The Local Press’s Smear Campaign

An article about Julius Brandt as a children’s worship assistant, which was directed against Pastor Dedeke in particular, appeared in the Mindener Zeitung on May 13, 1938. Dedeke was particularly annoyed by the article because the same newspaper publisher printed the Mindener Zeitung and his Mindener Sonntagsblatt and he knew the staff well.

Dedeke fruitlessly – fruitlessly – about the source of the text in a telephone call of May 27, 1938, recorded in the publisher’s files, and indicated he would be responding. The employee at the Mindener Zeitung consequently called the Gau propaganda office and learned that the “circulated publication” came from the Gestapo. This file from the publisher thus documents how campaigns against undesirable pastors like Dedeke were steered.