Tarantel (magazine)

Tarantel (German: Tarantula) was a German monthly satirical magazine in Berlin, West Germany, which was in circulation between 1950 and 1962. Being a propaganda publication it was started to address the readers in East Germany[1] and was funded by the American intelligence organization CIA.[2]

Tarantel
Editor-in-chiefHeinrich Bär
CategoriesSatirical magazine
FrequencyMonthly
Publisher
  • Freiheitsverlag Leipzig
  • Heinrich Bär Verlag
FounderHeinrich Bär
Founded1950
Final issue1962
CountryWest Germany
Based inBerlin
LanguageGerman

History and profile

Tarantel was launched in West Berlin in 1950.[1][3] Its founder was the German journalist Heinz Wenzel, known as Heinrich Bär, who also edited the magazine.[3][4][5] The magazine was first published by Freiheitsverlag Leipzig in a miniature format on a monthly basis.[1][6] Later Heinrich Bär Verlag became the publisher of the magazine.[7] The company employed Tarantel as part of its propaganda war against East Germany which was ridiculed by the magazine.[7] It also mocked the establishment of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of East Germany and East German government officials.[3][4]

Christian F. Ostermann argues that the Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit (KgU) (German: Combat Group against Inhumanity) was behind the magazine.[8] As of 1952 the magazine was among six German organizations which were financed by the US as tools of psychological manipulation in East Germany.[9] Tarantel was funded by the Central Intelligence Agency of the US.[2] The magazine was illegally circulated in East Germany, and possession of it was strictly banned by the East German government.[6] In the late 1950s it sold 250,000-300,000 copies in West Berlin.[3] The magazine folded in 1962.[6]

References
  1. John Brown Mason (June 1959). "Government, Administration, and Politics in East Germany: A Selected Bibliography". American Political Science Review. 53 (2): 517. doi:10.2307/1952161. JSTOR 1952161. S2CID 251095627.
  2. Thomas Rid (2020). Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-374-71865-7.
  3. "The Press: Armed with a Snicker". Time. 12 January 1959. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  4. "Speaking of Pictures". Life. Vol. 36, no. 14. 5 April 1954. p. 18. ISSN 0024-3019.
  5. Dairo Pasquini (2020). "Longing for Purity: Fascism and Nazism in the Italian and German Satirical Press (1943/1945–1963)". European History Quarterly. 50 (3): 469. doi:10.1177/0265691420932251. S2CID 221015170.
  6. "Tarantel, satirical magazine, No. 16". Akg-images. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  7. Peter Busch (Summer 2014). "The "Vietnam Legion": West German Psychological Warfare against East German Propaganda in the 1960s". Journal of Cold War Studies. 16 (3): 183. doi:10.1162/JCWS_a_00472. S2CID 57569912.
  8. Christian F. Ostermann (2021). Between Containment and Rollback: The United States and the Cold War in Germany. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-1-5036-0763-7.
  9. Giles Scott-Smith (2012). Western Anti-Communism and the Interdoc Network: Cold War Internationale. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-137-28427-3.
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