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American-made Phonograph Records Glorifying Nazis Banned in Germany

May 18, 1959
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An order for the confiscation of the documentary American-made phonograph record, “Speeches and Songs of Nazi Germany, ” was issued Friday by a lower court here. The order applies to all of West Germany.

The court ruled that the long-playing record, featuring speeches by Hitler, Goering and Goebbels, glorified the Nazi state, ridiculed democratic government and was in effect clearly anti-Semitic. Dr. A. Wolf, State Attorney, declared that the distribution of the record clearly implied “public condonation of crimes and of Nazi propaganda against democracy” and that its distribution therefore was a violation of West German federal law.

The record was banned two weeks ago by a Nuremberg court on the basis of a Bavarian law banning the showing of Nazi symbols. Store owners in Dusseldorf evaded a confiscation order by pasting strips of paper over the swastikas on the illustrated holder of the record. Previous court rulings against sale of the record had only local application.

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