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Tarantel (magazine)

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Satirical magazine in West Germany (1950–1962)

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

Tarantel (Turkish: 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 and was funded by the American intelligence organization CIA.

History and profile

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

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

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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