Germany's Historical Context with Public Relations
With its promotional efforts on railroads and industry, Nazi Germany's employment of propaganda, and the thriving post-war industry, Germany has a long history with public relations. "ffentlichkeitsarbeit" (working for the public sphere) is a phrase used in German. According to this definition, the industry is understood to involve serving the public interest on a worldwide scale. Propaganda was utilized by the German government to enhance its reputation during the war. The German Council for Public Relations was established in December 1958 while an ethics commission followed in 1988 and published guidelines in 1991.
Influence of German Culture on PR Development
Railroads and other businesses began publicity initiatives in the mid-19th century. At the time, Alfred Krupp commented that it was important for factories to propagate authoritative information on a regular basis to enlighten the public. The growth of PR in the country was heavily influenced by the German culture of formality as employees prefer to follow pre-defined guidelines explicitly (Bentele and Wehmeier, 2003). Moreover, the decision process is usually long and slow with intense compartmentalization where information may not flow between departments. Moreover, there is a cultural phenomenon where companies shy away from publicity due to the country's history that facilitated the ideology of parity and consensus. Public Relations continued to develop as a business-oriented industry until WWI when the government began using it for their propaganda efforts.
Use of Propaganda in Nazi Germany
Nazi propaganda has its history in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf where he analyzed the importance of propaganda. His government placed so much emphasis on propaganda that they created the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Immediately after he became Germany's Chancellor, Hitler began initiatives to destroy the free press including evicting anyone who did not conform to the party's provisions. The government distributed anti-Semitic films, cartoons, and children books designed to rouse old prejudices about Jews. By the enactment of the Nuremberg laws stripping Jews of citizenship rights, the public was already predisposed against this demographic. Therefore, the Reich used the information to mold public opinion and narrative.
Germanwings Response to Flight 9525
Germanwings Flight 9525 left Barcelona on March 24, 2015, headed for Germany's Dusseldorf Airport. However, the plane crashed en-route in the French Alps killing all 150 people on board. Initially, the causative factors were unclear, but analysis of black box recordings showed that one of the pilots had locked the other out of a cockpit and then committed a mass homicide. The recordings also revealed that Andreas Lubitz ignored his co-pilot's pleas to open the cockpit and help in pulling the plane from a nosedive (Neagu, 2015). Later investigations revealed that Lubitz had been treated for depression and had exhibited suicidal tendencies before the flight. Lubitz had noticed his vision deteriorating which worsened his depression as it did not bode well for his continued employment. In the days leading to the crash, he had researched the rapid plane descent and how to lock cockpit doors. Additionally, the company released data showed that Lubitz had practiced rapid flight descent in a prior flight. However, Germanwings ignored these symptoms and judged him fit for pilot duty eventually leading to the disastrous crash of flight 9525.
Germanwings' Public Relations Efforts
During and after the crisis, the Germanwings conducted a massive public relations initiative to secure their organization's reputation in addition to offering reparations to families. However, many felt that their handling of the crisis lacked as it highlighted the organization's lack of a crisis management plan. In collaboration with PR agency Burson-Marsteller, Germanwings focused their efforts on the media and the families of the crash's victims. They utilized a public information model where they held press releases and used additional one-way communication techniques to distribute information to their stakeholders (Grunig et al., 1995). According to Doorley & Garcia (2015) comprehensive reputation management is a long-term strategy to assess, scrutinize, and manage an organization's reputation as part of its assets. With this definition, the authors outline a framework for managing reputational risk that involves assessing the gaps between company reputation and making necessary changes, evaluating the impact of changing expectations, and focusing explicitly on reputational risk.
Lessons Learned from the Germanwings Crisis
During a crisis, it is imperative for organizations to take immediate action as changes in social perception may cause irreparable long-term damage. Some situations may require a slow and steady solution while others require a quick fix. However, both approaches depend on clear communication between the organization and its stakeholders. In the early period of the crash's aftermath, the Germanwings CEO addressed the media and held press conferences highlighting their investigation efforts. After confirmation that the crash had been a suicide-motivated homicide, Lufthansa's CEO Spohr took over the media efforts (Neagu, 2015). As the head of Germanwings' parent company, he had more authority and was likely to inspire public trust. Moreover, he was the best option as the incident had international attention from heads of state, law enforcement authorities, and aviation experts, therefore, it became necessary to present the most influential and authoritative personnel. He was quick to point out that Lubitz had hidden evidence of his psychiatrist results from the company and had passed the customary pre-flight checks before returning to active duty. Spohr's actions were reminiscent of Nazi propaganda efforts which often featured Hitler in a positive light and as an authority figure to propagate the national ideology.
Controlling the Narrative in Public Relations
In PR, it is important to control the framing of a message to create an approach that is beneficial to the organizational aims rather than harmful. During his reign, Hitler systematically destroyed the free press which paved the way for creating a state-controlled narrative. However, the nationalization of all Jewish-owned properties in 1938 aroused some criticism from German ambassadors in other countries to which Goring responded by issuing war bonds on the stolen Jewish property (Voigtländer and Voth, 2015). Nevertheless, these bonds would only be recoverable if Germany won the war. Lufthansa also recognized the importance of controlling the narrative following the news of the crash as a suicide. Since they could not force the international media into reporting selectively, they turned the narrative into one that memorialized and honored the victims thus shifting the idea from "Lufthansa's big disaster" to "Lufthansa honors the victims of the plane crash." Both Germanwings and Lufthansa changed their social media logos to black and white to promote the hashtag #indeepsorrow (Neagu, 2015). Additionally, the company disbursed 50,000 Euros to the families of the crash victims. These responses tied well to the public sentiment which was sympathy for the victims thus making the company's efforts seem authentic.
Compartmentalization and Secrecy in Germanwings
The Germanwings response also revealed intense compartmentalization and secrecy in the organization which was prominent in Nazi Germany. Although Lubitz had been diagnosed with chronic depression as well as failing eyesight in third-party clinics, he passed all the usual pre-flight medical checks. However, Carsten Spohr, the CEO of Germanwings' parent company could not answer basic questions about his pilot's medical history in the organization. For example, he could not clarify whether Lubitz had taken breaks from his job due to illness (Rodriguez-Toubes and Dominguez-Lopez, 2017). He cited the country's stringent medical privacy laws which withheld such information even after an individual's death. In Germany when a doctor deems a patient unfit for work, they simply issue a work exemption note which does not list the specific disorder. Investigators found such a note in Lubitz's apartment which indicated he might have decided not to use it. The culture of privacy and compartmentalization revealed serious gaps in its logic as the accident could have been averted. The compartmentalization was also evident during Hitler's reign as he categorized citizens according to their particular duties in the economy and country.
Germanwings' Approach to PR and Lessons from Nazi Germany
In Mein Kampf, Hitler argued that the masses had limited receptive powers and were quick to forget. Therefore, all effective propaganda needed to be confined to the bare essentials and disseminated as far as possible in specified formulas (Welch, 2014). Germanwings' response to the crash was in some ways similar to this ideology. After the crash, their website went down which limited their communication efforts towards the public. Moreover, their social media accounts were strangely inactive while the public and even the media from other countries covered the incident (Rodriguez-Toubes and Dominguez-Lopez, 2017). It appears that the organization had contracted their crisis handling plan to an external PR firm that was following a pre-defined procedure dutifully. Moreover, before confirmation as a suicide, the Germanwings CEO remarked that he had full confidence in the company's pilots. These actions relied on the German culture of authority bias where the public is likely to trust information from a trusted organization. Moreover, capitalizing on the public's short memory, they soon changed their brand from Germanwings to Eurowings thus eliminating references to the crash in public consciousness.
Lessons Learned from Germanwings' Crisis Response
In this context, Germanwings' CEO trusted his officers blindly as he endorsed their integrity to the media without complete information. The discovery of the crash as a suicide was initially by French authorities which meant that Lufthansa learned of these facts long after the fact. However, Spohr commented that Lubitz was "100% to fly without any caveats." With a little investigation into the employee's medical records, Lufthansa could have uncovered his history of depression and potentially averted the disaster. Moreover, the social media blackout reflected negatively on the company's crisis preparedness as it showed a lack of a coordinated crisis management plan. In the post-crash period, Germanwings undertook a PR campaign to try and rebuild the brand but it was not successful until they rebranded to Eurowings. According to the 2014 Holmes report, it is essential for companies to reach out in their brand rebuilding efforts as stakeholders continually reassess their opinions of the organization. As the damage to the brand's reputation was extensive, Germanwings opted to undertake a reputation rehabilitation strategy. It relied on the stakeholders' trust in the airline to reinstate the brand remaining careful not to bring unwarranted attention to the process.
Conclusion
PR has a long history in Germany beginning in the mid-19th century with the efforts of railways and other industries to give the masses authoritative information about their operations. Hitler utilized the propaganda machine to shape the public narrative about his oppression of the Jews. However, some of the ideas encouraged in Nazi Germany have persisted to the present day as shown by the PR response of Germanwings to a flight crash. The organization utilized an organizational figure to shape the national narrative thus forming the organization's situation as sympathy for the victims rather than a disaster.
References
Bentele, G. and Wehmeier, S., 2003. From literary bureaus to a modern profession: The development and current structure of public relations in Germany. The Global Public Relations Handbook, Mahwah (NJ)/London, pp.199-221.
Grunig, J. E., Grunig, L. A., Sriramesh, K., Huang, Y. H., & Lyra, A. (1995). Models of public relations in an international setting. Journal of public relations research, 7(3), 163-186.
Hitler, A., 2015. Mein Kampf: English Edition. MVR.
Holmes Report (2014). Reputation Recovery: What Next After The Crisis Subsides?. Holmesreport.com. Retrieved 12 December 2017, from https://www.holmesreport.com/latest/article/reputation-recovery-what-next-after-the-crisis-subsides-
Neagu, A., 2015. Emotions in the media: Germanwings air crash. Revista Româna de Jurnalism si Comunicare, 10(2), p.5.
Rodriguez-Toubes, D. and Dominguez-Lopez, Y., 2017. Social Media in Crisis Communication: Germanwings Flight 4U9525. In Media and Metamedia Management (pp. 243-249). Springer International Publishing.
Voigtländer, N. and Voth, H.J., 2015. Nazi indoctrination and anti-Semitic beliefs in Germany. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(26), pp.7931-7936.
Welch, D. ed., 2014. Nazi Propaganda (RLE Nazi Germany & Holocaust): The Power and the Limitations. Routledge.
