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Public Affairs and USAREUR Newspapers |
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| Army Newspapers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1945 - 1990s | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (Source: STARS & STRIPES, March 30, 1952) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| During the Occupation and subsequent Cold War periods, the U.S. Army produced an extensive newspaper system for U.S. Army personnel and their families within the U.S. Army, Europe (USAREUR) command.
It ranged from the indespensable STARS and STRIPES to hundreds of smaller installation, community, division, brigade, and unit-level papers. |
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| 1. STARS and STRIPES — the major European military newspaper. The most important publication was the European edition of Stars and Stripes. Although it served all U.S. military services—not just the Army—it was closely associated with USAREUR during the Cold War. After its World War II revival in London in April 1942, the European edition followed American forces across Europe. By the postwar period its principal production facility was in the Darmstadt/Griesheim area. By 1956, the Stars and Stripes compound at Griesheim was operating under the USAREUR information structure. Its editor-in-chief was an Army lieutenant colonel, while the paper also had Air Force and other-service representation. An interservice editorial policy board met monthly. In the early postwar period it was quite a substantial operation. A 1947 account describes the paper being produced at Pfungstadt in five daily editions, with a weekly Weekend magazine, and distributed wherever U.S. troops were stationed in Europe. |
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| 2. USAREUR's installation and community newspapers. Much less well known is the enormous number of locally produced Army newspapers. These were official or authorized publications serving a particular:
A USAREUR newspaper survey reported that 107 authorized newspapers existed in USAREUR in the first part of 1963. USAREUR's Public Affairs Division selected the six best Army newspapers each year, judging them on such things as command-information effectiveness, news content, writing, typography, and appearance. That means that when researching an Army installation in Cold War Germany, Stars and Stripes is only part of the story. A local paper can contain considerably more information about day-to-day life at that particular installation. |
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| 3. Examples of local papers One particularly good example is "The Forward Edge," the newspaper of the 2nd Armored Division (Forward). Its first issue appeared on February 1, 1979, initially simply titled "The Newspaper." It was published twice monthly and contained training news, command information, personnel stories, and local activities. By 1984 it had been redesigned and was being printed commercially as a tabloid. In 1985 it won the award for the best Army-authorized newspaper in USAREUR. There were many other papers associated with the large USAREUR military communities and commands. The surviving lists are not necessarily complete, which is important to remember when doing historical research. |
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| 4. The newspapers had a different purpose from Stars and Stripes. A useful way to think about the newspaper system is: |
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| The local papers were therefore much more than "miniature Stars and Stripes." They were an important part of the Army's command-information system. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 5. There was also an independent newspaper: Overseas Weekly. Another important publication for Cold War U.S. troops in Germany was the Overseas Weekly. It was not a USAREUR Army newspaper. It was a privately produced newspaper, founded in 1950 and based in Frankfurt, whose principal readership was American military personnel in Europe. It became particularly known for stories that were more controversial than those appearing in the official military press. |
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| Webmaster note: Why these newspapers are valuable for Cold War research. If you're researching U.S. Army, Europe between roughly 1945 and 1990, these papers can be exceptionally useful. They often contain things that don't appear in official unit histories:
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| And, because many of these papers were published weekly or monthly, they can sometimes establish exact dates for events that are only vaguely dated in official histories. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (Webmaster note: This article also includes some information generated using ChatGPT.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| List of Authorized Army Newspapers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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USAREUR newspapers in circulation in 1968-1969 |
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USAREUR newspapers in circulation in 1969-1970 |
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1968/1969
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