In 1924, Colonel Walter Nicolai (1873-1947), Chief of the German Secret Service (Section IIIB) between 1913 and 1919, deplored the German population’s constant misunderstanding of the role of espionage and the press. The slippage was hardly surprising in many ways, as the Secret Service had controlled press policy from 1916 to the end of World War I. Still, Nicolai bemoaned the public confusion between Nachrichtendienst (intelligence service) and Pressedienst (press service). This paper will explore the origins of that confusion and trace it back to the equivocal definition of intelligence as both espionage and information in Germany during World War I. I argue that the development of wireless technology in World War I created an inextricable institutional, technological, and cultural relationship between espionage and propaganda in Germany. Institutionally, Section IIIB of the German military became responsible for both espionage and news propaganda as the war progressed. Culturally, the war created a perceived greater need for particular types of intelligence and a desire to disseminate global propaganda for the German cause. Finally, both espionage and propaganda depended almost entirely upon innovations in wireless telegraphy. As the British had cut German telegraph cables upon the outbreak of war, Germans turned to wireless telegraphy to overcome their isolated status. German military expectations for global propaganda influenced innovations in wireless telegraphy, while techniques and personnel from espionage divisions managed global wireless news supplied by Germans. The blurred line between espionage and news continued to shape German beliefs about propaganda in the interwar period, while simultaneously forming one of the key bases for Allied skepticism of German reporting and news.