Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself.
Potter Stewart; Associate Justice in the Supreme Court
Throughout World War One, censorship in Germany was constructed of the government trying to avoid the opposition in freely expressing their perspectives and opinions “irritating the national temper” as a German commander stated. The main aim for the censorship was to make sure the citizens and German troops were united and kept in a positive light of the efforts of the war. This was mainly portrayed through newspapers, which were not allowed to state negative perspectives of the war or the form in which Germany had been run as well as not being allowed to state the numbers and names of soldiers who had died or been lost at war. Also, the people were hidden from the truth about peace demonstrations, low morale, international peace efforts and desertion on the Western Front. This gave the people the belief that all the German newspapers were in complete and total support of the war and Germany’s government. As the censorship in Germany was so intensely strict and well kept, there was enormous devastation throughout Germany after citizens began to find out the truth about the war. Before the events of 1914, Germany had already been keeping a tight hold of all press releases, as even before the War began newspapers were not allowed to discuss possible reasons for an outbreak.
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