War by Other Means: British Information Control and Wolfgang Borchert's Draußen vor der Tür

Abstract

This article focuses on the stage and radio play Draußen vor der Tür (The Man Outside) by Wolfgang Borchert, broadcast in the British zone of occupation for the first time on 13 February 1947. A careful comparison of the stage and radio versions allows us to ascertain the degree to which the changes made by the British radio control officers Hugh Carleton Greene and David Porter were political in nature. The article opens by outlining both the history of the creation of the radio version and Borchert's attitude towards the Public Relations/ Information Services Division of the Control Commission for Germany (PR/ISC) (through the analysis of Borchert's correspondence).The original NWDR (Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk/ Northwest German Broadcasting) typescript of the radio broadcast, complete with handwritten emendations, is then compared with the published version, confirming how the radio play was edited to conform to British broadcast standards for a German audience, as well as the Anglo-American reeducation programme for Germany. Greene and Porter systematically edited out mention of postwar German suicides, overt German suffering, attacks on the German institutions the British considered important in the reconstruction of Germany, and any suggestion that the Allies had engaged in morally dubious acts during or after the war.