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BBC German Service

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JackTheSecond (talk | contribs) at 08:21, 19 February 2024 (In the previous edit, I also copied over the German sources not included in inline citations I already used.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

  • Comment: Appears to have been part of BBC World Service, could it be incorporated there? The references of this translations need to be transferred in any way. IgelRM (talk) 03:15, 19 February 2024 (UTC)


The German Service ("Londoner Rundfunk") of the BBC was a German language radio service running from 1938 until 1999. It began operating during the second world war and continued running until after the dissolution of the GDR and the end of the Cold War. With a broadcast time that never exceeded a few hours a day what was first conceived as a propaganda broadcast became a source for reliable information on the state of the war, and later the "voice of the free world" to those behind the iron curtain.

The station first broadcast on 27 September 1938. Regular programming began on 27 January 1939 and was expanded in April, after the complete occupation of Czechoslovakia. The station's first editor-in-chief was Hugh Greene. Other early leadership included Lindley Fraser, formerly professor of philosophy at Aberdeen, as well as Richard Crossman and Patrick Gordon Walker who would move on to become leading figures in of the Labor Party.

During the war many prominent German exiles contributed to the program, including Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein, and the Nazi Regime came to call it the number one enemy broadcast. Throughout the years of the GDR, programs such as 'Briefe ohne Absender' (Letters without sender) would give voice to the east of the republic. The east German Ministry of State Security extensively investigated, tracked and persecuted all involved.

The broadcast ceased operations in 1999 due to financial reasons, and because polls showed that 90 per cent of listeners would be able to follow the English BBC World Service.

World War II

What was conceived as propaganda broadcast, throughout the war years, became a staple for accurate information on the state of the war in Germany—a fact British authorities only became aware of after the war's conclusion in 1945. Besides the news, the programming included political commentary and satire. A sense of the 'inevitability of the German defeat' was imbued into every broadcast, and the Nazi Party came to call it the "enemy broadcast number one". Significant punishment was doled out for listening; up to 5 years of Zuchthaus and even, in the case of 17-year-old Helmuth Hübener, the death penalty.

Sefton Delmer worked as announcer on the program prior to working on: Gustav Siegfried Eins, Deutscher Kurzwellensender Atlantik and Soldatensender Calais. Notable German contributors to the wartime broadcast included: Thomas Mann (Listen, Germany!), Sigmund Freud, Peter Illing[1], Ernst Schoen[2], Bruno Adler, Annemarie Hase, Robert Lucas and many other exiles.

Satirical programs were particularly popular. In these programs, which only lasted a few minutes, the same characters who were familiar to regular listeners always appeared and commented on the situation in Germany and the world.

Three of the most popular satirical episodes were broadcast throughout most of the war:[3]

  • Bruno Adler, under the pseudonym Urban Roedl, was the inventor of "Frau Wernicke". Ms. Wernicke, voiced by the Berlin actress Annemarie Hase, was a lower-middle-class Berliner who, equipped with a loose mouth and common sense, ridiculed the Nazis.
  • In the satirical radio play series "Kurt und Willi" - which Adler wrote together with the Scottish poet Norman Cameron - a fictional conversation was shown between a loyal senior teacher and his cynical friend from the Nazi propaganda ministry.[4]
  • The series "Briefe des Gefreiten Hirnschal an seine Frau in Zwieselsdorf" created by Robert Lucas also enjoyed great popularity. Here, the simple and loyal soldier Adolf Hirnschal (voice: Fritz Schrecker) reported to his wife Amalia in letters from the front.

Later half of the 20th century

In 1946 the discontinuation of the service was discussed, and it was argued that the broadcast was still 'in the public interest'.

During the war, Hugh Greene had already developed plans for an English language course: "Lernt Englisch im Londoner Rundfunk!" It became one of the most successful broadcast series of the post-war years. For almost thirty years, new courses were brought out with the collaboration of the former German actor Karlheinz Jaffé. The language course was intended to be educational on the one hand and entertaining on the other, so that even listeners who did not want to learn English followed the program with interest. The courses in this language learning program have been adopted by almost all ARD broadcasters over the years, also in Austria and Switzerland and also published in book form.

In 1949, the BBC introduced a “German East Zone Program” within its existing German service, which was specifically aimed at listeners behind the “Iron Curtain”. The intention was to provide current news, which was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain in the then newly founded GDR. Building on the success of its wartime broadcasts to Nazi Germany, the German Service gradually introduced political commentary, religious lectures, and comedy features into its “Eastern Zone Program.” The BBC discontinued its “Program for East Germany” in 1975, after which only a cross-German service remained.

The 20-minute program "Briefe ohne Unterschrift" (Letters without Signature) has been an integral part of the “Program for East Germany” since 1955 (previously it was called "Funkbriefkasten"). This mailbox program was heard every Friday from 8:15 p.m. The idea was: listeners wrote to the BBC in London, where the program's German-speaking presenter, Austin Harrison, selected a number of letters for the broadcast. He was actually live on air every week, reading out the letters he had selected without mentioning the sender's name, answering them and classifying them with comments. Harrison hosted the show from 1955 until its end in 1974.

In 1956, the foreign services of the BBC, including the German Service, continued even-handed reporting on the Suez Crisis, in spite of the Government pressuring the BBC to support the war.[5]

In 1999 the service was discontinued for financial reasons. There was no reason to give it money any more, after all the whole of Germany once again had solid democratic foundations and a free press. Polling among also had indicated that 90 per cent of listeners would be able to follow the English-language BBC World Service.

References

  1. ^ Most known for his 1941 rendition of Das Lied vom Stacheldraht.: "Die Welt ist nur ein Schützengraben /drin wimmeln braun die deutschen Schaben /wie rostzerfreß'ner Stacheldraht. //Weil wir nichts bess'res zu beißen haben /Nichts bess'res zu bieten haben /So produziert der Nazistaat /Nur Stacheldraht, nur Stacheldraht." Auf CD: "Hier ist England!" Historische Aufnahmen des Deutschen Dienstes der BBC. Composer Mischa Spoliansky
  2. ^ Stephan Speicher: Bittere Rückkehr. Ernst Schoen reist 1947 durch Deutschland. Published: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 3 Mai 2023, Page 10.
  3. ^ Ulrike Oedl (2002). "Theater im Exil - Österreichisches Exiltheater". Österreichische Schriftstellerinnen und Schriftsteller des Exils seit 1933 (in German). Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur der Republik Österreich. Retrieved 7 April 2023.
  4. ^ "Zeitgeschichte: BBC Tam-tam-tam-ta". DER SPIEGEL 11/1970 (in German). Rudolf Augstein. March 1970. Retrieved 2 February 2024.
  5. ^ Goodwin, Peter (2005). "Low Conspiracy? — Government interference in the BBC". Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture. 2 (1): 96–118. doi:10.16997/wpcc.10. ISSN 1744-6708.

Sources

  • Harald Kuhl: Der Deutsche Dienst der BBC – Ende einer Erfolgsstory? in: Artikelarchiv „Radio-Kurier – weltweit hören“ ADDX e.V. - Assoziation Deutschsprachiger Kurzwellenhörer, Nr. 5/1999: https://www.addx.org/textarchiv/99-05-10-13.pdf access date 31 March 2023
  • Briefe ohne Unterschrift. Auch ein Schweriner schrieb an die BBC in London, In: Schweriner Turmblick, Hrsg.: AG Stadtteilzeitung in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Stadtteilmanagement der LGE und der Stadt Schwerin, Febr. 2021 Nr. 1 (74), 20. Jahrgang, Seite 15
  • Susanne Schädlich: Briefe ohne Unterschrift. Wie eine BBC-Sendung die DDR herausforderte, Knaus Verlag München 2017, ISBN 978-3-8135-0749-2
  • Artikelarchiv „Radio-Kurier – weltweit hören“ ADDX e.V. - Assoziation Deutschsprachiger Kurzwellenhörer, Mönchengladbach, Nr. 5/1999: Aus für den Deutschen Dienst des BBC World Service " . https://www.addx.org/textarchiv/99-05-08-09.pdf
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