One of the most essential war weapons is censorship. Its primary task is to keep the people blind, ignorant and unshaken confidence in the authorities to allows limitless indoctrination so that the citizens would accept the necessity of holding on until the enemy is wiped out despite the terrible loses and privations. A censored propaganda suppresses divergent sources as much as possible to keep people out of the loop of what the facts really are. In short, this promotes blind adherence among the citizens to whatever the dictator would say even if it becomes too unreasonable to understand.
In Austria, censorship and propaganda were, from the very start, united in the Kriegspressequartier (War Press Office) under the direction of the Ministry of War, with two separate surveillance commissions for Austria and Hungary. However the said press office was only responsible for censorship in the war areas, whereas two other authorities, the Kriegsüberwachungsamt (War Surveillance Office) in Vienna, and the Kriegsüberwachungskommission (War Surveillance Commission) in Budapest, took care of the hinterlands.
