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Surviving papers, Nazi or otherwise, lined up so meekly that Hitler himself complained: "It is no great pleasure to read 15 newspapers all having nearly the same textual content." Turning out such dupe sheets could have been no great pleasure either. Twice daily the Ministry of Propaganda sent every paper the Tagesparole, the word for the day, specifying content down to the headlines and the required epithets for Roosevelt ("gangster," "criminal," "madman"). Every level of government sent handouts accompanied by demands that they appear on Page One.
Propaganda proved hugely profitable. In 1942, Eher Verlag, the party's tax-free publishing combine, poured $68 million into the Nazi war chest. But as the war worsened for Germany, the Nazis' captive papers shrank in number from 2,500 to 500, in size to a single page. Hitler's first paper was also his last. On April 17, 1945, Volkischer Beobachter published Der Fuhrer's last military order of the day: to stand fast against the Russian march on Berlin. Then it, too, went under.