for its serial-propaganda magazines and gazettes, though this lack of letters was attributed to the need for Bundeswehr readers to “conceal their affiliation.” Overall, the 11th Department was pleased enough with its serial publications, especially Contra, that it planned to introduce a new and improved version. This new publication was to be published in 1972 as Dran (On it), though these plans were nullified by the propaganda armistice that year. Dran would pretend to be the product of young, “anti-imperialist,” and pacifist members of the Bundeswehr, and the journal’s target audiences were soldiers, noncommissioned officers, reservists, and young people living near West German garrisons. Each issue would consist of 56 pages, eight of which would be “art prints.”³⁹

The most impactful development in covert special propaganda was the introduction of radio broadcasting. October 1960, marked the inaugural broadcast of German Soldiers’ Radio—in German, Deutsche Soldatensender—which was entirely managed by the 9th Department. The inaugural broadcast featured a recording of a speech by Erich Honecker. German Soldiers’ Radio, also referred to as “Radio 935” because of its broadcast frequency, was headquartered in Grünau, and its staff consisted of civilians and military officers with varying backgrounds. The station was headed by Lieutenant Colonel Erhardt Reichardt, who had previous journalistic experience from his work at Radio DDR. Lea Grosse, an editor for German Soldiers’ Radio in its early years, worked for Soviet special propagandists during World War II and also had experience in broadcasting.⁴⁰

The station’s broadcasters, who occasionally used pseudonyms while on-air, never mentioned their true locations or identities. A broadcast from December 1960, for example, was criticized for being too noticeably “enthusiastic” about East German policy, which required the broadcasters to adopt a more objective approach to messaging and a “greater distance.” In the early 1970s, staff members were instructed not to allow their gray voice to become “too obvious” in challenging listeners’ possible belief that German Soldiers’ Radio was based in East Germany. This vague approach to self-identification sometimes led to confusion when distinguishing German Soldiers’ Radio from its sibling station, Freedom Radio 904, managed by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Jürgen Wilke explained, the positions of Freedom Radio 904 and German Soldiers’ Radio on the frequency scale were close enough to confuse many listeners about the stations’ identities.⁴¹

The themes of the propaganda on German Soldiers’ Radio mirrored the themes in print propaganda, and in early 1961, the 9th Department hoped to emulate the 14th Department’s ability to plan “special propaganda focus areas” thoroughly. In 1961, the station’s main themes were placing a positive spin on the construction of the Berlin Wall, highlighting the Bay of Pigs invasion as an example of US militarism and aggression, and providing commentary surrounding the NATO exercise Winter Shield. In 1961, ahead of Winter Shield, the 9th Department sought specific details about the 11th Panzer Grenadier Brigade and the “54th Panzer Brigade” to address family members of those units’ personnel. By the mid-1960s, much of the station’s programming attempted to undermine the Bundeswehr while promoting the strength and unity of the Warsaw Pact. The 9th Department staff believed the propaganda centered on the F-104 Starfighter, which took place between 1965 and 1966 and focused on the mechanical failures of the aircraft in West German service as well as the corruption surrounding its procurement, was particularly influential. During the same period, Radio 935 interviewed the sole survivor of the West German submarine Hai, which sank in fall 1966. Messaging surrounding the F-104 and the Hai incident, coupled with coverage of the Vietnam War, reportedly inspired emotional responses in German Soldiers’ Radio’s target audiences.⁴²

Political content was interspersed with popular songs, which enhanced the station’s popularity. As of 1971, German Soldiers’ Radio’s musical programming was to feature regular disc-jockey programs and find songs that appealed to a broad swath of people to achieve a greater “emotional impact” when introducing them to political content. The 9th Department described its mission to influence the Bundeswehr and young West Germans as “specific and with no precedent,” which necessitated “special measures” that amounted to playing current, popular music to draw in youthful listeners. West Germans often contacted German Soldiers’ Radio to request songs or send greetings to friends and family, though the 9th Department questioned whether listeners’ interests in music broadcasts translated to interest in the station’s political messages. Reports usually acknowledged the “vast majority of listeners” tuned in for “western-style music broadcasts,” though they may have accepted political messaging as an “unavoidable addition.” A 1968 analysis of German Soldiers’ Radio’s listeners revealed the majority were politically agnostic and listened to the station for its musical or other content, though a second group that comprised fewer listeners was more politically engaged and could “serve as a multiplier” of the station’s messages.⁴³

The 9th Department prioritized engagement with German Soldiers’ Radio listeners. In fall 1971, German Soldiers’ Radio surveyed its listeners about prospective broadcast changes, then implemented them and raised awareness of the changes through another letter to listeners. The letter explained midday programming had expanded slightly at the expense of morning and evening broadcasting schedules. Letters provided insight into target audiences’ attitudes toward programming, which station staff used to refine broadcasts (table 2). Moreover, the 9th Department corresponded with West German youth and Bundeswehr personnel to encourage them to act as “multipliers for further dissemination of the station’s arguments.” Between 1965 and 1966, Radio 935 reportedly received a daily average of 94 letters from listeners in the West. In the first half of 1967 alone, German Soldiers’ Radio received 19,267 letters, almost the total amount of letters the 14th and 11th Departments received (table 1) in response to their serialized magazines and gazettes between 1957 and 1972. With the approval of the head of the 10th Independent Directorate, broadcasters’ autographs were even provided upon listeners’ requests, starting in 1969. In the first 10 months of 1970, listener feedback grew by nearly 200 percent when compared to the same period in 1969. The 14th Department reportedly facilitated correspondence for German Soldiers’ Radio through an address under the alias “Werner Schütz.”⁴⁴

In its early years, German Soldiers’ Radio incorporated the defector Bruno Winzer into its broadcasting for his ability to speak the “language of soldiers and officers” and combine “factual arguments” with “past experience.” In March 1961, the 9th Department hoped to set up a “monthly rotation” with Winzer and veterans Heinrich Homann and Martin Lattmann. Curiously, Kaiser vehemently refuted the idea Winzer served German Soldiers’ Radio in any meaningful capacity apart from “a few rare text contributions.” Kaiser’s downplaying of Winzer’s role likely reflects his frustration with the way West German sources characterized German Soldiers’ Radio in its early years as merely a mouthpiece for Winzer, who—in the early 1960s—was omnipresent in special-propaganda efforts ranging from the Association of Former Officers to serial publications. Aside from defectors, the 9th Department also solicited content from freelancers, including some in West Germany, though this work required PHV leadership’s authorization. As of 1965, the 9th Department hoped to increase its use of “freelance employees” for “editorial and speaker roles.” In 1969, the 9th Department developed “new connections” with West German groups and outlets, among them the lead editor of (R)EVOLUTION, described as a popular magazine among West German students. When (R)EVOLUTION directly asked 9th Department officers about the location of German Soldiers’ Radio, the officers—through “Werner Schütz”—implied the station’s location was in West Germany, though avoided explicitly saying so.⁴⁵

Nonetheless, German Soldiers’ Radio experienced friction between its civilian staff and the military culture surrounding the 9th Department. Judging from a report on internal party work, as early as 1962, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany was uncomfortable with 9th Department employees’ access to “Western literature,” which partly drove a redoubling of “political education.” The Socialist Unity Party of Germany’s long-standing unease with the apparent disorder in the 9th Department led to the assignment of a new commander by December 1967. New policies prohibited staff from addressing one another by their first names and introduced sweeping organizational changes, such as creating “informal groups” for reviewing programming and “closed production teams,” akin to the methods used at East Germany’s State Radio Broadcasting Committee. These changes involved a reorganization into seven subdepartments, respectively tasked with midday programming, evening programming, music, news, listener feedback, technology, and security. These changes drove several staff members to quit, and Kaiser claimed these exits engendered an era of stagnation and uninspired broadcasting. In 1971, the 9th Department acknowledged high turnover and the recent departure of five staff members, though it reported no specific cause of these departures. Yet, amid these tensions, the 9th Department consistently received accolades and praise. Between early 1969 and early 1971, 101 party members and candidates in the 9th Department received some type of commendation for their work. In a letter to Verner on December 8, 1970, Albert Norden, one of East Germany’s most senior propagandists, congratulated Verner on the 10th anniversary of the “soldiers’ radio station’s programs,” which displayed a “wealth of ideas in journalistic work.”⁴⁶

At the same time, the East German People’s Army’s border troops became an integral partner in covert operations. Beginning in the early 1960s, loudspeaker exchanges placed border troops in the vanguard of ideological struggle, and they quickly became a conduit for other forms of special propaganda. In May 1963, the East German Second Border Brigade, based near Groß Glienicke in Berlin, repeatedly conducted broadcasts refuting a recent claim made by West Germany’s “Studio at the Barbed Wire” (Studio am Stacheldraht) radio station, which supposedly drove a pause in the latter station’s broadcasts. Between 1963 and 1971, the border troops helped disseminate some 14,431,000 copies of 157 different leaflet types along the border with West Germany. In 1964, the 14th Department distributed some 520,000 leaflets to the East German border troops for “special operations on the western state border.” By 1970, the 11th Department was explicitly responsible for designing and producing the leaflets NVA border troops disseminated.⁴⁷

Special-propaganda officers assigned to the border troops used leaflet rockets and ball bombs and even executed brief incursions across the border to disseminate special-propaganda leaflets and set up billboards and posters. Such propaganda products targeted West German border forces, civilians living along the border, and travelers, and their main goal was to expose West German militarism and contrast it with East Germany’s desire for peace, the key to which was West Germany providing diplomatic recognition of East Germany. In April 1967, leaflet drafts the border troops submitted to the 10th Independent Directorate concentrated on portraying West Germany’s government as an obstacle to rapprochement. Most operations needed approval from senior officers, though broadcasts featuring prerecorded and approved scripts were mainly executed at the discretion of mid-level officers. A 1970 directive from the commander of the Third Border Guard Brigade demonstrates only the brigade’s senior special-propaganda instructor and the commander of the Sixth Border Guard Regiment, both majors, were authorized to conduct loudspeaker broadcasts outside prerecorded and preapproved messages.⁴⁸

Border troops were also a reliable avenue for collecting intelligence and analyzing target audiences. In January 1969, special-propaganda guidance for the Third Border Guard Brigade called for close collaboration between the unit’s special-propaganda and intelligence officers. As of the late 1960s, political officers assigned to the border troops were ordered to study “the psychological state” and the “political-ideological stance” of West German troops and civilians across the border. The “Berlin city command” was often included in border considerations related to special propaganda, including routine assessments of West German and NATO troops stationed in West Berlin and helped in “carrying out special propaganda measures.” Like the Volksmarine, the border troops recorded hostile propaganda and provided reports to political officers and the Stasi. Standing practice as of 1969 involved close coordination between the most senior special-propaganda officer assigned to the NVA border troops and the Stasi. Surrounding the anniversary of the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1971, the political department of the NVA 35th Border Regiment noted an 80 percent increase in “provocations” and a 150 percent growth in “ideological diversion” from West Germany, which included verbal appeals to desert, insults, newspapers thrown across the border, and—in two cases—displays of “nude photos.”⁴⁹

At least some evidence indicates the border troops were occasionally unenthusiastic about special propaganda. An 11th Department report from 1966 claimed the East German border troops often failed to conduct adequate target-audience analysis of their West German counterparts, which was “reflected in the proposals and drafts” in leaflets designed for West German border forces. In 1969, West German press reported on an incident in Lower Saxony, when NVA border troops drove a truck across the border to dump 50,000 leaflets in one spot and promptly retreated. Nevertheless, the border troops represent one of the few examples of continued special-propaganda activities after the conclusion of the Basic Treaty. Ahead of the 10th World Festival of Youth and Students in late summer 1973, East German border troops were permitted to engage in loudspeaker broadcasts and disseminate leaflets to refute preemptively the anticipated West German propaganda surrounding the event. The 10th Independent Directorate was to produce prerecorded tapes for loudspeaker broadcasts and leaflets, which would be disseminated—if necessary—by the “Political Brigade” deployed to Adlershof, which was possibly a task force established solely for the event.⁵⁰

The Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in late August 1968 became an ideological flash point for covert NVA special propaganda. Like other Warsaw Pact members, the 10th Independent Directorate assumed protests in Czechoslovakia were organized abroad, using nationalism as a “crowbar against socialism” and as an imperialist “trojan horse” of West Germany’s “new Eastern Policy.” A classified 1970 manual on radio propaganda pointed to Western “bourgeoisie” hypocrisy in limiting freedom of expression where it controlled the media but calling for “non-partisan” information in the case of Czechoslovakia. Characterizing the unrest fueling the Prague Spring as a product of foreign meddling tacitly justified the involvement of military organizations in suppressing it. In 1970, the 10th Independent Directorate reported the “fraternal armies” deployed radio equipment to Czechoslovakia in fall 1968 to broadcast “truthful information.” These radio deployments included a Polish military R-110 station with a reported range of 60 to 80 kilometers. During the Prague Spring, the 11th Department implemented longer “listening duties” to help prepare reports about “enemy television and radio” broadcasts.⁵¹

For its part, the Socialist Unity Party of Germany oversaw “Radio Moldau” (alternatively Radio Vltava) based near Dresden: a black-propaganda radio station masquerading as Czechoslovak journalists opposed to the reform movement. Although Gerd Kaiser stated his colleagues lent no support to Radio Moldau, the official, classified chronology of his department’s work contradicts this claim. Kaiser additionally claimed the official chronology he authored in 1968 is now missing, and a subsequent version by a different author is the only version available in the federal archives. On August 20, 1968, the 10th Independent Directorate ordered three 9th Department officers to provide “military-political” and journalistic assistance to Radio Moldau, and the officers remained with the station for several weeks. A summary of a meeting of 10th Independent Directorate leaders, held on October 6, 1968, praised personnel for their loyalty, readiness, initiative, and “physical endurance” during the invasion, adding military and civilian specialists supporting these operations displayed “hardly any difference.” The meeting also focused on specific lessons gained from using radio during the invasion, including “coordination and cooperation” between different stations and the extent to which radio stations should reflect official or “semi-official” propaganda lines. Beyond providing direct support for the invasion, 10th Independent Directorate officers and the Association of Former Officers tried to manage the fierce backlash from readers of special-propaganda serials and German Soldiers’ Radio listeners. Not since the construction of the Berlin Wall had the 10th Independent Directorate faced such a crisis in its messaging, and the directorate was just as constrained in its ability to describe the invasion euphemistically, which was apparent in listener feedback. As “Helmut” from Aachen claimed, the invasion of Czechoslovakia ruined positive relations between East and West Germany, and he underlined the irony of German soldiers “in nearly the same uniforms” invading Czechoslovakia almost exactly 30 years after Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht had done so.⁵²

East and West Germany reached a de facto propaganda armistice that went into effect on July 1, 1972, ahead of the Basic Treaty, which was signed in December 1972. Much of the 10th Independent Directorate was informed only a day earlier about an order from the defense ministry to halt its work at midnight. This order marked the almost-complete end of special-propaganda operations as the directorate had known them since the mid-1950s. The 10th Independent Directorate persisted beyond 1972, but its constituent departments were dismembered and reorganized into much smaller formations. In fall 1972, the 10th Independent Directorate’s staff was reduced by about two-thirds. The 11th Department simultaneously transferred its printing capacity to the new Second Propaganda Brigade headquartered in Strausberg. According to classified plans for a field exercise in 1980, the East German People’s Army’s Second Propaganda Brigade had at its disposal mobile printing equipment, loudspeakers, and agitation bombs and rockets. Other specialists and equipment probably were transferred to the “propaganda companies” at the military districts and the Volksmarine’s 18th Propaganda Company. Special-propaganda work under these new formations amounted to monitoring foreign media, supporting military exercises, and working with military intelligence and Warsaw Pact allies to acquire information about NATO forces. As an example of NVA special-propaganda activities in the later years of the Cold War, in May 1987, the 18th Propaganda Company worked for the first time with technical radio-propaganda specialists, as well as the Second Propaganda Brigade, during a field exercise. The exercise involved rebroadcasts of friendly state news agencies from Moscow, Pyongyang, Hanoi, Budapest, Tirana, and Belgrade. The company likely also worked with a “special technology group” to assist Warsaw Pact allies in conducting notional special-propaganda operations during the exercise.⁵³

Examining the 10th Independent Directorate’s history provides little reason to believe covert special propaganda significantly contributed to public discontent with the West German government or lasting disorder in the Bundeswehr—the directorate’s main target audience. The letters detailing isolated cases of discontent in Bundeswehr units, which were sent to German Soldiers’ Radio, hardly signified any sort of meaningful, prerevolutionary angst and were instead reflections of frustrations with things like hazing, abuse of command, or corruption within a given unit. Periods of dissatisfaction with civil-military issues in West Germany, like frustration with conscription policy, were not sparked by special-propaganda revelations. Instead, such periods were sparked by genuine concerns identified by West Germans and resolved through some combination of public debate, governmental action, and elections. Thus, when “thinking about tomorrow,” as a draft leaflet from fall 1968 urged its readers to do, most West Germans hardly contemplated NVA messages, and the Bundeswehr was no closer to disintegration in 1972 than it was when special propaganda began circulating in the mid-1950s.⁵⁴

Although some successes apparently occurred, they were small-scale and fleeting. Calling out ex-Nazis in the Bundeswehr or in the West German government probably represents one of the more effective and consistent themes of special propaganda. But in the case of the Association of Former Officers, issuing callouts through an organization comprising ex-Nazi officers, many of whom shifted their allegiance to the Soviets late in the war, was obviously hypocritical. Techniques aimed at increasing the appeal of special propaganda, like including lascivious photos in magazines or playing popular music through German Soldiers’ Radio, failed to bridge target audiences’ interests with political themes. Studies surrounding online clickbait and whether it can effectively guide viewers of a website to political content is a modern manifestation of this issue.⁵⁵

Implications

Contemporary US military planners, practitioners, and their allies and partners could benefit from heeding the lessons of spezialpropaganda. Like the East German People’s Army, militaries that emphasize the intangible factors of conflict are generally better at overcoming bureaucratic and conceptual boundaries between the various elements of information warfare. The modern Chinese, Russian, and North Korean militaries, for example, thoroughly integrate domestic and foreign propaganda, cyberoperations, intelligence, and electronic warfare through a holistic approach to information warfare. Similar to the East German People’s Army, these militaries perceive few boundaries between relevant military domains and functions and perceive an erosion of the boundaries between distinct periods of war and peace. This erosion means military organizations, just as in Cold War–era Germany, play important roles in peacetime information warfare. Whereas adversaries—like the East German People’s Army—suffer from organizational friction and shortfalls, the importance they ascribe to information warfare helps facilitate decisions about authorities and responsibilities and optimizes available resources. Comparatively, the US military has struggled to articulate a coherent approach of its own, especially concerning peacetime competition, that could serve as a basis for stronger ties between the array of commands and formations responsible for everything from public affairs to offensive cyberoperations.

An emphasis on information warfare also drove NVA specialists to innovate and adopt new methods of carrying out their operations. The PHV 10th Independent Directorate inaugurated its signals intelligence capabilities partly by working with amateur radio specialists. Moreover, NVA specialists considered using unmanned aerial vehicles to drop propaganda over enemy positions roughly half a century before drones were used to disseminate messages—albeit through digital means—to combatants on the battlefield. Contemporary militaries that compete with the United States share the East German People’s Army’s belief that new technology presents both a threat and an opportunity. The prevalence of this belief means organizations responsible for protecting networks and identifying threats must analyze existing means and techniques at the adversary’s disposal and anticipate emerging means and techniques. This imperative is underscored, for example, by the growing role of generative artificial intelligence in online propaganda campaigns and cyberoperations.⁵⁶

A paradoxical issue the 10th Independent Directorate faced was its reliance on external partners in conducting operations. Although these partners helped, they were also a liability in terms of West German countermeasures. The dual impacts of these partners indicate efforts to disrupt foreign state–sponsored propaganda by targeting the firms and agents that support such propaganda through—for example—sanctions or indictments might be effective, though only temporarily. The capture of one poorly trained agent, or a defection driven by frustration, could bring down an entire network run by the 14th Department. Yet, agents were expendable, setbacks were usually ephemeral, and the 14th Department drew lessons from each setback. Russian military intelligence’s alleged use of amateur agents for intelligence and propaganda in eastern Europe is in many ways a modern reflection of the 14th Department’s dilemma half a century ago. The US military, especially in collaboration with civilian and foreign partners, should view countermeasures against agents and organizations supporting state-sponsored propaganda as a way to hinder their operations in the short term. Countermeasures frequently involve the disclosure of sensitive details. Temporary disruptions can lead to a decrease in viewers or readers and force an adversary to expend more resources on developing work-arounds. Nonetheless such disruptions usually cost valuable insight that might be lost if made public.⁵⁷

Relatedly, despite its attempts to masquerade as a West German organization or leave the authors of a given leaflet ambiguous, West Germans generally knew the source of the 10th Independent Directorate’s black and gray propaganda. This knowledge was so common that the West German press occasionally called out the “independent department.” In April 1960, the West German military magazine Troops’ Praxis correctly identified the “Independent Department of the National People’s Army” as the organization behind covert propaganda targeting the Bundeswehr. Likewise, in July 1961, the Frankfurt Public Gazette claimed the East German military maintained “an independent department with 500 employees who are solely responsible for psychological warfare.” A July 1964 issue of Soldier Among the People assessed the “independent department” included 90 “officers and soldiers” who were “experienced experts in psychological warfare.” Specific attribution lent credibility to West German press coverage of the East German People’s Army’s leaflet operations and forgeries, which suggests publicly identifying the means, methods, and capabilities of covert information warfare can help reduce an adversary’s potential reach. Whereas doxing an adversary’s online influence campaign, for instance, will likely deter some would-be readers or viewers, the effects of doxing are hardly categorical. After all, the editors of the student magazine (R)EVOLUTION very likely knew they were at least indirectly interacting with East Germans.⁵⁸

The history of the 10th Independent Directorate also reveals the counterproductivity in overstating the threat an adversary poses in terms of information warfare. By exaggerating the threat of special propaganda, West German officials provided useful excerpts for the directorate’s regular evaluations and thus played an ironic role in justifying the continuation of its work. In a modern context, a perpetrating agency could just as easily use government or military officials’ hyperbolized accounts of an exposed adversarial campaign as a reason to continue its efforts.⁵⁹

Importantly, the experience of spezialpropaganda reveals, though authoritarian governments generally take information warfare more seriously than democratic governments, they are not necessarily any better at waging information warfare over time. Authoritarian governments are better at organizing and directing information warfare, but the same system that affords this degree of control causes the government to struggle to understand the outside world and makes it vulnerable to a kind of political and social turbulence that can rapidly lead to the state’s collapse.

Authoritarian political and military elites’ limited understanding of the outside world often contributes to decision making that undercuts their ability to deliver messages to foreign audiences. Even the most compelling and appealing special propaganda was unable to overcome the crippling effects of the construction of the Berlin Wall and the invasion of Czechoslovakia. The invasion dealt severe blows to the arguments presented in Contra or German Soldiers’ Radio broadcasts, as their credibility was irreparably undercut by apparent hypocrisy. Additionally, though civilian technical specialists inherently clash with the rigidity of military culture, this conflict is often exacerbated in authoritarian systems that add dimensions of political reliability, loyalty, and personal connections, as seen in the history of German Soldiers’ Radio. Military planners should opportunistically seek to exploit dissonance between an adversary’s propaganda and actions, and internal friction within its information-warfare bureaucracy.

Authoritarian governments’ desire to engage in information warfare stems from a general fear of subversive information that drives domestic and foreign propaganda activities, which often belies the state’s underlying fragility. Accordingly, militaries that defend democratic and open societies should focus on long-term strategy, which demands a thorough understanding of the resources, authorities, and partnerships needed to engage in a subtle and constant form of peacetime competition. In other words, the story of spezialpropaganda shows strategic patience and institutional resilience will outlast even authoritarian states’ most concerted and consistent efforts to disintegrate a given target.

Joe Cheravitch
Dr. Joe Cheravitch is a strategic threat intelligence analyst whose research focuses on cyber, digital propaganda, and intelligence operations. His experience includes government service, analysis for the RAND Corporation, and teaching at the National Defense University’s College of Information and Cyberspace. Cheravitch completed his doctoral studies at King’s College London’s Defence Studies Department and is a graduate of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

Endnotes

1. 1. For examples of Cold War–era research on state-sponsored propaganda, see: Mark G. Pomar, Cold War Radio: The Russian Broadcasts of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (Potomac Books, 2022); Nicholas J. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989 (Cambridge University Press, 2009); Thomas Rid, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020); Lada Silina, Vneshnepoliticheskaya propaganda v SSSR v 1945–1985 gg. (Rosspen, 2011); Christopher Nehring, “Active and Sharp Measures: Cooperation Between the Soviet KGB and Bulgarian State Security,” Journal of Cold War Studies 23, no. 4 (Fall 2021): 3–33; Rory Cormac, “British ‘Black’ Productions: Forgeries, Front Groups, and Propaganda, 1951–1977,” Journal of Cold War Studies 24, no. 3 (Summer 2022): 4–42; and Douglas Selvage, “Operation ‘Denver’: The East German Ministry of State Security and the KGB’s AIDS Disinformation Campaign, 1985–1986 (Part 1),” Journal of Cold War Studies 21, no. 4 (Fall 2019): 71–123.
2. 2. Historical accounts include: Gerd Kaiser, “Hier ist der Deutsche Soldatensender 935”: Eine Stimme im kalten Krieg (Edition Bodoni, 2014); Herbert Müller, Geheime Verschlußsache: Die Spezialpropaganda der Nationalen Volksarmee (Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitspolitik, August 1997); and Peter Joachim Lapp, Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemaliger Offiziere: DDR-Propaganda gegen die Bundeswehr (Helios, 2020). See also the account of a former special-propaganda officer assigned to the East German People’s Army, or Nationale Volksarmee (NVA)’s 11th Motorized Infantry Division: “Spezialpropaganda der 11. MSD,” NVA Interessengemeinschaft Halle, n.d., accessed May 5, 2025 (page discontinued). Additionally, the account of a former special-propaganda officer assigned to the NVA border forces is relevant to this study: Manfred Krellenberg, Propaganda an der innerdeutschen Grenze bei Lübeck (Manfred Krellenberg, August 9, 2019), YouTube video,
   . English-language literature on the East German People’s Army’s information-warfare program is limited to information available during the Cold War, such as a chapter from a book originally published in 1988, based on discussions held at the US Naval Postgraduate School in the early 1980s: Joseph S. Gordon, “East German Psychological Operations: A 1965 Case Study,” in Psychological Operations: The Soviet Challenge, ed. Joseph S. Gordon (Routledge, 2019).
3. 3. For example, guidance on NVA special propaganda in the early 1960s came from the “experience of the Soviet Army in the Great Patriotic War,” whereas NVA training for special-propaganda reservists in 1970 included a two-hour lecture on Cold War–era Soviet special propaganda: “Lektion zum Thema: ‘Einige Probleme der ideologischen Kampfführung unter den Bedingungen des modernen Krieges,’ ” 1963, 17, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg (BMA-F), DVP 1/10406; and “Programm für den 2. Lehrgang zur Qualifizierung von Reserveoffizieren für Dienstellung der Spezialpropaganda,” November 28, 1969, 5, BMA-F, DVP 1/10409.
4. 4. “Einige Probleme,” 1963, BMA-F, 11; “Schwerpunkte für die Spezialpropaganda im 1. Halbjahr 1961,” March 7, 1961, 4, BMA-F, DVP 1/12508; “Perspektivplan für das erste Halbjahr 1961,” January 11, 1961, 11, BMA-F, DVP 1/12507; “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der 14. Abteilung,” December 4, 1964, 15, BMA-F, DVP 1/12507; and “Lektion zum Thema: ‘Wesen, Ziele und Inhalt der Spezialpropaganda unter den Bedingungen des modernen Krieges,’ ” April 1968, 9, BMA-F, DVP 1/10406.
5. 5. According to a defense ministry directive on special propaganda from 1963, which was heavily based on the experience of the Soviet Union during World War II, prisoners of war play an indispensable part in special propaganda, primarily by helping create print products and broadcasts: “Einige Probleme,” 1963, BMA-F, 19–20.
6. 6. In 1961, the 10th Independent Directorate assessed NATO hoped to provide West Germany with nuclear weapons to “change the balance of power in their favor” and eventually “unleash a war,” which required an intensified “struggle against German militarism”: “Perspektivplan für das erste Halbjahr 1961,” January 11, 1961, BMA-F, 2.
7. 7. For the establishment of the Independent Directorate, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, 32, BMA-F, DVP 1/12504. The Main Political Administration judged the Bundeswehr established a psychological-warfare capacity sometime between 1958 and 1959: “Lektion zum Thema: Die Psychologische Kampfführung des Gegners,” September 1968, 5, BMA-F, DVP 1/10406; and “Einige Probleme,” 1963, BMA-F, 11. Concerning the 10th Independent Directorate’s characterization of the beginning of the Association of Former Officers, see: “Analyse über die Tätigkeit der Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemaliger Offiziere e.V. von 1958 – 1971,” November 5, 1971, 1, BMA-F, DVP 1/10398.
8. 8. Regarding the June 1955 Soldiers’ Conference and the National Review and Military-Political Forum, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 20, 35. See also: CIA, German Officers’ and Soldiers’ Meeting in East Berlin 25-26 June 1955 (CIA, September 1955), 5, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80-00810a008000080003-5.
9. 9. On the April 1958 halt on Sector C’s operations, the supposed shortcomings with West German partners, and the reported connection to the Stasi, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 20, 21, 23–24, 33, 35–37, 42, 87, 97–98. A 14th Department report from 1964 indicates the Stasi sought to improve the appearance of special propaganda disseminated in Berlin to increase readership: “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der 14. Abteilung,” December 4, 1964, BMA-F, 15.
10. 10. On the Association of Former Officers’ September 1961 brochure, see: “Jahresberichte 1961,” 1962, 6, BMA-F, DVP 1/12508. Concerning 10th Independent Directorate plans for Association of Former Officers activities, see: “Maßnahmeplan der 10. Verwaltung der Politischen Hauptverwaltung der Nationalen Volksarmee,” 1965, 2, BMA-F, DVP 1/12507; “Statut der ‘Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemaliger Offiziere’ e.V.,” 1966, 1, BMA-F, DVW 20/182956; and “Ergänzungen zum Jahresbericht 1967,”1968, 3, BMA-F, DVP 1/10398. The Association of Former Officers’ listed propaganda themes for early 1971 focused on gaining international recognition of East German statehood and promoting détente: “Themenplan II. Quartal 1971,” ca. April 1971, 1, BMA-F, DVP 1/10398. See also: “Information über die Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemaliger Offiziere e.V.,” November 1971, 2; and “Analyse über die Tätigkeit,” November 5, 1971, BMA-F, 1.
11. 11. “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 21–23, 31–32, 40, 87, 95.
12. 12. On the initiation of insulators and the agent network’s status as of 1957, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 22, 32, 34, 98, 118. For the Operational Groups, see: “Bericht über die im Jahre 1959 durchgeführten Maßnahmen,” January 22, 1960, 5–8, 94, BMA-F, DVP 1/12508.
13. 13. For the Patrolman Meier brochures and the stop on leaflets and brochures for border troops in 1958, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 22, 40, 44–45; Wachtmeister Meier 3 Meint, Harvard College Library Pamphlet Digitization Program (Harvard College Library, ca. December 1956); and “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., 34, BMA-F, DVP 1/12503; “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, 40, 44, 45. Concerning the stop on leaflets and brochures for border troops in 1958, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, 42, 45. Regarding statistics on special actions in 1961, see: “Bericht über die Erfüllung der Aufgabe im ersten Halbjahr 1961,” June 30, 1961, 13, BMA-F, DVP 1/12508.
14. 14. For statistics on special actions in 1959, see: “Bericht über die im Jahre 1959 durchgeführten Maßnahmen,” January 22, 1960, BMA-F, 11, 16. On decentralized campaigns, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 96, 103–4. Concerning posters as propaganda products, see: “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 44, 45.
15. 15. Concerning the availability of officers for disinformation in 1956, the October 1956 newspaper article, and forgeries tied to citizens in uniform, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 33, 41, 71. For more information on forgeries tied to citizens in uniform, see: “Bericht über die Spezialpropaganda und Agitation 1960/61,” July 21, 1961, 2, BMA-F, DVP 1/12508.
16. 16. On official discouragement of using disinformation, see: “Einige Probleme,” 1963, BMA-F, 22; “Ordnung Nr. 030/9/115 des Stellvertreters des Ministers und Chef der Politischen Hauptverwaltung über Hauptaufgaben, Planung, und Organisation der Spezialpropaganda auf operativ-taktischer Ebene,” November 27, 1976, II/3, BMA-F, DVW 1-Druck/6071; and “Studienmaterial zu Problemen der Spezialpropaganda,” October 1968, 26, BMA-F, DVP 1/14326.
17. 17. For early reversal campaigns, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 41; and “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 74.
18. 18. Concerning Soldatenfreund, see: “Jahresberichte 1961,” 1962, 2; and Headquarters, Department of the Army (HQDA), Hostile Intelligence Activities Directed Against the US Army (HQDA, March 1963), 48. See also: “Bericht über die im Jahre 1959 durchgeführten Maßnahmen,” January 22, 1960, 10. On Wahre Information für die Truppe, see: “Rahmenplan der 11. Abteilung für das Jahr 1971,” February 4, 1971, 3, BMA-F, DVP 1/12512. For Soldatenfreund, Military Policy, and Wahre Information für die Truppe, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, 21, 46, 49–50, 51; and “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., 38.
19. 19. Concerning a meeting with defectors in 1958 and targeted appeals by defectors, see: “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., 14; and “Bericht über die im Jahre 1959 durchgeführten Maßnahmen,” January 22, 1960, 12, 21. For collaboration with Major Bruno Winzer, see: Lapp, Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemaliger Offiziere, 5, 65, 84. On all three topics, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, 25, 33, 85, 87, 88.
20. 20. Regarding ceasing contact with agents in 1959, see: “Bericht über die im Jahre 1959 durchgeführten Maßnahmen,” January 22, 1960, 14, 18. See also: “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., 36; and “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der 14. Abteilung,” December 4, 1964, 11. Concerning the arrest of “Bensch,” other shortcomings, and closed borders, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, 118, 121, 124, 125, 134, 144–45.
21. 21. “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, 72, 80, 147, 152, 155, 157, 175; and “Widerliches Beispiel der Skrupellosigkeit und moralischen Verkommenheit!,” ca. 1956, BMA-F, DVP 1/12504.
22. 22. Since two of the balloons landed in East Germany some 155 kilometers from their launch site, further balloon actions were halted, and Sector E instead began working on leaflet bombs. Because of the experiment, the 14th Department ruled out the use of small balloons by Operational Groups to disseminate leaflets. Concerning this topic and rocket and ball-bomb tests, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 24, 39, 156, 158, 160.
23. 23. Regarding the September 1963 balloon campaign, see: “Sonderinformation über die Flugblattaktion an der Staatsgenze – West am 27.9.1963,” fall 1963, 1–6, DVP 1/12815. Concerning the exhibition in September 1963, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 179. Similarly, in 1964, the 14th Department showcased the transports it used to deliver special-propaganda products clandestinely to “military delegations from the fraternal armies”: “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der 14. Abteilung,” December 4, 1964, BMA-F, 9.
24. 24. On initial consultations with Czechoslovak counterparts, see: Rudolf Dölling to Heinz Hoffmann, July 25, 1958, BMA-F, DVP 1/12511; Heinz Hoffmann to Rudolf Dölling, July 7, 1958, BMA-F, DVP 1/12511; Vaclav Katochvil to Heinz Hoffmann, June 4, 1958, BMA-F, DVP 1/12511; and “Konsultation über die Erziehung von Soldaten Deutscher Nationalität,” 1958, BMA-F, DVP 1/12511.
25. 25. For reports sent to the Soviets in 1961, see: Heinz Hoffmann to Soviet Defense Minister Malinowski, July 24, 1961, BMA-F, DVP 1/12508. See also: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 160; and “Exposé über Wesen, Inhalt, Organisation und Mittel der Spezialpropaganda,” May 11, 1962, 16, BMA-F, DVP 1/10406. Concerning the first joint conference in 1965, see: “Konzeption für die internationale Tagung leitender Offiziere der Spezialpropaganda befreundeter Armeen,” August 1968, 3, BMA-F, DVP 1/14294; and “Entwurf Die nächsten Aufgaben zur weiteren Entiwicklung der Truppenspezialpropaganda in der Nationalen Volksarmee,” ca. late 1966, 12, BMA-F, DVP 1/11015. On plans to share intelligence and capabilities in the event of war, see: “Studienmaterial zu Problemen der Spezialpropaganda,” October 1968, BMA-F, 27–28; “Thesen Einige Schlußfolgerungen und Aufgaben aus der Analyse der bisherigen Übungserfahrungen für die weitere Entwicklung der Truppenspezialpropaganda,” June 16, 1966, 12–13, BMA-F, DVP 1/11015; “Einige Probleme,” 1963, BMA-F, 33; and “Lektion zum Thema: ‘Einige Erfahrungen bei der Organisation und Führung der Spezialpropaganda durch die Kommandeure, Politorgane und Stäbe bei Kommando-Stabs und Truppenübungen der Landstreikräfte,’ ” April 1965, 25. Regarding the potential use of Soviet drones for propaganda, see: “Studie Ziele, Aufgaben und Arbeitsweise der Spezialpropaganda im Kommando der Luftstreitkräfte und Luftverteidigung,” September 28, 1964, 16, BMA-F, DVP 1/10403. See also: “Bericht über den Erfahrungsaustausch zwischen den Oberinstrukteuren für Spezialpropaganda der polnischen Luftstreitkräfte und der Politischen Verwaltung des Kommandos der LSK/LV,” April 10, 1967, 1–3, BMA-F, DVP 1/10403; and “Projektplan der Spezialpropaganda der Luftstreitkräfte und Luftverteidigung,” July 28, 1966, 7, BMA-F, DVP 1/10403.
26. 26. See: “Ordnung für die Arbeit der Flugblattgruppe der 10. Verwaltung,” April 10, 1968, 102, BMA-F, DVP 1/11015; and “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 18. The foundation of a “leaflet group” between fall 1967 and spring 1968 was possibly based on the 10th Independent Directorate’s delayed plans to establish a leaflet group in the second half of 1964: “Perspektivplan der agitatorisch-propagandistischen Arbeit für das II. Halbjahr 1964,” June 12, 1964, 8, BMA-F, DVP 1/12507.
27. 27. Admiral Verner to Walter Ulbricht, Albert Norden, Erich Honecker, and Colonel Wegehaupt, July 24, 1965, BMA-F, DVP 1/12511. The fake issue of Der Spiegel would be disseminated in Hamburg in a batch of 2,000 copies. The NVA representative in Moscow was to forward the copy of the fake issue “in accordance with the established agreement.” See also: Admiral Verner to Colonel General Keßler, September 12, 1967, BMA-F, DVP 1/12511; and Admiral Verner to Joachim Herrmann, April 27, 1967, BMA-F, DVP 1/12511.
28. 28. “Lektion zum Thema: Die Psychologische Kampfführung des Gegners,” September 1968, BMA-F, 21; “Funktionsvertsilungsplan der 7. Abteilung,” April 15, 1968, 9, BMA-F, DVP 1/11015; “Bericht über die Erfüllung der Aufgaben der Spezialpropaganda der Volksmarine im Ausbildungsjahr 1967/68,” November 20, 1968, 7, BMA-F, DVM 10/157093; and “Aufgaben und Erfahrungen der Spezialpropaganda im Bereich der Volksarmee,” June 2, 1972, 14, BMA-F, DVM 10/157093. On the Volksmarine’s role in the French Communist Party’s visit in 1966, see: “Programm für den Besuch der Offiziersschule der Volksmarine ‘Karl Liebknecht’ durch eine Delegation der Kommunistischen Partei Frankreichs am 17.05.1966,” May 9, 1966, 1–3, BMA-F, DVP 1/10879. Concerning training for Volksmarine special-propaganda officers, see: “Leitungsvorlage Nr. 1/68,” December 12, 1968, 5; and “Studie über Aufgaben, Organisation und Führung der Spezialpropaganda der Volksmarine,” August 27, 1968, 10, BMA-F, DVP 1/10403.
29. 29. Regarding the August 1964 special-propaganda operation, see: “Bericht über die Durchführung einer Spezialpropagandistischen Aktion in der Nordsee,” August 20, 1964, 5, 28–31, BMA-F, DVM 10/157064. See also: “Bericht über das eigene Reagieren und über die Handlungen gegnerischer Kräfte im Vorpostengebiet der 4. Flottille,” May 28, 1969, 4, BMA-F, DVM 10/157093; and “Einschätzung des Verhaltens des Gegners gegenüber den Schiffen der 4. Grenzbootsabteilung und in den Grenzübergangsstellen in der Zeit vom 01.12.1968-31.05.1969,” June 6, 1969, 4–5, BMA-F, DVM 10/157093.
30. 30. On the Volksmarine’s “offensive reactions,” see: “Aufgaben und Erfahrungen der Spezialpropaganda im Bereich der Volksarmee,” June 2, 1972, BMA-F, 13; “Leitungsvorlage Nr. 1/68,” December 12, 1968, 4, 25; and “Entwurf Die nächsten Aufgaben,” ca. late 1966, BMA-F, 15. Concerning the Volksmarine’s relationship with naval intelligence, see: “Bericht über die Erfüllung der Aufgaben der Spezialpropaganda 1963/64 im Bereich der Volksmarine,” October 12, 1964, 3, BMA-F, DVM 10/157064; “Studie über Aufgaben,” August 27, 1968, BMA-F, 3; and “Schlußfolgerungen für die Spezialpropaganda Gegen die Bundesmarine,” September 28,1967, 7, BMA-F, DVM 10/157064. On both topics, see: “Bericht über die Erfüllung der Aufgaben der Spezialpropaganda der Volksmarine,” November 20, 1968, BMA-F, 4, 15.
31. 31. “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der Verbindungsoffiziere der Volksmarine bei der Politischen Verwaltung der Baltischen Rotbannerflotte während der Übung ‘Norden,’ ” July 2 and 4, 1968, 4–5, BMA-F, DVM 10/157093; “Stellungnahme zur Sekretariatsverlage Nr. 31/72 Stand Spez.-Prop NVA lt. AO 10/71,” October 19, 1972, 2, BMA-F, DVM 10/157093; and “Konzeption für die internationalen Tagung leitender Offiziere der Spezialpropaganda befreundeter Armeen,” August 1968, BMA-F, 6.
32. 32. On the proliferation of NATO radio equipment and its implications for special propaganda, see: “Studie über die Nutzung von Funkmitteln für Zwecke der Spezialpropaganda,” December 22, 1971, 1, BMA-F, DVP 1/7591. The study also recommended the NVA military investigate the potential to use radio networks to propagandize enemy pilots but declared the “international emergency frequency” was off-limits for special propaganda because of “international agreements” and “unforeseeable” consequences. RegardingEastGermanairforceassessmentsofradio-basedspecialpropaganda,see:“StudieZiele,”September28, 1964, BMA-F, 73–92; and “Projektplan der Spezialpropaganda,” July 28, 1966, BMA-F, 7, 8, 62–69.
33. 33. On technical training at NVA units and the formation of “radio groups,” see: “Studie über die Nutzung von Funkmitteln für Zwecke der Spezialpropaganda,” January 20, 1970, 16, BMA-F, DVM 10/157093; and “Studie über die Nutzung von Funkmitteln für Zwecke der Spezialpropaganda,” December 22, 1971, BMA-F, 12, 14, 15–17. A manual on special propaganda planned for publication in fall 1967 included a “circular calculator” (Rechenscheibe) to determine “possibilities of penetrating the opponent’s radio network”: “Anlage 3: Vorschlag für die Gestaltung des Handbuches der Spezialpropaganda,” ca. 1967, 1–2, BMA-F, DVP 1/11015. For the Fifth Military District’s 1983 report, see: “Information Nr. 12/83 für die Mitglieder des Sekretariats der Politischen Verwaltung,” April 27, 1983, 9, BMA-F, DVH 17/180862. See also: “Anordnung: Nr.: 95/05 des Stellvertreters des Chefs und Chef der Politischen Verwaltung,” November 1, 1985, 3, BMA-F, DVH 17/180544; and “Arbeitskonzeption zur Erfüllung der Aufgaben der Spezialpropaganda im Ausbildungsjahr 1986/87,” December 2, 1986, 5, BMA-F, DVH 18-181155. Special-propaganda signals intelligence was reportedly conducted at the “interception point” at “Headquarters II, Room 208.”
34. 34. Regarding the 14th Department’s loss of editorial staff and agents, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 21–23, 31–32, 95. For the establishment of the Seventh Department and its partial transformation into the 11th Department, see: “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 5; and “Funktionsvertsilungsplan der 7. Abteilung,” April 15, 1968, 3–5, 6, 12–13, 59, 60. The 11th Department’s printing company was based in a facility in southeast Berlin. For the 11th Department’s role as the “gray” voice of the East German People’s Army, see: “Funktionsverteilungsplan der 11. Abteilung,” June 10, 1970, 1–17, BMA-F, DVP 1/11015; and “Perspektivplan für die Arbeit der 11,” May 4, 1970, BMA-F, 2.
35. 35. Gordon, “East German Psychological Operations,” 9. On the “border crosser” campaign, see: “Sonderinformation die spezielle militärpolitische Arbeit der Politischen Hauptverwaltung der Nationalen Volksarmee (Kurzfassung),” February 14, 1966, 11, BMA-F, DVP 1/12815.
36. 36. “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 46–47, 66, 68. For the 11th Department’s 1968 report, see: “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., 47. The 11th Department also viewed Rührt Euch as an effective publication capable of capturing a “youth-friendly” diction: “Detailprobleme der Jahresauswertung 1968 in der 11. Abteilung,” December 6, 1968, 13, BMA-F, DVP 1/12508.
37. 37. On officers monitoring West German press, see: “Bericht über die Tätigkeit im Jahre 1966,” December 30, 1966, 5, BMA-F, DVP 1/12508. Concerning Soldiers’ Letters, see: “Arbeitsplan für das III. Quartal 1961,” 1961, 3, BMA-F, DVP 1/12508; and “Perspektivplan für das erste Halbjahr 1961,” January 11, 1961, BMA-F, 7. For the department’s connections to freelancers, see: “Funktionsverteilungsplan der 11. Abteilung,” June 10, 1970, BMA-F, 2. For all three topics, see: “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 33, 40, 48.
38. 38. For the 11th and 14th Departments’ characterizations of Contra, see: “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 49, 70; “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der 14. Abteilung,” December 4, 1964, BMA-F, 8; and “Detailprobleme der Jahresauswertung 1968 in der 11. Abteilung,” December 6, 1968, 14. See also: “Analyse des Posteingangs in der Zeit vom 01.12.1968 bis 30.11.1969,” December 12, 1969, 10–11, BMA-F, DVP 1/12512. Concerning reports about countermeasures affecting the distribution of Contra, see: “Bericht über die Tätigkeit im Jahre 1966,” December 30, 1966, 3, 4.
39. 39. For the inclusion of nude photographs in special-propaganda products, see: “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der 14. Abteilung,” December 4, 1964, BMA-F, 7; “Sonderinformation über die spezielle militärpolitische Arbeit der Politischen Hauptverwaltung der Nationalen Volksarmee (Kurzfassung),” January 21, 1967, 7, BMA-F, DVP 1/12815; and Müller to Admiral Verner, October 26, 1965, 1–2, BMA-F, DVP 1/12511. Regarding the 11th Department’s belief that pictures of women would increase readership, see: “Analyse des Posteingangs in der Zeit vom 01.12.1968 bis 30.11.1969,” December 12, 1969, BMA-F, 3. In December 1968, the department’s leadership confirmed it would use nude photos in future operations: “Detailprobleme der Jahresauswertung 1968 in der 11. Abteilung,” December 6, 1968, 11. See also: “Bericht über die Tätigkeit im Jahre 1966,” December 30, 1966, 7; and “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 41.
40. 40. On the establishment of German Soldiers’ Radio, see: “Chronik der 9. Abteilung der 10. Verwaltung der Politischen Hauptverwaltung der NVA,” January 5, 1973, 3, BMA-F, DVP 1/12500; Kaiser, Hier ist der Deutsche Soldatensender 935, 6, 33; and Jürgen Wilke, “Radio im Geheimaufrag: Der Deutsche Freiheitssender 904 und der Deutsche Soldatensender 935 als Instrumente des Kalten Krieges,” in Zwischen Pop und Propaganda: Radio in der DDR, ed. Klaus Arnold and Christoph Classen (Links Verlag, 2004), 249–66. The 9th Department reported directly to the head of the Main Political Administration until 1965, when the department was subordinated to the 10th Independent Directorate: “Grundsätze für die Tätigkeit der 9. Abteilung,” April 1964, 1, BMA-F, DVP 1/12506.
41. 41. Regardingthe German Soldiers’ Radio December 1960 broadcast, see:“Einschätzungdermilitärpolitischen Kommentarevom 22.11.1960 bis 20.21.1960,” December 1960, 2, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501. Seealso:“Thesenfürdie Einschätzung zum Abschluß des Ausbildungsjahres 1969/70 am 25. November 1970,” November 20, 1970, 5, BMA-F, DVP 1/12502; “Thesen zur Jahreseinschätzung 1968/69 am 28. November 1969,” November 26, 1968, 25, BMA-F, DVP 1/12502; “Erläuterungen zum statistischen Bericht 1965/66,” n.d., 1, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501; and Wilke, “Radio im Geheimauftrag,” 259.
42. 42. Concerning 9th Department plans to emulate “focus areas,” see: “Bemerkungen zum Plan des Studios für das II. Quartal,” n.d., 21, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501. For German Soldiers’ Radio main themes in 1961, see: “Chronik der 9,” January 5, 1973, BMA-F, 53. See also: Lea Grosse to General Fischer, January 11, 1961, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501. Concerning the station’s promotion of the Warsaw Pact’s strength and unity while undermining the Bundeswehr, see: “Grundsätze für die Tätigkeit der 9. Abteilung,” April 1964, BMA-F, 4; and “Schwerpunktplan der Aktuellen Redaktion für den Monat März 1965,” 1965, 2, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501. Concerning the F-104 campaign, see: “Jahresbericht für 1965/66 der Gesamtredaktion,” n.d., 4–6, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501; and “Erläuterungen zum statistischen Bericht 1965/66,” n.d., BMA-F, 2.
43. 43. “Chronik der 9,” January 5, 1973, BMA-F, 58. On specific ways German Soldiers’ Radio sought to achieve an “emotional impact,” see: “Perspektivplan für die Arbeit der 9. Abteilung im Zeitraum 1971–1975,” May 4, 1970, 26, BMA-F, DVP 1/12502. See also: “Bemerkungen zur Wirksamkeit der Rundfunkarbeit nach Westdeutschland,” April 1, 1963, 15, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501; and “II. Problemanalyse,” n.d., 1, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501.
44. 44. “Rundbrief an die Hörer des Deutschen Soldatensenders,” September 1971, 1–2, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501; and “Rundbrief an die Hörer des Deutschen Soldatensenders,” November 1971, 1–3, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501. On the 9th Department’s correspondence with West German youth and the Werner Schütz persona, see: “Ordnung über der 9. Abteilung mit der Hörerpost aus Westdeutschland,” April 29, 1968, 6–7, BMA-F, DVP 1/12506; and “Erläuterungen zum statistischen Bericht 1965/66,” n.d., BMA-F, 1. For statistics on listener feedback, see: “Sonderinformation über militärpolitische Aufklärungsarbeit des Deutschen Soldatensenders und der speziellen Zeitschriften der Politischen Hauptverwaltung,” August 29, 1967, 5, DVP 1/12815; and “Thesen für die Einschätzung,” November 20, 1970, BMA-F, 10. Regarding the Werner Schütz persona, see: Wilke, “Radio im Geheimaufrag,” 260.
45. 45. Concerning Winzer’s involvement in German Soldiers’ Radio broadcasting, see: “Analyse zu Punkt 4,” ca. late 1961, 1, BMA-F, DVP 1/12505; “Um unsere Sendungen starker zu profilieren . . .,” March 7, 1961, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501; and Kaiser, Hier ist der Deutsche Soldatensender 935, 124–25. See also: “Was wollen wir in einem Jahr erreichen?,” 1965, 2, BMA-F, DVP 1/12501. Work with freelancers required approval from Main Political Administration leadership: “Arbeitsordnung der 9. Abteilung,” July 1964, 3, BMA-F, DVP 1/12505. On the 9th Department’s correspondence with (R)EVOLUTION, see: “Jahresbericht Post 1970,” November 17, 1970, 12, BMA-F, DVP 1/12502; “Chronik der 9,” January 5, 1973, 20; and Werner Schütz to Gerd Jung, October 16, 1969, 1–6, BMA-F, DVP 1/12505.
46. 46. “Rechenschaftsbericht der Grundorganisation,” April 20, 1962, 6, BMA-F, DVP 1/12505. Regarding new policies after December 1967 and their impact on 9th Department staff, see: “Spezialisierung,” n.d., 1, BMA-F, DVP 1/12505; “Thesen für die Dienstversammlung zum Abschluß des Ausbildungsjahres 1970/71 am 19. November 1971,” November 18, 1971, 8–15, BMA-F, DVP 1/12502; Kaiser, Hier ist der Deutsche Soldatensender 935, 108–9; and “Thesen für die Einschätzung,” November 20, 1970, BMA-F, 19. See also: “Auszug aus dem Befehl des Chefs der Politischen Hauptverwaltung über Kader Nr. 52/70,” October 1, 1970, 1–4, BMA-F, DVP 1/12502; “Rechenschaftsbericht,” March 26, 1971, 1, BMA-F, DVP 1/12505; and Albert Norden to Admiral Verner, December 8, 1970, BMA-F, DVP 1/12504.
47. 47. “Studienmaterial über die wirkungsvolle Gestaltung von Lautsprechersendungen zur Abwehr politischer Provokationen des Gegners,” September 17, 1968, 4, BMA-F, DVP 1/10403. For statistics on the dissemination of special-propaganda products by border troops, see: “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 17, 19. See also: “Bericht über die Tätigkeit der 14. Abteilung,” December 4, 1964, BMA-F, 9. Regarding common methods and techniques the border troops used in special-propaganda activities, see: Krellenberg, Propaganda an der innerdeutschen Grenze; and “Plan zur Vorbereitung und Führung der Flugblatt und Lautsprecherpropaganda an der Staatsgrenze der DDR zu Westdeutschland im Jahre 1967,” December 29, 1966, 6–8, BMA-F, DVP 1/10403.
48. 48. “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 18–19; “Plan zur Vorbereitung und Führung der Flugblatt und Lautsprecherpropaganda an der Staatsgrenze der DDR zu Westdeutschland im Jahre 1967,” December 29, 1966, 8–9; and “Anordnung Nr. 17/70 des Kommandeurs über Handlungen der Spezialpropaganda mit akustischen Mitteln im Grenzstreckenabschnitt der GÜST Selmsdorf,” August 21, 1970, 1, BMA-F, DVH 34/131021. As Herbert Müller noted, “higher command levels” generally dealt with “big political questions,” whereas lower echelons managed “tactical-psychological issues”: Müller, “Geheime Verschlußsache,” 5.
49. 49. “Durchführunganordnung des Kommandeurs der 3. Grenzbrigade zur Anordnung 1/69 des Chefs der Grenztruppen,” January 17, 1969, 2, BMA-F, DVH 34/131022; “Anordnung Nr. 04/69 des Kommandeurs,” April 11, 1969, 2, BMA-F, DVH 42/147061; “Funktionsvertsilungsplan der 7. Abteilung,” April 15, 1968, 16; and “Funktionsverteilungsplan für die Abteilung Militärpolitik,” February 11, 1964, 9–10, BMA-F, DVP 1/11015. Concerning border troops’ relationship with the Stasi and reporting on enemy propaganda, see: “Analytisches Berichtsschema der Spezialpropaganda,” July 23, 1971, 2, BMA-F, DVH 51-3/183298; and “Analytisches Berichtsschema der Spezialpropaganda,” August 23, 1971, 5, BMA-F, DVH 51-3/183298.
50. 50. On border troops dumping leaflets in Lower Saxony, see: “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 70. See also: “Bericht über die Tätigkeit im Jahre 1966,” December 30, 1966, 5. For orders to border troops in 1973, see: “Richtlinien für die Führung der Spezialpropaganda während der X. Weltfestspiele,” 1973, 1–8, BMA-F, DVP 3-5/1391.
51. 51. “Erfahrungen und Schlußfolgerungen aus den Ereignissen um den 21.08.1968 für die Arbeit der 10. Verwaltung,” October 1968, 7, BMA-F, DVP 1/11015; and “Lektion zum Thema ‘Der Rundfunk im ideologischen Kampf,’ ” February 1970, 7, BMA-F, DVP 1/14326. Regarding Warsaw Pact members’ reported deployment of radio equipment to Czechoslovakia, see: “Studie über die Nutzung von Funkmitteln für Zwecke der Spezialpropaganda,” January 20, 1970, 2, BMA-F, DVM 10/157093, 108–24; and “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 15.
52. 52. On the Socialist Unity Party of Germany’s management of Radio Moldau, see: Wilke, “Radio im Geheimaufrag,” 264; and Claus Rock, “Invasion durch den Äther Wie die DDR mit dem Geheimsender Radio Moldau (Radio Vltava) den »Prager Frühling« bekämpfte,” in Zwischen Pop und Propaganda: Radio in der DDR, ed. Klaus Arnold and Christoph Classen (Links Verlag, 2004), 267–80. For 9th Department assistance to Radio Moldau, see: “Chronik der 9,” January 5, 1973, BMA-F, 134. See also: “Erfahrungen und Schlußfolgerungen aus den Ereignissen um den 21.08.1968 für die Arbeit der 10. Verwaltung,” October 1968, 1–2, 6. Concerning Kaiser’s assertion 9th Department personnel refrained from assisting Radio Moldau, see: Kaiser, Hier ist der Deutsche Soldatensender 935, 103–4, 131. On blowback from Czechoslovakia and special-propaganda efforts to mitigate it, see: “Einschätzung über die Entwicklung der P-Post im Jahre 1968,” February 19, 1969, 6, BMA-F, DVP 1/12502; and “Analyse des Posteingangs in der Zeit vom 01.12.1967 bis 30.11.1968,” November 29, 1968, BMA-F, 12.
53. 53. Kaiser, Hier ist der Deutsche Soldatensender 935, 127; “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 12, 60; and Wilke, “Radio im Geheimaufrag,” 264–65. On special-propaganda cuts after 1972, see: “Lesenotiz zur Umstrukturierung der 10. Verwaltung der Politischen Hauptverwaltung,” November 2, 1972, 1, BMA-F, DVP 1/12511. Regarding the transfer of personnel and equipment to other units, see: “ ‘Westarbeit-80’, Anhalt für die Durchführung der Spezialausbildung mit der Redaktion,” n.d., 5–6, BMA-F, DVP 1/14295. See also: “Abschlußbericht über die Durchführung,” June 17, 1987, BMA-F, 5.
54. 54. For the mentioned draft leaflet, see: “Studienmaterial zu Problemen der Spezialpropaganda,” October 1968, BMA-F, 113–44. The title of the leaflet was We Want to Live!, and it would feature a picture of a “little girl with a chocolate bar.”
55. 55. For examples, see: Yingdan Lu and Jennifer Pan, “Capturing Clicks: How the Chinese Government Uses Clickbait to Compete for Visibility,” Political Communication 38, no. 1-2 (July 2020): 23–54; and Yuner Zhu and King-wa Fu, “How Propaganda Works in the Digital Era: Soft News as a Gateway,” Digital Journalism 12, no. 6 (January 2023): 753–72.
56. 56. Regarding the use of drones to disseminate text messages during the Russia-Ukraine War, see: “Russia’s Drone Operators Send SMS Calls for Surrender to Ukrainian Troops,” TASS, November 10, 2022, https://tass.com/politics/1534913; and “Electronic Warfare by Drone and SMS: How Russia-Backed Separatists Use “Pinpoint Propaganda” in the Donbas,” DFRLab (blog), May 18, 2017, https://medium.com/dfrlab/electronic-warfare-by-drone-and-sms-7fec6aa7d696. For a recent case of the use of generative artificial intelligence in cyberespionage, see: Lucian Constantin, “Novel Malware from Russia’s APT28 Prompts LLMs to Create Malicious Windows Commands,” CSO Online, July 18, 2025, https://www.csoonline.com/article/4025139/novel-malware-from-russias-apt28-prompts-llms-to-create-malicious-windows-commands.html. On state-sponsored influence campaigns involving generative artificial intelligence, see: Julian E. Barnes, “China Turns to A.I. in Information Warfare,” The New York Times, August 6, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/06/us/politics/china-artificial-intelligence-information-warfare.html; and “Russian Disinformation Campaign ‘DoppelGänger’ Unmasked: A Web of Deception,” United States Cyber Command, September 3, 2024, https://www.cybercom.mil/Media/News/Article/3895345/russian-disinformation-campaign-doppelgnger-unmasked-a-web-of-deception/.
57. 57. As another example of reliance on external partners, as late as 1972, the 11th Department relied on contracted support for some complicated printing jobs: “Chronik der 11. Abteilung,” n.d., BMA-F, 8. On Russian military intelligence employment of agents for propaganda work, see: Greg Miller et al., “Russia Recruited Operatives Online to Target Weapons Crossing Poland,” The Washington Post, August 18, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/18/ukraine-weapons-sabotage-gru-poland/.
58. 58. “Chronik der 14. Abteilung,” June 9, 1987, BMA-F, 75–76, 79, 83.
59. 59. As an example of useful West German statements for special-propaganda evaluations, in 1966, the 11th Department reported 31 “comments and reports” in the West German press evidenced “the enemy” was increasingly concerned about special propaganda: “Bericht über die Tätigkeit im Jahre 1966,” December 30, 1966, 6. As the authors of a May 2024 article in Foreign Affairs noted, “when officials exaggerate the efficacy and impact of foreign influence operations, the ones who benefit the most are the very regimes that produce it”: Olga Belogolova et al., “Don’t Hype the Disinformation Threat,” Foreign Affairs, May 3, 2024, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/dont-hype-disinformation-threat.

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