Nazi newsreels in the North: The European masterplan and its Nordic inflictions

The German newsreel company Deutsche Wochenschau spearheaded the cultural invasion following military takeover in most German-occupied European countries. But where in Scandinavia was Germany most successful in disseminating newsreel propaganda? In oppressively occupied Norway, collaborating Denmark, or in neutral Sweden, where Nazi newsreels were also distributed? This article proposes that German propaganda aspirations followed a European master plan, namely to integrate local, German and international items in a seamless unity, and that an important criterion for success was to insert German newsreels as smoothly as possible into the Nordic countries. This set certain requirements pertaining to what material localized newsreels exposed, how this content was presented, and finally, the manner in which Nazi newsreels were introduced in the respective countries.