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A Medium of Modernity?
Broadcasting in Weimar Germany, 1923–1932

Author(s): Karl Christian Führer
Source: The Journal of Modern History , Vol. 69, No. 4 (December 1997), pp. 722-753
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/245592
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A Medium of Modernity? Broadcasting
in Weimar Germany, 1923–1932*
Karl Christian Führer
Hamburg
In writings on German history in the 1920s, Weimar culture has come to be

regarded as the embodiment of modernity.1 But the validity of this assumption
is open to debate. It is the aim of this essay to draw attention to the often
overlooked or underrated contradictions of German cultural life in the years of
the Weimar Republic, which was on the whole more strongly characterized by
conservative than by modernist tendencies. Broadcasting, introduced in Ger-
many in 1923–24 and therefore then the most modern aspect of German cul-
tural life, can serve as an excellent example of these inconsistencies. Despite
its novelty, the new medium rapidly and firmly established itself as part of
Weimar’s cultural landscape. There were 4.2 million licensed radio sets in
1932, which meant that an estimated 10 or 11 million out of 65 million Ger-
mans had the opportunity of tuning in.2 With nearly fifteen hundred employees
and some forty thousand freelancers, the radio companies were by this time
the greatest employer in the field of cultural production.3 Weimar broadcasting
was also big business: in 1930 audiences paid RM 75 million in fees (Radio-
gebühren); the German radio industry did RM 200 million worth of business;
* I am greatly indebted to Elizabeth R. Harvey for help and critical remarks on an

earlier draft of this article.
1
Compare, e.g., Stephen Lamb and Anthony Phelan, “Weimar Culture: The Birth of
Modernism,” in German Cultural Studies: An Introduction, ed. Rob Burns (Oxford,
1995), pp. 53–99; Detlev J. K. Peukert, The Weimar Republic: The Crisis of Classical
Modernity, trans. Richard Deveson (London, 1991), pp. 164–77. For a more differenti-
ated picture, see Elizabeth R. Harvey, “Culture and Society in Weimar Germany: The
Impact of Modernism and Mass Culture,” in German History since 1800, ed. Mary
Fulbrook (London, 1997), pp. 279–97.
2
Karl Christian Führer, Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Rundfunks in der Weimarer
Republik (Potsdam, 1997), p. 55.
3
“Mitteilungen der Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft no. 296, 16.3.1932,” in Mittei-
lungen der Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft no. 1, 27.1.1927–No. 340, 28.12.1932: Als
Manuskript gedruckt (Berlin, n.d.). Compare also Hans Rose, “Wirtschaftliche Werte
des Rundfunks,” Zeitungskorrespondenz für Radiotechnik 5, no. 15, suppl. (1931);
Hans Goslar, “Was bedeutet der Rundfunk für die Literatur?” Die literarische Welt 7,
no. 25 (1931): 7.
[The Journal of Modern History 69 (December 1997): 722–753]
 1997 by The University of Chicago. 0022-2801/97/6904-0003$02.00
All rights reserved.

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Broadcasting in Weimar Germany 723
and the sales of radio retailers and of the radio press were RM 120 million and
RM 30 million, respectively.4
Given these facts, astonishingly little attention has been focused on the wire-
less in generalized writings about German culture. If broadcasting is men-
tioned at all it is referred to in passing as part of a new “mass culture” that
allegedly bridged the social and cultural gaps between diverse strata and mi-
lieus of German society.5 In contrast, specialized studies on the history of Ger-
man broadcasting tend to be very narrowly focused (mostly on public regula-
tion of the wireless). They rarely attempt to tackle the broader question of how
the new medium fit into the development of Weimar cultural life and Weimar
society.6 Bringing these two separate strands of scholarly discussion together
will not only show the wireless in a new light; it will also enhance our knowl-
edge of the social history of Germany between the Kaiserreich and the Nazi
dictatorship and help us better to assess this crucial period of German history.
It is the aim of this essay to challenge assumptions—quite often treated as self-
evident truths—that the spread of the modern mass medium of broadcasting
fostered a new homogeneous and commercialized “mass culture” or “popular
culture” that leveled cultural distinctions and blurred class lines.7 In the follow-
ing I will examine political, economic, and technical as well as social aspects
of the history of Weimar broadcasting in order to bring the medium, the inten-
tions of its creators, and its impact on the German society of the 1920s into
clearer focus.
4
Führer, p. 50.
5
Lamb and Phelan, pp. 83–84; Peukert, p. 176; Lynn Abrams, “From Control to
Commercialization: The Triumph of Mass Entertainment in Germany, 1900–1925,”
German History 8 (1990): 278–93, esp. 286, 288, 292–93.
6
Compare, e.g., Sybille Grube, Rundfunkpolitik in Baden und Württemberg, 1924–
1933 (Berlin, 1976); Winfried B. Lerg, Rundfunkpolitik in der Weimarer Republik (Mu-
nich, 1980); Wolfgang Schütte, Regionalität und Föderalismus im Rundfunk: Die ge-
schichtliche Entwicklung in Deutschland, 1923–1945 (Frankfurt, 1973); Wolf Bierbach,
Rundfunk zwischen Kommerz und Politik: Der Westdeutsche Rundfunk in der Weimarer
Zeit (Frankfurt, 1986).
7
For a useful introduction to theories on mass culture, see Richard Butsch, “Intro-
duction: Leisure and Hegemony in America,” in For Fun and Profit: The Transformation
of Leisure into Consumption, ed. Richard Butsch (Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 3–27. For
the same discussion of German culture, see Norbert Krenzlin, ed., Zwischen Angstmeta-
pher und Terminus: Theorie der Massenkultur seit Nietzsche (Berlin, 1992); and Adel-
heid von Saldern, “Massenfreizeitkultur im Visier,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 33
(1993): 21–58.

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724 Führer
Constraints and a Commission: Public Regulation

of the Wireless in Weimar Germany
Weimar broadcasting consisted of a small group of nine program companies.
Eight of them were so-called regional companies, each offering on the
medium-wave band broadcasts for a certain demarcated area of Germany (see
fig. 1). Only one company, the Deutsche Welle, transmitting on longer wave
lengths, produced programs that were intended to be heard in all parts of the
Reich. While all the regional companies began operating between October
1923 and October 1924, the Deutsche Welle had its belated start only in Janu-
ary 1926.
These companies were not part of the free-market economy that otherwise
prevailed in the sphere of cultural production. The importance of this fact can
hardly be overestimated: what Weimar broadcasting was—and what it was
not—depended to a great extent on its unique economic structure, which
emerged during a rather chaotic interregnum between 1923 and 1926 when all
the regional companies were already on the air. To produce radio programs in
Germany in the 1920s a public concession was needed, while nothing compa-
rable was necessary to print a book, to publish a newspaper, or to produce a
motion picture. Private investors who applied for this license, which was based
on the broadcasting monopoly (Funkhochheit) the Reich claimed for itself, had
to submit to a wide range of conditions. Foreigners, political parties, and
people with close political links, as well as companies and private persons
engaged in producing radio sets, were not wanted as shareholders of radio
program companies. In setting this rule the postal ministry, which granted the
operating licenses, had already set broadcasting apart from the two other mod-
ern media: it was to be above party politics—unlike so many of Germany’s
great and influential newspapers and other printed periodicals—and it was not
to be subject to the kind of international influence that challenged the indepen-
dence of the German motion picture industry throughout the 1920s.8 Further-
more, competition between several producers, which shaped the market in the
fields of the print media and the silver screen, was nonexistent in Weimar
broadcasting. Granting each regional company a monopoly on broadcasts in a
certain area of Germany, the Reich saw to it that German radio would be free
of the “sordid competition” (Schmutzkonkurrenz) that brought forth “trash and
dirt” in huge amounts in the print media as well as in the movies.9
8
Aktenvermerk Kurt Magnus, 20.11.26, Bundesarchiv (BA) Potsdam R 78/621, f.
137–42.
9
On efforts to fight against “trash and dirt,” see Klaus Petersen, “The Harmful Publi-
cations (Young Persons) Act 1926: Literacy, Censorship, and the Politics of Morality
in the Weimar Republic,” German Studies Review 15 (1992): 505–25; and Margaret
Stieg, “The 1926 German Law to Protect Youth against Trash and Dirt,” Central Euro-
pean History 23 (1990): 22–56.

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Fig. 1.—The German broadcasting companies, their stations, and transmission areas in the 1920s. Source: Heinrich Giesecke,
Entwicklung und Aufbau des Deutschen Rundfunks (Berlin, 1930), p. 11.
726 Führer
Radio investors also had to content themselves with restricted profits: no

broadcasting company was allowed to pay more than a 10 percent dividend on
its capital. Besides this the Reichspost forced them to accept their own—par-
tial—expropriation. Granting the regional companies only a provisional con-
cession in 1923–24, the postal ministry used the final operating license as a
means of blackmail, compelling the shareholders to sign over free of charge
51 percent of the assets of each company to the public authorities. This haul
was then divided between the postal ministry, the ministry of the interior
(Reichsinnenministerium), and several Länder governments, but the best part
was reserved for the post office. Preferred stock gave it an absolute majority
of votes in every general meeting of shareholders, although it owned no more
than 21 percent of all assets.10 Weimar broadcasting was therefore a strange
hybrid between a capitalist business and a profit-restricted public enterprise.
Contemporaries called this a “mixed economy” (gemischt-wirtschaftliches
System). Its inventor, the postal ministry, claimed that it would prevent private
persons from realizing “unreasonable profits” and bring the broadcasting com-
panies into a “closer connection” with the authorities.11
Neither the postal ministry nor the ministry of the interior exerted its in-
fluence on the broadcasting companies openly and directly. The Innenmini-
sterium used a news agency, the Drahtloser Dienst A.G. (DRADAG), as a kind
of cover;12 the postal ministry hid behind the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft
(RRG). Founded by the regional companies to coordinate their business prac-
tices, the RRG too became a target of acquisition for the postal ministry. Using
the methods described above, it acquired a majority of the RRG’s assets, once
again free of charge, in February 1926. Thus ruled by the Reichspost, the RRG
became the parent company of Weimar radio.13 It also owned 70 percent of
the shares of the Deutsche Welle. Since the Prussian government owned the
remaining assets, the central German broadcasting company was completely
controlled by the authorities right from the beginning.14
Private investors, who founded the regional companies in the early 1920s,
played only a minor part in shaping Weimar broadcasting. As a rule their in-
fluence on programs remained insignificant. Most of them contented them-
selves with the role of a silent partner and merely collected their dividends;
some also used their positions for rather questionable transactions with subsid-
10
See Führer, pp. 17–20.
11
Fünf Jahre Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft: Hrsg. von der Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesell-
schaft mbH. (n.p., n.d.), p. 8.
12
Lerg, pp. 182–89.
13
Führer (n. 2 above), pp. 29–34, 138–41.
14
Gabriele Rolfes, Die Deutsche Welle—ein politisches Neutrum im Weimarer Staat?
(Frankfurt/Bern, 1992).

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iary companies of the Regionalgesellschaften, successfully amassing smaller

private fortunes from the revenues of the program companies.15
At the end of 1932 the German radio companies finally became de jure what
they had been in reality at least since 1926: public enterprises. Trying to
strengthen governmental influence still further, the reactionary cabinet of
Chancellor Franz von Papen decided to end the mixed economy in German
broadcasting. Private investors were bought out and all assets of the regional
companies came into the sole possession of the postal ministry (via the RRG)
and the Länder governments.16 This reorganization, initiated to ensure even
greater right-wing political conformity among radio programs, was still under
way when the NSDAP came to power in January 1933. The National Socialists
then rushed through yet another radio reform: the Länder were deprived of all
power over broadcasting. German radio thus became a centralized state radio,
completely controlled by the Berlin ministry for propaganda.17
Even before these changes Weimar broadcasting was closely connected with
the state, but only indirectly related to the audience. Once again the Reichspost
acted as the guardian of the wireless, and once again it used a license as a
means to this end. Not only the producers of radio programs but also the listen-
ers were subject to public regulation and control in Weimar Germany. To oper-
ate a radio set, listeners needed a “license to install and operate a wireless
receiver”; this license was granted by the postal offices, and listeners had to pay
a monthly fee of RM 2 to renew it.18 According to rules set by the Reichspost, a
part of the money thus collected—actually less than 50 percent in the last
years of the Republic—went to the program companies. This was the almost
exclusive source of their finances.19 As this article will show, the eminent exec-
utives of Weimar broadcasting regarded listeners less as customers than as ob-
jects of educational efforts, a fact that had very much to do with the unique
economic structure of Weimar broadcasting.
The program companies also found themselves under the tutelage of the
Reichspost in all matters concerning the transmission of broadcasts. Transmit-
ting stations were planned, built, and owned by the post; the companies had to
rent them by the hour. The postal ministry thus decisively shaped the social
structure of radio audiences, which was determined—as will be shown be-
low—by where the stations were built.
15
Joachim-Felix Leonhard, ed., Programmgeschichte des Hörfunks in der Weimarer
Republik, 2 vols. (Munich, 1997), 1:26–38, offers short biographies of most of these
private investors. For the transactions of the subsidiary companies, see Führer, pp.
195–212.
16
Lerg (n. 6 above), pp. 438–524.
17
See Ansgar Diller, Rundfunkpolitik im Dritten Reich (Munich, 1980), pp. 84–96.
18
Lerg, p. 114.
19
Führer, p. 110.

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728 Führer
All in all, broadcasting was more clearly dominated and more strictly con-
trolled by public authorities than any other mass media in Weimar Germany.
Since it was the Reichspost that reigned supreme in Weimar radio, the question
arises of why the postal ministry went to such lengths to subjugate the program
companies. The most important motive for conquering the new medium was a
trivial one: postal executives regarded broadcasting as a way to make as much
money as possible. This was not a matter of personal interest. The Reichs-
post—a highly complex group of public companies, some of them chronically
suffering from a deficit—tried in this way to balance its budget.20
Few ministry officials took more than a passing interest in the wireless as a
mass medium. The most influential of these was Hans Bredow, called
by contemporaries the “Führer” and “creator” of German broadcasting.21 Born
in 1879 and trained as an engineer, Bredow had enjoyed a long and success-
ful career as a manager in the German telegraphy industry when he became
a civil servant in 1919 (a rare change of sides in Germany), joining the newly
founded broadcasting division of the postal ministry. Promoted to the office of
Staatssekretär of the ministry in 1921, Bredow greatly influenced the forma-
tive years of German broadcasting, acting throughout as a strong advocate of
the mixed economy. In 1926 he became Reichs-Rundfunk-Kommissar of the
postal ministry, a new position especially designed for him, in which he con-
trolled and guided the RRG and acted as a mediator between the postal minis-
try and program companies.22
In Bredow’s view, the wireless was more than a new technical device en-
abling the Reichspost to minimize the financial deficit of its telegraphic ser-
vices. He regarded it as a means to promote culture and education and with
them social unity. German broadcasting should serve the interests of the nation
(Volkswohl ), not those of private investors, as radio companies did in the
United States. Radio should help Germany maintain its endangered status as a
Kulturnation: “Love of the arts, public spirit, and thirst for knowledge come
to life again and create the basis for intellectual sowing and ripening. . . . We
will and must preserve our intellectual level [geistige Höhe]. While foreign
nations strive for a wider range [of transmission stations], we strive for deepen-
ing [Vertiefung].” 23
Thus defined as a bringer of knowledge and taste, Weimar broadcasting was
20
Ibid., p. 105.
21
“Hans Bredow 50 Jahre alt,” Berliner Morgenpost (November 24, 1929); “Hans
Bredow 50 Jahre alt,” Königsberger Allgemeine Zeitung (November 24, 1929).
22
For an extensive discussion of Bredow’s career, see Horst O. Halefeldt, Hans
Bredow und die Organisation des Rundfunks in der Demokratie (Frankfurt, 1979).
23
Hans Bredow, “Die Verwirklichung des Rundfunkgedankens,” in Aus dem Bredow-
Nachlass anlässlich des 100. Geburtstages von Hans Bredow am 26. November 1979:
Auswahl und Erläuterungen: Rainer Kabel (Berlin, 1979), pp. 8–14, at p. 13.

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intended to have an effect both on individuals and on particular social strata.

Offered cultural events like concerts, operas, and lectures right in their parlors
or sitting rooms, listeners should feel released from the “exhausting restless-
ness” of modern life and so their houses should become “home” (Heim), pro-
viding shelter not just from the rigors of the climate but also from the psycho-
logical perils of modern society, with its tendencies toward superficiality and
anonymity.24 Bredow conceived of the wireless as an “apolitical instrument
to spread culture,” one that was to work—regardless of economic interests—
“for the interests of everyone.” 25 In terms of the social order, the radio programs
were aimed especially at the lower classes, which were still to be integrated
into the German Kulturnation.26
That Bredow presented broadcasting as a device to nurture the German Volks-
gemeinschaft as early as 1924 does not turn him into an advocate of national
socialist slogans, but it places him in the same camp with many Weimar con-
servatives who felt that modern industrialized Germany painfully lacked social
and intellectual unity. The dream of restoring individuals as well as the German
Volkskörper to their alleged former “wholeness” took many different forms
during the Weimar Republic. The discourse on broadcasting was to a great
extent just a variant of this conservative Kulturkritik, which regarded the liber-
ally educated as the epitomes of mankind. A speech given in 1928 by Carl
Hagemann, director of the Berlin Funk-Stunde (the biggest regional program
company), to an audience of broadcasting executives from all over Germany
demonstrates these affinities most vividly. Hagemann, a former director of
state theaters in Mannheim and Wiesbaden, assigned broadcasting the task of
creating “self-contained human beings”: “The modern human being is a work-
ing being, above all in the big city. Broadcasting relieves him of drudgery,
24
Ibid., p. 8.
25
Hans Bredow, “Der Deutsche Rundfunk,” in Welle 463: Ostmarken-Rundfunk Ak-
tiengesellschaft Königsberg (Königsberg, n.d.), p. 3. See also Hans Bredow, “Der
Rundfunk als Kulturmacht,” Deutschland: Jahrbuch für das deutsche Volk 3 (1929):
124–30, esp. 124. Of course Bredow as well as other Weimar radio executives also had
political goals. They aimed at strengthening a conservative national feeling (Staatssinn)
that they regarded as above party politics. The propagandistic use of the wireless in
Weimar Germany is not discussed in this article since this question belongs to the more
narrowly focused political history. For an extensive discussion of efforts to use the
wireless for political propaganda, see Leonhard, ed. (n. 15 above), 1:516–46. Obvi-
ously, all these efforts were in vain: listeners were highly suspicious of veiled political
intentions and took offense at all opinions that were not their own. Compare Hans
Bredow, “Über die Unduldsamkeit” (1928), reprinted in his Aus meinem Archiv: Pro-
bleme des Rundfunks (Heidelberg, 1950), pp. 112–16, esp. p. 113.
26
Hans Bredow, “Wo ein Ziel ist, da ist ein Weg!” in Funkfest der schlesischen
Funkstunde (Breslau, 1926), p. 10; Hans Bredow, “Die aufbauende Kraft des Rund-
funks,” in Schlesischer Funkkalender 1927: Ein Jahrbuch für die schlesischen Rund-
funkhörer, ed. Fritz Ernst Bettauer (Breslau, 1927), p. 5.

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730 Führer
bringing his life back into equilibrium.” 27 Paradoxically, from this perspective
the most modern mass medium appeared as a “deliverance from the complete
mechanization” of everyday life. The basic concept of Weimar broadcasting
can therefore be characterized as a form of “defensive modernization,” a
scheme with a strong tradition in German history of promoting reform and
using every available modern political concept, institution, and medium to
strive for stabilization of the status quo.28 German broadcasting was designed
to have such effects in promoting both individual and social stability.
For this work of salvation the program companies were to rely strongly on
regional cultural traditions. Hans Bredow regarded the British broadcasting
system, with its one central program company, the BBC, as a “grave cultural
mistake.” 29 Decentralized German broadcasting, in contrast, was to strengthen
the regional identities of listeners, offering programs that appealed to the diver-
gent tastes of North Germans, Bavarians, or Rhinelanders.30 In this respect
too, Weimar radio was to serve as an antidote for the destructive forces of
modernization, especially those that promoted the leveling of regional cultural
differences, which seemed to threaten the traditional structures of German
society.
Stabilization was also needed in the rural parts of Germany, which suffered
from a steady flow of emigration to the cities. The fact that the wireless could
make urban culture and entertainment accessible to the rural population was,
surprisingly, regarded not as a cultural danger but as a remedy: radio programs
were expected to dispel the boredom of country life and to satisfy the “spiritual
need” and “hunger” of country folk, thereby persuading them to stay in the
country.31
Whether Weimar broadcasting attained these very ambitious aims is an alto-
27
Carl Hagemann, quoted in “Sitzung des Programmausschusses der deutschen
Rundfunkgesellschaften, 5./6.6.1928,” reprinted in Bredow, Aus meinem Archiv, pp.
228, 235. See also the citations of Ernst Hardt, director of the WERAG, the second
largest regional company, in Gerhard Hay, “Bertolt Brechts und Ernst Hardts gemein-
same Rundfunkarbeit,” Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 12 (1968): 112–
31, esp. 114–18.
28
Compare, e.g., Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 1, Vom
Feudalismus des Alten Reiches bis zur Defensiven Modernisierung der Reformära,
1800–1815 (Munich, 1987), pp. 531–46; Geoff Eley, “German History and the Contra-
dictions of Modernity: The Bourgeoisie, the State, and the Mastery of Reform,” in Soci-
ety, Culture, and the State in Germany, 1870–1930, ed. Geoff Eley (Ann Arbor, Mich.,
1996), pp. 67–103.
29
Bredow, “Sitzung des Programmausschusses,” p. 235.
30
Compare, e.g., the interview with leading members of the North German regional
company, NORAG, in Friedrich Dencker, “Braucht Nordwestdeutschland einen Grob-
sender?” Die Sendung 6 (1929): 776–77.
31
Citations from the contemporary advertising brochure “Der Gemeinde-Rundfunk,”
reprinted in Lerg (n. 6 above), pp. 172–74, esp. p. 172.

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gether different question. Did it really serve as a unifying force bridging the
gaps between rural and urban Germany and between the working class and
those who were better off? How was the goal pursued of creating comprehen-
sively educated listeners who could be called “self-contained human beings,”
and how did listeners react to this scheme? To answer these questions, I will
first examine the social structure of German radio audiences and then make
some basic observations about the programs offered by the German radio com-
panies in the 1920s.
Technology and Household Budgets: The

Shaping of Weimar Radio Audiences
Until recently scholars were not particularly interested in the social structure
of Weimar radio audiences. They simply pointed out the constantly rising num-
bers of registered subscribers (see table 1). These are doubtless impressive
figures, especially for a country impoverished by a lost war and the devastating
effects of hyperinflation. They leave us with several crucial questions: Who
were those Germans who bought radio sets in the short period of comparative
economic stability and in the years of the slump after 1929? To which social
strata did they belong? Where did they live? How did they experience the
new medium?
TABLE 1
Registered Radio Sets, 1923–32
Registered
Year Gain Sets
1923 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 1,580
1924 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547,169 548,749
1925 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473,550 1,022,299
1926 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354,265 1,376,564
1927 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633,278 2,009,842
1928 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625,725 2,635,567
1929 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431,115 3,066,682
1930 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442,827 3,509,509
1931 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471,343 3,980,852
1932 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326,870 4,307,722
Source.—Calculated on the basis of Heinz Vollmann, Rechtlich-
wirtschaftlich-soziologische Grundlagen der deutschen Rundfunk-
entwicklung: Eine umfassende Darstellung aller die Rundfunkeinheit
betreffenden Probleme in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft
(Borna, Leipzig, 1936), p. 76.
Note.—The figure of all registered sets is for the qualifying date,
January 1, of each year.

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732 Führer
For a survey of this neglected field of social history I would like to take the
photograph reproduced in figure 2 as a starting point. This picture was taken
by an unknown amateur in a German sitting room, probably in 1926–27. There
can be no doubt about the depicted situation: it is Christmas Eve, the presents
have been given (the room is no longer candlelit), all the presents have been
unwrapped, and now they are tried out. The most precious item—besides sev-
eral dolls given to the women—is on display on the table: a mains voltage
receiver with three valves (Drei-Röhrennetzempfänger), representing the state
of the art of radio technology in the mid-1920s. This apparatus, worth at least
RM 250 or RM 300 (the monthly salary of a skilled worker or an ordinary
office clerk), is clearly an alien element in the room, disturbing its rather stiff
Gemütlichkeit. Someone has spread a white sheet under the radio set to protect
he embroidered tablecloth; the family (maybe a young couple with relatives)
s virtually entangled by the electric cable, which provides a highly improvised
power supply. It is also obvious who is in charge of the set. Only the man can
reach its tuning knobs; the women are seated in such a way that they can see
ust the back of the radio. Everyone is listening, wearing uncomfortable look-
ng earphones. While the two women on the left seem to be more amused than
mpressed, the man and the two other women are dead serious. The stately
matron beside the man has closed her eyes, giving the impression of intense
Fig. 2.—Listening to the wireless in a German sitting room in the mid-1920s.

Source: Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv, Frankfurt/Main.

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concentration; the girl next to her and the man seem to be lost in reverie. Al-
though they share the same experience, they look amazingly isolated from
each other.
This unpretentious snapshot is a valuable document for the social history of
early broadcasting. As it vividly demonstrates, the radio sets of these years had
very little in common with modern radios, and listening to the wireless was a
completely different experience from tuning in nowadays. Up to 1926–27, the
quickly expanding radio industry offered only sets that looked exactly like
what they were: technical devices to receive and transform radio waves. No
effort was made to hide the technical character of the apparatus. Integrated
loudspeakers were unknown; most listeners contented themselves with ear-
phones.32
While turned on, the sets demanded almost constant readjustment. The
valves were extremely sensitive and could easily be destroyed by overheating
or bumps. The use of batteries (necessary when the house was not connected
with the power supply system) offered a whole set of new problems.33 A differ-
ent type of set called a Detektor, which worked without valves and needed no
electricity, was less touchy but quite difficult to operate: reception faded away
or was easily marred by interference and static.34 In terms of the gender codes
of the time, all these problems made broadcasting a very masculine medium
during the first years of its existence.35
Only after 1926–27 did the appearance of radio sets change. Responding to
the desires of customers, producers turned the set into a piece of furniture,
hiding its technical devices behind wood. Some of these new sets even offered
an integrated loudspeaker. This new prototype was quickly improved. The
loudspeaker disappeared, hidden behind a piece of cloth. The apparatus, which
had looked so disturbingly strange next to the grand sideboards and plushly
cushioned armchairs of a normal German sitting room of the 1920s, finally
lost its status as a fascinating but also rather frightening technical miracle.36
32
J. Boehmer, “Der Rundfunkteilnehmer und sein Empfänger,” Deutsche Allgemeine
Zeitung (December 4, 1924); “Die Lautsprecherfrage,” Schlesische Volkszeitung (De-
cember 19, 1924).
33
F. Ewald, “Rundfunk aus der Steckdose,” Radio 7 (1929): 76–78; Rohde, “Die
Radio-Industrie,” Der Radiohändler 1 (1924): 52.
34
A. Esau, “Die Verstärkung der Rundfunksender und ihre Rückwirkung auf den
Empfang und die Empfänger,” Mitteldeutsche Monatshefte 10 (1927): 411–12.
35
“Welches waren die Ursachen für die Schwierigkeiten auf dem Radio-Markt?” Der
Radiohändler 1 (1924): 103; Bredow, “Die Verwirklichung des Rundfunkgedankens”
(n. 23 above), p. 10.
36
“Das Ergebnis der 3. Groben Deutschen Funk-Ausstellung,” Radio 4 (1926):
565–66; Berthold Cohn, “Rückblick und Ausblick,” Der Radiohändler 6 (1929): 2–3;
W. H. Fitze, “Gedanken zum neuen Jahr,” Radio 8 (1930): 9–10. In making these
changes the German radio industry followed the example of the American radio pro-

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734 Führer
I would argue that this development is not just an episode in design history
but is an important part of the social history of broadcasting. Since the new
sets were also much easier to operate than the earlier ones—the mains receiver,
supplied by the industry after 1928–29, was as easy to turn on as the electric
light—the wireless became for the first time a medium that was accessible
even to those who were uninformed or uninterested in technology. Thus the
highly gendered character of broadcasting faded away at the end of the decade.
Most likely the act of listening changed too. Wearing earphones, listeners in
the early years had found themselves chained to their radio sets. Listening to
the wireless could only be done sitting down, and chatting with someone else
at the same time was nearly impossible.37 It is also very difficult to pay less
than full attention to a radio program when listening through earphones. The
concentrated atmosphere of the family scene depicted in figure 2 is probably
typical of the way people behaved while the set was turned on during the early
years of broadcasting. The introduction of loudspeakers and sets that did not
require constant adjustment gave audiences at least a chance to turn the act of
listening into a more casual affair. A listener could now move around,
do homework, or chat with other persons in the same room about the ongoing
program.38
Paradoxically, these new possibilities did not divert German listeners from
the content of broadcasts. Quite the reverse: they seem to have made audiences
more attentive in this respect than ever before. There is quite a lot of contempo-
rary evidence that the technical development of sets profoundly changed the
attitude of listeners toward the new medium. During the first years of the his-
tory of broadcasting they were simply overwhelmed that they could hear any-
thing at all. The act of transmitting music and words over the air into sitting
rooms and parlors seemed to be such a “miracle”—this term was used over
and over again—that it was not so important what listeners heard or how well
they could hear it: “People were even enthusiastic when, listening hard, . . .
they believed they could hear something very faint from a great distance.” 39
They wanted “above all to hear, irrespective of content; they wanted to partici-
pate in the marvelous new achievement of technology.”40
ducers. See “Moderne amerikanische Rundfunkgeräte,” Der Radiohändler 3 (1927):

235–36.
37
Compare the complaints about this in Burghardt, “Lautsprecher und Lautsprecher-
empfang,” Der Radiohändler 6 (1926): 400–401.
38
Ernst Jolowicz, Der Rundfunk: Eine psychologische Untersuchung (Berlin, 1932),
pp. 34–36.
39
“Grobe Deutsche Funkausstellung 1928,” Der Radiohändler 5 (1928): 1025–28,
at 1028.
40
Arno Hach, “Schlubwort zum Thema Händler und Programmgestaltung,” Radio 9
(1931): 461–63, at 461.

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This changed when the set became a piece of furniture and the act of lis-
tening to the wireless turned into a part of everyday life. Audiences lost their
“innocent impartiality” toward broadcasts of all kinds and became more criti-
cal than before.41 In general, broadcasting was taken very seriously by Weimar
audiences. Undiscriminating listeners were scarce. As a survey carried out in
1933–34 among one thousand families demonstrated, just a small minority had
the set turned on all day long. Even among proletarian households the vast
majority was highly discriminating when it came to tuning in: 54.8 percent of
unskilled and 70.2 percent of skilled workers carefully planned which broad-
casts they heard, screening the program announcements in newspapers and
magazines.42 Most likely this was also true for the preceding years of Weimar
Germany.
However, these new sets that were so fundamentally altered in design had
one thing in common with their predecessors: they were expensive. The family
seen in figure 2 is once again representative in that it bought the set as a Christ-
mas present. This was very common in Germany throughout the years of the
Weimar Republic.43 Radio retailers made most of their sales during the last
months of the year; spring and summer were dead seasons.44 Most German
families needed the bonuses paid by employers and consumer cooperatives at
the end of the year to buy a set—or, more accurately, to pay the first install-
ment: in 1930–31 no less than 80 percent of all radios were bought on rental-
purchase plans.45 No comparable figures exist for the years before the slump,
but retailers had already begun complaining about the increasing number of
sets purchased on credit earlier on.46
Particularly expensive were sets with several valves. These cost at least RM
300 in 1924, although by 1925–26 prices had dropped slightly to approxi-
mately RM 250.47 As noted above, this equaled the monthly salary of a skilled
41
Ibid., p. 461. See also Hans Bredow in “Vortragsabend der RRG,” 7.9.26, BA Pots-
dam RPM 14868; Hans Neuert and Max Arndt, Das ABC des Funkhändlers: Handbuch
für den Funkhandel (Berlin, 1928), p. 39; Schmitz, “Radio und Radiohören auf dem
Lande,” Landwirtschaftliche Zeitschrift für die Rheinprovinz 33 (1932): 450–51.
42
G. Thann, “Von der sozialen Bedeutung des Rundfunks,” Soziale Praxis 44 (1935),
cols. 377–82, see esp. col. 380.
43
Gerd E. Freericks, So sollte der Radio- und Schallplattenhändler werben! Ein Buch
aus der Praxis für die Praxis (Munich, 1933), p. 12.
44
Heinz Vollmann, Rechtlich-wirtschaftlich-soziologische Grundlagen der deut-
schen Rundfunkentwicklung: Eine umfassende Darstellung aller die Rundfunkeinheit
betreffenden Probleme in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft (Borna, Leipzig,
1936), p. 178.
45
Führer (n. 2 above), p. 58.
46
H. Buchholz, “Das Abzahlungsgeschäft im Radiohandel,” Der Radiohändler 5
(1928): 996; “Was der Funkhandel wünscht,” Radio 7 (1929): 764.
47
Führer, pp. 56–57.

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736 Führer
worker or office clerk. In postinflation Germany very few households could

afford to invest so much money in a piece of leisure equipment. A Detektor
was considerably cheaper, costing only RM 25 or RM 30 in 1924–25 including
two sets of earphones. Of course, it was a rather crude apparatus. For technical
reasons a Detektor could only be used in the immediate vicinity of a radio
station. Radio waves spread in two different ways: as ground waves, which fade
rather quickly, and as airwaves, which can endure for several hundred or even
several thousand kilometers. The Detektor could pick up only the compara-
tively powerful ground waves, while a set with valves could also make use of
the much fainter airwaves. The radius reached by ground waves depends on the
power of the transmitting station. Since the Reichspost erected only rather low-
powered transmitting stations until 1930, broadcasting ground-wave circles
were very small: in 1927 they covered only 1.4 percent of the territory of the
Reich. Given the vast difference in price between sets with valves and the De-
tektor, this technical fact had important consequences for the social history of
the wireless. Germans who lived outside the extremely small areas reached by
ground waves had to buy one of the expensive sets to join the radio audience.
This was the great majority of Germans, since in 1927 just 31 percent of the
population lived within the areas where ground-wave reception was possible.48
A new type of set introduced by the small company Loewe in the fall of
1926, the Röhrenortsempfänger, did not solve this problem. Using a newly
developed form of valve (Dreifachröhre), it received programs more clearly
and with higher volume than the Detektor, but it too was designed only to pick
up ground waves. This set, quickly copied by other companies, became the
most common type of radio set in Germany after 1926, replacing the more
primitive Detektor.49 Prices ranged from RM 40 up to RM 90 for a fully
equipped set in 1926–27. Outside the areas reached by ground waves, costly
sets with three or more valves were still necessary.
The technical features of radio sets and stations as well as the level of prices
thus shaped the German radio audience. Since the Reichspost kept exact statis-
tics on registered subscribers, it is possible to locate them rather precisely.
Most listeners lived in the small areas where they could use the comparatively
inexpensive Detektor or Röhrenortsempfänger. As these were also the densely
populated conurbations of the Reich, Weimar broadcasting can justly be called
48
“Mitteilungen der Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft Nr. 7, 24.7.1927,” in Mittei-
lungen (n. 3 above); Bericht des Rundfunk-Kommissars des Reichspostministers über
die Wirtschaftslage der deutschen Rundfunkgesellschaften am 31. Dezember 1927 (Ber-
lin, n.d.), pp. 14–15.
49
Max Arndt, “Die 3. Grobe Deutsche Funkausstellung in Berlin,” Der Radiohändler
3 (1926): 494; “Empfänger-Statistik auf der Messe,” Der Radiohändler 5 (1928): 797–
800, esp. 797.

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an urban medium.50 Listeners were scarce in the countryside. In 1928, 83.5

percent of all subscribers of the Berlin Funk-Stunde (531,000 in total) lived in
the German capital and in Stettin, where the post had erected the two transmit-
ting stations used by this regional company. In the remaining vast area assigned
to the company only 105,000 households owned radio sets (this surrounding
region had a population of 4.9 million—a larger number than the 4.3 million
living in Berlin and in Stettin). Comparable though less extreme figures were
ascertained for other regional companies.51
Things began to change only in 1930, when the Reichspost launched a series
of more powerful transmitting stations (Grobsender). Emitting their ground
waves over a much wider area, these new stations gave nearly 70 percent of all
Germans the opportunity of listening to the wireless with one of the less expen-
sive sets when the last of them was put into operation in the spring of 1934.52
Nevertheless, audiences were still unevenly spread over the Reich on the eve
of the Nazi regime. Because of the slump, the construction of the Grobsender
had a less favorable effect on the development of radio audiences than the
postal ministry and regional companies expected. Rural Germany in particular
still lagged behind. In 1931 just 1.4 percent of the Bavarian radio audiences
lived in villages and hamlets with less than twenty-five hundred inhabitants.53
In the whole Reich 7.9 percent of all rural households had subscribed as radio
listeners in 1932, while forty-six out of one hundred families in the big cities
owned radio sets.54
Weimar broadcasting could hardly bind urban and rural Germany together,
given the fact that it was received mainly in towns and especially in the big
cities. This was not a result of cultural backwardness on the part of pea-
sants and farmhands, as so often is suggested by urban contemporaries. On the
contrary, most of the rural population was clearly interested in the wireless but
nevertheless unable to surmount the obstacles imposed by the technical and
economic facts of early broadcasting.55
The same facts shaped the social structure of radio audiences in other re-
spects as well. As a survey carried out in 1928 demonstrated, working-class
50
Carl Gebhardt, “Rundfunk und Land,” Freie Volksbildung 3 (1928): 229–43, esp.
237.
51
Führer, p. 65. Compare figures for 1929, in Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft mbH.
zu Berlin, Geschäftsbericht über das fünfte Geschäftsjahr 1929 (n.p., n.d.), p. 31.
52
Lerg (n. 6 above), p. 370.
53
Bayerischer Rundfunk GmbH., Geschäftsbericht 1931 (n.p., n.d.), p. 93.
54
Rundfunk und Landwirt (Berlin, 1932), p. 1.
55
Schmitz (n. 41 above), p. 450; cf. Die wirtschaftliche und geistige Struktur eines
Siedlungsdorfes: Eine Untersuchung des Volkshochschulheimes Tempelhof unter Lei-
tung von Günther Krolzig (Berlin, 1932), pp. 49–50.

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738 Führer
TABLE 2
Social Structure of Radio Subscribers (%)
Profession 1928 1930
Entrepreneur/free profession . . . . . . . . . . . 28.2 30.0
Civil servant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.1 13.5
Employee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.2 22.0
Worker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.5 25.6
Without profession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.0 8.9
Sources.—Bericht des Rundfunk-Kommissars des Reichspostministers über die
Wirtschaftslage der deutschen Rundfunkgesellschaften am 31. Dezember 1929 (Berlin,
n.d.), p. 14; Bericht des Rundfunk-Kommissars des Reichspostministers über die
Wirtschaftslage der deutschen Rundfunkgesellschaften am 31. Dezember 1930 (Berlin,
n.d.), p. 6. Heinz Vollmann, Rechtlich-wirtschaftlich-soziologische Grundlagen der
deutschen Rundfunkentwicklung: Eine umfassende Darstellung aller die Rundfunkein-
heit betreffenden Probleme in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft (Borna, Leipzig,
1936), p. 225, gives for the first column the date 1927 instead of 1928 and adds, fur-
thermore, that all figures do not include the Bavarian subscribers. The sources used
here do not mention this reservation. It is also missing in Gliederung der Gesamtbe-
völkerung und der Rundfunkteilnehmer, n.d. [1930], Staatsarchiv Hamburg Staatliche
Pressestelle I/Z II B b 13.
families were underrepresented among radio listeners. Only about a quarter of

all subscribers were classified as blue-collar workers, although 43 percent of
the German population belonged in this category (see table 2). The middle
classes clearly dominated Weimar broadcasting audiences. Taken together, en-
trepreneurs, members of the free professions, civil servants, and salaried em-
ployees (Angestellte) constituted approximately two-thirds of all listeners in
1928 as well as in 1930. Almost one in two households of civil servants and
employees owned radio sets in the late 1920s, while the same was true of only
one in seven working-class families.
Given the existence of the inexpensive Detektoren and the readiness of re-
tailers to sell on installment plans, these figures are astounding. Many blue-
collar workers may have shunned the programs of Weimar broadcasting—a
possibility discussed in more detail below—but more often they were simply
put off by the monthly fee German listeners had to pay. Since the Rundfunk-
gebühr was only RM 2 per month—equaling the wage earned in two hours by
a skilled worker, or the price of one record or two cinema tickets—this may
appear as unconvincing at first sight. To understand the great significance of
this seemingly negligible sum one has to look more closely at the tight budgets
of proletarian families in the 1920s.
According to a survey conducted by the Statistisches Reichsamt in 1927–28,
working-class households could spend RM 5.68 on average per month for cul-
tural needs and sociability. With this small amount all members of the family

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had to manage the purchase of newspapers, magazines, and books as well as

tickets for theaters, cinemas, sporting events, and dances.56 Listening to the
wireless therefore forced the proletarian family to make sacrifices: it had to do
without some of its accustomed pleasures to afford the monthly fees as well as
the other expenses necessary to keep the set going. These could easily amount
to RM 2 or more per month.57
Civil servants and salaried employees were better off: their families spent
RM 11.60 or RM 10.86, respectively, per month on news and cultural events.58
Therefore they could use the radio as an additional source of information and
entertainment, not as a substitute.59 It can be argued that the emergence of
broadcasting divided German working-class families into two groups: those
that were unwilling to economize on the newspaper or the cinema in favor of
the wireless and those that were prepared to do so. Many of the latter were
devoted radio buffs. Those (relatively few) blue-collar workers who owned
radio sets spent quite a lot of money on them. They spoke of them “warmly”
and “with enthusiasm”; the radio set was often the most precious item in the
household and therefore was “treated as sacred.” Members of the middle
classes displayed a decidedly less emotional attitude toward their radio sets.60
How strongly the obligation to pay the monthly fee influenced the develop-
ment of Weimar broadcasting is made clear by a closer examination of those
listeners who canceled their radio licenses. Until recently scholars failed to
notice that many Germans who tried out the wireless during the second half
of the 1920s subsequently turned their backs on it. The steady increase in
the total number of listeners obscured this fact—but the increase was always
just the surplus remaining when cancellations were subtracted from new sub-
scriptions. For example, the post registered 221,680 new subscribers for the
Rhenish-Westphalian regional company WERAG in 1929, but in the same year
156,276 listeners living in the company’s territory decided to cancel their li-
56
Die Lebenshaltung von 2000 Arbeiter- Angestellten- und Beamtenhaushaltungen:
Erhebungen von Wirtschaftsrechnungen im Deutschen Reich vom Jahre 1927/28, 2 vols.
(Berlin, 1932), 1:134–35 (hereafter cited as Die Lebenshaltung). For the prices of rec-
ords and cinema tickets, see J. Sachs, “Zur Frage der Schallplattenkonzerte,” Phono-
graphische Zeitschrift 32 (1932): 740–42, esp. 740.
57
See Eugen Nesper, Kompendium der Funktechnik: Ein Funklexikon (Berlin, 1931),
p. 150. Nesper calculated RM 2.60 operating costs per month for a three-valve receiver
that was turned on for four hours per day on average.
58
Die Lebenshaltung, pp. 134–35.
59
Thann (n. 42 above), col. 381.
60
Ibid., col. 379 (citation) and col. 381. To give another example, the majority of
the 17,000 members of the Workers Radio Association (Arbeiter-Radio-Bund) (55.4
percent) owned valuable sets with three or more valves in 1931; “Absatzmöglichkeiten,”
Radio 9 (1931): 402.

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740 Führer
censes. In 1931 these figures were 209,680 new subscriptions and 172,575
cancellations.61 The figures from other companies were only slightly less
alarming: if not for the cancellations, the annual influx of new listeners would
have been almost 50 percent higher.62
Surveys carried out between 1927 and 1931 by the Bavarian regional com-
pany, the Deutsche Stunde in Bayern (renamed the Bayerische Rundfunk A.G.
in 1930), shed light on the reasons why so many families who had bought
a radio set later lost interest in the new medium. First, some listeners were
compelled to economize: they could no longer afford the monthly fees and/or
the installments due for the radio set. In 1927, 24.4 percent of Bavarian ex-
listeners named financial difficulties as the reason for the cancellation of their
radio licenses. In 1931, at the extreme point of the slump, this figure rose
sharply to 41.7 percent. Second, the quality of reception was quite often so
poor that listeners, annoyed by constant static and interference, got rid of their
sets. This was the case for roughly one-quarter to one-fifth of all cancellations
in Bavaria. The third reason—of foremost significance between 1927 and
1929, but considerably less important after the economic crisis began—was
“lack of time and interest.” This factor accounted for 30.8 percent of the can-
cellations in 1927, but for only 23.5 percent in 1930 and 11.5 percent in 1931.
Although only an extremely small minority—never greater than 2.6 percent of
those ex-listeners who filled in the questionnaire—declared a decidedly more
critical “discontent with programs” as the reason for canceling their licenses,
the figures given above clearly demonstrate that broadcasting was not necessar-
ily regarded as an essential part of everyday life during the 1920s even by those
who had taken an interest in the medium in the first place.63
This lack of interest may have had to do with the fact that variety was not
a strong point of Weimar broadcasting. Many listeners had little or no choice
of stations: costly radios with several valves were needed to receive the faint
airwaves, and listeners who used a Detektor or a Röhrenortsempfänger could
therefore tune in only to the nearest station. In 1931, 55.5 percent of the Ger-
man radio audience was still using these less expensive sets; 44.5 percent
owned sets with several valves, which secured comparatively interference-free
61
Westdeutscher Rundfunk AG, Bericht über das Geschäftsjahr vom 1. Januar bis
31. Dezember 1929 (n.p., n.d.), p. 16; Westdeutscher Rundfunk AG, Geschäftsbericht
1931 (n.p., n.d.), enclosure no. 4.
62
Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft mbH. zu Berlin, Geschäftsbericht über das vierte
Geschäftsjahr 1928 (n.p., n.d.), p. 8.
63
Deutsche Stunde in Bayern GmbH., Jahresbericht über das Jahr 1927 (n.p., n.d.),
p. 6; Deutsche Stunde in Bayern GmbH., Bericht über das Geschäftsjahr vom 1. Januar
bis 31. Dezember 1929 (n.p., n.d.), p. 12; Bayerischer Rundfunk GmbH., Geschäfts-
bericht 1930 (n.p., n.d.), p. 7; Bayerischer Rundfunk GmbH., Geschäftsbericht 1931
(n. 53 above), p. 19.

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long-distance reception.64 Germans regarded the American broadcasting sys-

tem, which gave audiences in cities a choice between a dozen or more stations,
with a mixture of envy and disbelief.65
Transmitting on long waves while the regional companies used the medium-
wave band, the Deutsche Welle was intended to serve as the central German
radio station. Yet it is highly questionable whether audiences actually regarded
its broadcasts as an alternative to those of the regional companies. For most
of the day, the Deutsche Welle was essentially a “college on the air” offering
only educational lectures.66 In the evening the station depended on the regional
companies: it transmitted programs, mostly of classical music, produced by
them. Only after 1930 was the Deutsche Welle gradually transformed into a
“true radio station” (Radio-Vollprogramm) offering more than lectures and am-
bitious music.67
These changes may have contributed to the sharp fall in the numbers of radio
cancellations attributed to “lack of time and interest” in 1930–31, since they
gave many listeners a real choice for the first time between at least two broad-
casts. It may have helped too that the Reichspost built a considerably more
powerful transmitter for the Deutsche Welle in 1931. Up until then reception
had often been faulty outside a radius of two hundred or three hundred kilome-
ters around Berlin.68 Last but not least, the economic crisis that forced many
families to cancel their radio licenses may have persuaded other listeners to
keep their sets even when they disliked the programs. Tuning in was the most
inexpensive form of entertainment—an important factor in times when almost
everyone felt the need to cut expenditures. This also explains the continuing
influx of new subscribers even at the extreme point of the slump.69
Thus economic conditions and the technical features of radio sets and
stations shaped the development and the social structure of the audience for
Weimar broadcasting. The complex interactions of these diverse factors also
64
Figures calculated on the basis of Gerd Braune, Der Einflub von Schallplatte und
Rundfunk auf die deutsche Musikinstrumenteindustrie (Berlin, 1934), pp. 34–35. These
figures derive from a Reichspost survey that encompassed 75 percent of all registered
subscribers.
65
Gütner Doberzinsky, “Rundfunk im Dollarland!” Die Sendung 4 (1927): 92–93.
66
Saldern (n. 7 above), p. 33.
67
Lerg (n. 6 above), pp. 305–10.
68
Otto Nairz, Das Grobsenderproblem (Berlin, 1931), pp. 6–7. Deutsche Welle’s sta-
tion was located near Berlin in Königs Wusterhausen and, after 1928, in Zeesen. On its
technical development, see Gerhart Goebel, “Der Deutsche Rundfunk bis zum Inkraft-
treten des Kopenhagener Wellenplans,” Archiv für Post- und Fernmeldewesen 2 (1950):
354–464, esp. 371.
69
See Wochenbericht des Instituts für Konjunkturforschung 3 (1930): 171–72;
N. Meyer, “Das wirtschaftliche Ergebnis der 8. Funkausstellung und seine Bedeutung
für den Radiohändler,” Der Radiohändler 8 (1931): 828–29.

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742 Führer
greatly influenced the way listeners experienced the new medium. Beginning
its existence as a fascinating but also demanding technical miracle, broadcast-
ing gradually became less exciting but also more convenient to listen to. In the
rural parts of the Reich listeners remained rare; the middle strata of German
society clearly dominated radio audiences. To determine whether this peculiar
social structure was also a consequence of programming content, a closer look
at this aspect of the history of Weimar broadcasting is necessary.
“Higher Things” and Entertainment: The

Programs of Weimar Broadcasting
The first German radio program lasted for an hour. On October 29, 1923, the
Berlin Funk-Stunde transmitted between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. and then the sta-
tion went off the air again.70 Listeners had to content themselves with compara-
bly brief programs for several months, but by the end of the year the company
had already started to broadcast between 4:30 and 10:00 p.m. Twelve months
later the Funk-Stunde offered, on average, daily broadcasts of nearly eight
hours’ duration.71 In 1927, when all the regional companies and the Deutsche
Welle were well established, a radio buff eager to hear all the programs had to
sit beside the set for more than ten hours. Taken together, the German broad-
casting companies produced 37,670 hours of radio programs in that year. Four
years later, in 1931, this figure amounted to 54,975 hours, and the average radio
day lasted fifteen hours.72 Silence reigned over the airwaves only late at night
and during some hours in the morning after 8:00 a.m. when few listeners were
at home and ready to tune in.
Given the huge numbers of broadcasts transmitted by nine independent
companies, any attempt at a general characterization of Weimar radio programs
runs the risk of oversimplification. Studies of this important aspect of the his-
tory of broadcasting are still rare and unsatisfactory,73 but contemporary statis-
70
Compare the program announcement reproduced in Jochen Wiesinger, Die Ge-
schichte der Unterhaltungselektronik: Daten, Bilder, Trends (Frankfurt, 1994), p. 51.
71
Rudolf Lothar, “Die Musik,” in Drei Jahre Berliner Rundfunkdarbietungen: Ein
Rückblick, 1923–1926 (Berlin, 1926), pp. 3–33, esp. p. 8 (hereafter cited as Drei Jahre);
Susanne Grobmann-Vendrey, “Musik-Programm in der Berliner Funk-Stunde: Mehr
als ein ‘Nebenbuhler des Konzertbetriebs’?” in Materialien zur Rundfunkgeschichte,
vol. 2, Zur Programmgeschichte des Weimarer Rundfunks, ed. Deutsches Rundfunkar-
chiv, Frankfurt/Main (Frankfurt, 1986), pp. 55–82, esp. p. 64.
72
Lerg, p. 339.
73
Eberhard Klumpp, Das erste Jahrzehnt: Der Südfunk und sein Programm, 1924–
1933/34 (Stuttgart, 1984), gives just an impressionistic picture; August Soppe, Rund-
funk in Frankfurt am Main, 1923–1926: Zur Organisations, Programm- und Rezeptions-
geschichte eines neues Mediums (Munich, 1993), is focused on the first three years
and—due to the premature death of the author, who left this study unfinished—does

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TABLE 3
Programs of the Deutsche Stunde in Bayern, 1929
Percent of All Minutes per
Broadcasts Broadcasting Time Day on Average
Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.3 319
Lectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.1 95
News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13.8 81
Radio plays/literary broadcasts . . 7.8 46
Broadcasts for women . . . . . . . . . 2.3* 14*
Broadcasts for children . . . . . . . . 1.7† 10†
Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 3.9
Sport reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 3.6
Miscellaneous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7 15.5
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00 588.0
Source.—Calculated on the basis of Statistisches Jahrbuch für den Freistaat Bayern 19 (1930): 463.
*Without music; including music, the figures would read 2.6 percent, 15.7 minutes.
† Without music; including music, the figures would read 2.0 percent, 12 minutes.
tics can give us at least a rough outline. More than half of the broadcasting
time of the regional companies was taken up by music. In 1929 the Deutsche
Stunde in Bayern offered audiences some 1,943 hours of music—on average,
six and one-third hours per day. This amounted to 54.4 percent of its broadcast-
ing time (cf. table 3).
Comparable figures are to be found for other regional companies.74 But “mu-
sic” is still an overly general category when it comes to characterizing pro-
grams. What sort of music was on offer? Were musical broadcasts on Wei-
mar radio dominated by popular tunes or by highbrow music? Answering this
question is quite difficult, since labels commonly attached to music program-
not cover entertaining broadcasts; Leonhard (n. 15 above) contains nothing on lectures
and spoken broadcasts for entertainment. Smaller segments of the program (radio plays,
children’s and women’s programs, religious programs) are better researched. Compare
Christian Hörburger, Das Hörspiel der Weimarer Republik: Versuch einer kritischen
Analyse (Stuttgart, 1975); Hans-Jürgen Krug, Arbeitslosenhörspiele, 1930–1933
(Frankfurt, 1992); Brunhild Elfert, Die Entstehung und Entwicklung des Kinder- und
Jugendrundfunks in Deutschland von 1924 bis 1933 am Beispiel der Berliner Funk-
Stunde AG (Frankfurt, 1983); Kate Lacey, Feminine Frequencies: Gender, German Ra-
dio and the Public Sphere, 1923–1945 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1996); Rolf Schieder, Reli-
gion im Radio: Protestantische Rundfunkarbeit in der Weimarer Republik und im Drit-
ten Reich (Stuttgart, 1997). Frank Biermann, Paul Laven: Rundfunkberichterstattung
zwischen Aktualität und Kunst (Münster, 1989), has useful information on the develop-
ment of the radio reportage.
74
Compare the figures for the Berlin Funk-Stunde, ORAG, Deutsche Stunde in Bay-
ern and Schlesische Funk-Stunde for 1925, 1929, and 1931, in Leonhard (n. 15
above), 1:360–66.

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744 Führer
ming such as “entertaining” or “demanding” are in themselves problematic.

The difficulty is compounded by the fact that Weimar radio executives had
their own notions of “amusement.” To give one example: The Berlin Funk-
Stunde announced a broadcast headed “music for entertainment” (Unterhal-
tungsmusik) scheduled for the early evening of May 28, 1931. These eighty-
five minutes offered an amazing variety of musical works. Listeners could hear
a waltz by Johann Strauss and excerpts from Franz Lehar’s highly popular op-
eretta Der Zarewitsch, but also a song by Jules Massenet and—of all things—
music from Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which certainly was not ev-
eryone’s idea of “entertainment.” 75 Although statistics are an indispensable
source of information about Weimar broadcasting, this arbitrarily chosen ex-
ample should warn us against taking too literally sources that classify musical
broadcasts as “demanding” or “entertaining.”
Such figures were amassed for the year 1927 by the MIRAG, the regional
company that operated in Leipzig and produced programs for Saxony and
Thuringia. In that year the company transmitted nearly 575 hours of “serious
music” (ernste Musik). Audiences could choose from fifty-six complete op-
eras—among them such rarities as Leonore, the ill-fated first version of Bee-
thoven’s Fidelio, comparably neglected scores by Gluck and Dittersdorf, and
two premieres of contemporary German operas, but also many works from the
standard operatic repertoire such as Madama Butterfly, Rigoletto, and Cosı̀ fan
tutte. There were twenty-one concerts offering operatic music, ten oratorios,
fifty-eight symphony concerts, fifty-nine broadcasts of chamber music, eighty-
one Liederabende and other solo recitals, fifty-eight programs with organ mu-
sic, and twenty-five broadcasts of “contemporary music,” which offered works
by Arthur Honegger, Igor Stravinsky, Ottorino Respighi, and a host of now
completely forgotten German composers.
At first sight this may appear to be a very generous if not overwhelming
offering, but on average the MIRAG broadcast no more than ninety minutes
of “demanding music” per day. Programs with “music for entertainment” took
75
Compare the program announcement reproduced in Peter Dahl, Arbeitersender
und Volksempfänger: Proletarische Radio-Bewegung und bürgerlicher Rundfunk bis
1945 (Frankfurt, 1978), p. 35. Another example is an Unterhaltungskonzert produced
by the MIRAG in December 1927: it offered music from Wagner’s Walküre and Lohen-
grin, but also popular operetta tunes like “Ich bin die Christel von der Post” (Der Rund-
funk 4 [1927]: 3357). Of course, music by Wagner was not highbrow culture per se.
Probably more melodic excerpts from his earlier works, such as the “Song of the Eve-
ning Star” from Tannhäuser and the bridal chorus from Lohengrin, were as popular in
Germany as in the United States. However, it is highly unlikely that the same was true
of Tristan, the epitome of sacralization of a work of art. The boundaries between high-
brow and lowbrow culture in German cultural life are still unexplored. For a discussion
of these issues in the United States, see Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The
Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge and London, 1988).

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up much more broadcasting time: almost 1,195 hours during the year, or about
three and one-quarter hours per day.76 Once again these findings can be re-
garded as representative for the other regional companies.77 These figures indi-
cate that Weimar broadcasting favored “entertainment” over “culture,” but it
may be questioned whether such an assessment—even if statistically correct—
corresponds to the actual experience of listeners. The executives of the regional
companies were well aware that the “value” of broadcasting time differed enor-
mously during the course of the day. The hours between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m.,
when most listeners were at home and eager to tune in, were—to borrow a
more recent term—“prime time,” while broadcasts that went on the air just
before or after lunchtime were most likely to pass by without attracting much
attention. As a leading manager of the Berlin Funk-Stunde put it in 1929, in
the perception of listeners and the press the “artistic physiognomy” of broad-
casting was shaped largely by those programs transmitted during the early
evening.78
Prestigious broadcasts were usually featured during these prime hours,
while “light” programs were most likely to be transmitted in the early morning
(Frühkonzert) or at noon (Mittagskonzert). Broadcasts with dance music were
most often restricted to the late hours of the evening (after 10:00 p.m.), even
though Germany was swept by a “dance craze” during the 1920s.79 Only Satur-
day night, which marked the beginning of the weekend for all who were gain-
fully employed, was generally reserved for light programs that offered fun and
relaxation.80 Of course such planning embodied an implicit judgment concern-
ing the different values of culture and entertainment, putting into practice a
pedagogical concept of broadcasting developed by German radio executives
under the protective cover of the public regulation of the wireless. In 1928,
Carl Hagemann, then director of the Berlin Funk-Stunde, roughly rebuffed all
those who asked for light entertainment during “prime time.” In his view such
76
Calculated on the basis of Fritz Kaphahn, ed., Zum fünfjährigen Bestehen des Mit-
teldeutschen Rundfunks: Beiträge aus dem Kreise des kulturellen Beirats (Leipzig,
1929), tables 1 and 2 (unpaginated).
77
Compare the figures in Leonhard, ed., 1:363–66.
78
Edmund Nick in “Aussprache über Rundfunk und Musik, 22./23.5.29,” in Bredow,
Aus meinem Archiv (n. 25 above), pp. 274–311, esp. p. 305. For the most popular times
of tuning in (after dinner between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m., and around lunchtime), see
Ergebnis der in den Oberpostdirektionsbezirken Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg und
Leipzig bei den Teilnehmern abgehaltenen Umfrage (Oktober 1930), StA Hamburg
Staatliche Pressestelle I, Z II B b 8.
79
Compare, e.g., Fred Ritzel, “‘Hätte der Kaiser Jazz getanzt . . .’ : US-Tanzmusik
in Deutschland vor und nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg,” in Ich will aber gerade vom Leben
singen . . . Über populäre Musik vom ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert bis zum Ende der
Weimarer Republik, ed. Sabine Schütte (Reinbeck, 1987), pp. 265–93, esp. pp. 279–81.
80
Leonhard, ed., 2:364.

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746 Führer
demands were “of course not to be met.” He regarded listeners as idle or

spoiled. At the same time, he believed they were “basically quite compliant.”
Radio programming thus became a means of policing the leisure time of Ger-
mans, one carefully designed to lead audiences to “higher things.” 81 Ernst
Hardt, Hagemann’s colleague at the West German regional company WERAG,
argued in the same vein. In his view, radio listeners had “no will of their own
to ask for the cultural and aesthetic better things,” but he felt sure that deep
down they wanted “to be led, . . . to be forced” to hear such programs, that
they would “be thankful later on.” 82 Therefore the WERAG proudly labeled
itself a “cultural and artistic leader.” It rejected the idea that a program com-
pany should regard itself as a kind of “department store,” obliged to fulfill all
demands made by listeners regardless of their worthiness.83
The wish to spread a love of classical music was at the core of this educa-
tional scheme. A very German quasi-religious belief in the power of music led
Weimar radio executives to expect that such programs would help listeners to
(re)discover their “souls” and “that what is truly divine in them, lying dormant
in everyone.” 84 “Light music” was deemed to be unsuitable for this task and
therefore held in utter contempt. In presenting its programs of 1928–29 the
Berlin Funk-Stunde listed every single piece of classical music that had been
transmitted, but it had only a few words for “entertaining” musical programs.
At the same time, the company assumed that “the great majority of listeners”
cared above all for these broadcasts and not for those offering classical cham-
ber music, which the Funk-Stunde had fostered with such determination that
it had by then almost “exhausted the stock of classical sonatas.” 85
Quite often programs with popular tunes were planned and compiled not by
program executives but by record companies and record retailers, who rented
broadcasting time to advertise their products (Schallplattenkonzerte).86 Trans-
81
Carl Hagemann in Bredow, Aus meinem Archiv, p. 235.
82
Cited in Hay (n. 27 above), p. 114. For Hardt’s career and opinions, see also Karl
H. Karst, “Ernst Hardt,” Geschichte im Westen 7 (1992): 99–116.
83
Westdeutscher Rundfunk AG, Bericht über das Geschäftsjahr vom 1. Januar bis
31. Dezember 1927 (n.p., n.d.), p. 8. See also Die Programmgestaltung der Funkstunde
AG. in der Zeit vom 1. Januar bis 31. Dezember 1931: Auszug aus dem Bericht des
Vorstandes an den Aufsichtsrat (n.p., n.d), p. 3.
84
Lothar (n. 71 above), p. 4.
85
Rudolf Lothar, “Die Musik,” in Das Sechste Berliner Rundfunkjahr: Ein Rückblick
(Berlin, 1929), pp. 5–78, esp. pp. 49, 76. Lothar’s list of the classical music transmitted
by the Funk-Stunde filled seventy-five pages.
86
In the early years of Weimar broadcasting these “record concerts” were often an-
nounced as being “not part of the program” of the company that transmitted them.
See Regiesitzung in Anwesenheit des Kulturbeirats, August 20, 1928, Nachlab Bredow
Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv Frankfurt; Georg Roeber, “Schallplattenkonzerte im Rund-
funk,” Archiv für Funkrecht 5 (1932): 42–64; Herbert Connor, “Die Schlagerindustrie

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missions of performances given by dance bands in local hotels and dance halls
also made up a great part of entertaining musical programs. If Weimar radio
was at all in touch with the latest trends in popular music it was due to broad-
casts like these, which originated outside the program companies.87 In contrast,
the radio companies took great care to lead audiences to the joys of great art.
German radio listeners were not only offered “good music” at the best broad-
casting time of the day; they could also tune in to quite a lot of lectures which
accompanied those musical programs. The MIRAG expressly used such lec-
tures to give its programs a “deliberate single-mindedness guided by cultural
central ideas.” In 1927, the Beethoven centenary commemorating the compos-
er’s death one hundred years earlier, the company broadcast twelve lectures on
“The Age of Beethoven in the Mirror of Culture” as well as a series entitled
“A History of Opera in Sound” (twelve installments) and two series of more
basic lectures: “General Theory of Music” and “The Fundamental Principles
of Harmony.” In the following year there were ten lectures on the poets of
Schubert’s lieder texts and fourteen lectures on the history of the piano con-
certo.88 Normally such broadcasts were transmitted during the early evening
between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. The potential audience was therefore consid-
erable.89
This preponderance of highbrow culture during the evening met with sur-
prisingly little outspoken criticism. Audiences remained virtually silent. Of
course the broadcasting companies received complaints as well as praise from
listeners, but given the total number of subscribers the number of those writing
was insignificant. When almost a thousand letters were addressed to the SWR
in Frankfurt after it broadcast a controversial radio play on youth unemploy-
ment in September 1930, this was considered unusually intense feedback.90 At
this time the company had more than 220,000 registered subscribers and an
audience of approximately 600,000. Normally, mail from listeners trickled in
slowly. The Bavarian regional company, with as many listeners as the SWR,
received on average seven letters per day in 1930.91 As a rule, those who both-
ered to write liked the available programming. The MIRAG summarized
im Rundfunk,” Die Weltbühne 27, no. 2 (1931): 67–69. On advertising in Weimar radio
in general, see Führer (n. 2 above), pp. 119–36.
87
See “Der Händler und die Programmgestaltung,” Radio 9 (1931): 336–38, esp.
337. In 1928–29 the Berlin Funk-Stunde offered 119 of such transmissions from local
hotels (Lothar, Drei Jahre, p. 78). After 1929 the program companies took more care
to produce “modern dance music” and even “jazz music” also in broadcasts planned by
themselves. See Leonhard, ed. (n. 15 above), 2:948–95.
88
Kaphahn, ed. (n. 76 above), pp. 78, 85, 87–89.
89
Leonhard, ed., 2:643–50.
90
Krug (n. 73 above), p. 82.
91
Bayerischer Rundfunk GmbH., Geschäftsbericht 1930 (n. 63 above), p. 38.

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748 Führer
listeners’ responses in this way: “Audiences reject all music that is too light,
especially modern dance music. . . . More serious programs get the most en-
thusiastic reception.” 92 Complaints, which were rare, were often mailed anony-
mously, a fact that rendered them completely ineffective.93
Nearly all political parties welcomed the educational efforts of Weimar
broadcasting. This is especially true of the Social Democrats, who enthusiasti-
cally believed that a common knowledge of works by Beethoven or Schiller
would promote general enlightenment. In artistic terms, they regarded the Ger-
man broadcasting system as the best thing imaginable.94 The press also ap-
preciated the artistic inclinations of Weimar radio executives. Criticism arose
only when the program companies overdid things: the Berlin Funk-Stunde got
some annoyed reviews in March 1927, for example, when it decided to broad-
cast music by Beethoven every single evening for a week to mark the pinnacle
of the Beethovenjahr.95
Only radio retailers, it seemed, wished for radically different programs.
They argued that the number of German listeners—and of their own custom-
ers—would rise far more rapidly if the program companies would eliminate or
at least present fewer “études and opuses.” 96 Above all they demanded “enter-
tainment, light music, the hit songs of the day” to which listeners could “hum
and sing along,” as well as dance music and humorous sketches.97 This cam-
paign was redoubled when the slump came to its greatest intensity in 1932.
Invoking the alleged needs of crisis-striken Germans, radio retailers asked still
more urgently for “light, melodic, appealing music,” since they believed listen-
92
Bericht des Rundfunk-Kommissars über die Vorgänge im Rundfunk während der
Monate Januar bis März 1928, BA Potsdam R 48/4783, p. 11.
93
Bayerischer Rundfunk GmbH., Geschäftsbericht 1930, p. 38.
94
Horst O. Halefeldt, “Das erste Medium für alle? Erwartungen an den Hörfunk bei
seiner Einführung in Deutschland Anfang der 20er Jahre,” Rundfunk und Fernsehen 34
(1986): 23–43, 157–76, esp. 35–42; for the Social Democrats, see Thomas Alexander,
Carl Severing: Ein Demokrat und Sozialist in Weimar (Frankfurt, 1996), p. 826; Dieter
Langewiesche, “Politik-Gesellschaft-Kultur: Zur Problematik von Arbeiterkultur und
kulturellen Arbeiterorganisationen in Deutschland nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg,” Archiv
für Sozialgeschichte 22 (1982): 359–402, esp. 393–99. Only the Communist Party
(KPD), which feared the “ideological contamination” of proletarian minds, criticized
the programs and advised workers to tune in to broadcasts from the Soviet Union. See
“Um den proletarischen Rundfunk,” Rote Fahne (March 7, 1929); “Hörerstreik gegen
Rundfunk-Reaktion,” Rote Fahne (April 7, 1929); Paul Jansen, Wie kann ich Moskau
empfangen? (Berlin, 1931).
95
E. Scheiffler, “Programmwahl und Hörerschaft,” Die Sendung 4 (1927): 175–76.
96
Regiesitzung in Anwesenheit des Kulturbeirats (n. 86 above).
97
E. Rellsegg, “Zur Programmfrage,” Radio 8 (1930): 582–84. See also Heinz Engel,
“So geht das nicht,” Radio 7 (1930): 1162–63; “Gespräche mit Händlern,” Radio 6
(1928): 808–12.

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ers wanted to be “radically distracted from brooding on their miserable exis-

tence.” 98
Weimar radio executives claimed proudly to have ignored these requests for
change. At the same time they exaggerated the degree to which they had re-
sisted the “siren call of amusement.” In 1928 all regional companies began to
reform their evening programming. Up to then the norm had been one very
long broadcast which lasted for up to three hours. In 1928 this practice, mod-
eled on a theater performance, was abandoned. In May of that year the MIRAG
restricted the normal duration of their programs to sixty minutes; only in
exceptional cases—that is, when “great works of art” were involved—would
more time be granted. It therefore became possible to present three or four
different broadcasts in the course of one evening.99 At about the same time the
other regional companies decided to make similar policy changes.100 Some
shifts in the sequence of programs over the course of the day ensued. Lectures,
which up to then normally had been transmitted around lunchtime, now went
on the air during the evening as well; and “demanding music,” with its share
of broadcast time reduced after 8:00 p.m., was now also presented during the
afternoon or in the Mittagskonzerte.101
Nevertheless, these changes did not fundamentally alter the basic concept
of Weimar radio programming. German broadcasting remained a medium with
an educational mission. Even after the reform the Berlin Funk-Stunde reserved
the better part of evening programs on four nights of the week for “big, self-
contained events or items such as operas, radio plays, symphony concerts, etc.”
On three evenings per week listeners could hear musical or literary “entertain-
ment” between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m., but then “shorter symphonies, chamber
music, Lieder, choruses, recitations, and lectures” again ensued.102 The extent
to which radio executives remained committed to cultivating taste became
clear when they discussed the possibility of offering all listeners—even those
with inexpensive sets—more than a single program. Such freedom of choice
was regarded as intolerable, for example, by Ernst Hardt, director of the
98
“Gutes Sendeprogram—Gutes Rundfunkgeschäft!” Radio 10 (1932): 575–77, esp.
576; “Achtung, das Programm—Hörer melden ab!” Radio 10 (1932): 599.
99
Bericht des Rundfunk-Kommissars über die Vorgänge im Rundfunk während der
Monate Januar bis März 1928, BA Potsdam R 48/4783; Kaphahn, ed. (n. 76 above),
p. 74.
100
Bericht des Rundfunk-Kommissars des Reichspostministers über die Vorgänge im
Rundfunk während der Monate Oktober bis Dezember 1928, BA Potsdam R 48/4413,
p. 8; Leonhard, ed. (n. 15 above), 2:646–49.
101
Leonhard, ed., 2:650–79.
102
Bericht des Rundfunk-Kommissars des Reichspostministeriums über die Wirt-
schaftslage der deutschen Rundfunkgesellschaften am 31. Dezember 1928 (n.p., n.d.),
p. 17.

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750 Führer
WERAG, if it were to mean that broadcasting would in the future transmit

“two kinds of programs for two kinds of tastes” at the same time. He violently
opposed offering “a coffee-house program every evening for listeners who
have no taste and a program of high quality for the others.”103 A choice between
music and a spoken broadcast or between “ambitious and less demanding pro-
grams” was regarded as acceptable by the Berlin Funk-Stunde, but it passion-
ately dissociated itself from “mediocre broadcasts.”104 German radio programs
therefore offered none of the cultural trivia that took up more and more broad-
cast time in the United States in the late 1920s and early 1930s: situation com-
edies, soap operas, detective serials, and quiz shows remained unknown to the
German audience.
To prevent listeners from opting every night for less ambitious programs,
the evening broadcast schedule of the Deutsche Welle was intended to present
only “high-quality broadcasts” (Spitzenprogramme).105 Quite often programs
expressly labeled as “entertainment” offered not the hit songs of the day but
the more respectable, albeit by the 1920s more than slightly dated, popular
tunes of the late nineteenth century and the prewar years: waltzes, operetta
songs, and marches. Occasionally “concerts for entertainment” were even
tinged with highbrow culture. The example given above of the Berlin Funk-
Stunde smuggling music from Tristan und Isolde into such a broadcast was
typical.106
Judging from the results of the survey of 1933–34 mentioned above, all these
intense educational efforts were in vain. After ten years of restricted program-
ming German radio audiences still displayed highly divergent tastes, especially
in regard to music. As the survey strikingly demonstrated, a preference for
“classical” or “light” music was class-related. Only 7.9 percent of unskilled
and 10.5 percent of skilled workers were fond of classical concerts, while 80.4
percent of upper civil servants and members of the free professions expressed
their strong attachment to such music. Proletarian radio listeners disliked not
only operas, but—surprisingly—also operettas and “folk music,” since these
were likely to be performed at least partly by women. For technical reasons
female voices on the air tended to sound shrill and harsh in those early days
of broadcasting, and workers were less inclined to adjust their ears to these
103
Niederschrift der Besprechung über die Umgestaltung und den weiteren Ausbau
des deutschen Rundfunksendernetzes im Reichspostministerium, July 5, 1929, BA
Potsdam R 48/4354.
104
Bericht des Vorstandes der Funk-Stunde AG. über das Geschäftsjahr 1929 (n.p.,
n.d.), p. 24.
105
Lerg (n. 6 above), p. 308.
106
Grobmann-Vendrey (n. 71 above), p. 80.

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deficiencies than were members of other social strata.107 All in all, expectations
of radio programming could not have been more diverse. While the best-off
listeners expressly wished for as much “good (i.e., classical) music” as pos-
sible, those on the other end of the social scale were put off by such programs.
“For heaven’s sake, no demanding music with an opus”—this opinion was
voiced by many manual workers. The latter demanded music for entertainment
as well as dance music and they wanted to hear it at the best broadcast time,
not late at night.108
The criticisms voiced by the associations of radio retailers were therefore
justified. In treating light music and entertainment in general as marginal to
radio programs, Weimar radio executives placed the wishes of a small educated
minority above those of the greater part of the population. That Weimar broad-
casting attracted relatively few listeners among proletarian families cannot
therefore be ascribed exclusively to economic factors. Many workers were dis-
appointed by the offered programs and turned their backs on the new medium
for that reason.
It is also probable that they shunned the lectures that featured so promi-
nently in Weimar radio programs. The MIRAG transmitted on average eighty-
one lectures per month in 1927—that is, almost three per day (besides lan-
guage courses). Since a lecture usually lasted thirty minutes, the daily program
time taken up by these spoken broadcasts equaled that of programs offering
“demanding” music. Virtually every field of knowledge was covered, but the
arts (Geisteswissenschaften) were especially dear to the company executives.
They regarded radio lectures as a means “to influence the Zeitgeist” and felt
compelled to use them to promote “traditional humanist ideals.” Thus 41 per-
cent of all lectures broadcast by the MIRAG in 1927 tackled themes of the
humanities.109
According to the survey of 1933–34—our only source concerning listeners’
preferences—these programs appealed to a minority. Once again, the interest
in such broadcasts was clearly class-related, although the differences between
107
Thann (n. 42 above), col. 380. On the technical development of microphones,
which were mainly responsible for the difficulties in broadcasting singing female
voices, in the 1920s, see Heinz Rundfleisch, Technik im Rundfunk: Ein Stück deutscher
Rundfunkgeschichte von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der achtziger Jahre (Norder-
stadt, 1985), pp. 58–60.
108
Thann, cols. 380–82. There is a strong continuity in expectations of radio pro-
gramming. On the dislike of most listeners for “music with an opus” in the 1960s, see
Fritz Eberhard, Der Rundfunkhörer und sein Programm: Ein Beitrag zur empirischen
Sozialforschung (Berlin, 1962), pp. 108, 132.
109
Calculated on the basis of Kaphahn, ed. (n. 76 above), p. 10 and the unpaginated
table between pp. 28 and 29.

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752 Führer
the various social strata were less extreme than in the case of classical music.
Only 1.6 percent of all workers liked to tune in to scientific lectures on the air;
the same figure amounted to 7.0 percent among employees and lower civil
servants but it rose to 23.6 percent among higher civil servants.110
Given these figures, the efforts of the Weimar broadcasting companies to
turn the radio into college on the air were in vain. Even among the educated
middle classes, which cherished the musical programs, only a few wanted to
listen to radio lectures, and members of the lower social strata were almost
unanimously bored by such programs. A naive educational optimism (Bildungs-
optimismus) reigned in Weimar radio programming. The notion that the cul-
tural level of the people could be fostered just by offering as much “valuable”
information to as many listeners as possible regardless of their needs and edu-
cational backgrounds met with some criticism during the 1920s.111 But such
voices went unheard, and in practice most broadcasting lectures remained tar-
geted at that figment of the program planner’s imagination, the generally inter-
ested and generally educated listener. Listeners reacted in their own ways:
some got rid of their radio sets, but most silently paid the radio fee and tuned
in only to those programs they wanted to hear. This meant, for many, avoiding
the highbrow programs that dominated the airwaves not, as already mentioned,
in purely quantitative terms but in terms of prime-time scheduling. This sched-
uling, based on a desire to educate the masses, misjudged the stubbornness of
the uneducated, who were in the end unwilling to be led to the realm of “higher
things.” Obviously the hope for a unified Kulturnation with a common love for
the great works of art, which guided the management of Weimar broadcasting,
had nothing to do with social reality, since listeners were not the passive and
helpless consumers the program executives took them to be.112 The wireless,
intended to be a bringer of knowledge and a “unifying band,” therefore could
not bridge the cultural gaps that divided German society of the 1920s and
early 1930s.
If they had taken notice this would have come as a great disappointment not
only to the radio executives but also to all middle-class politicians, as well as to
the Social Democrats, who tried—as already mentioned—to raise the German
working class on a cultural diet of Beethoven and Schiller. However, no one
did take notice and—which is perhaps even more characteristic—no one even
raised the question of whether audiences appreciated the available programs.
This disregard for the real interests of real people confirms the failure of Wei-
110
Thann, col. 381.
111
See the critical remarks in Fritz Kaphahn, “Die Geisteswissenschaften im Vortrags-
wesen der MIRAG,” in Kaphahn, ed., pp. 24–36, esp. pp. 31–32.
112
On this point, see Lawrence W. Levine, “The Folklore of Industrial Society: Popu-
lar Culture and Its Audience,” American Historical Review 97 (1992): 1369–99, esp.
1373–75.

134.58.253.30 on Fri, 07 Dec 2018 11:06:08 UTC
mar radio executives and radio pundits to conceive of the audience in other
than authoritarian terms. As should be noted again, the peculiar public regula-
tion of the wireless created by the Republic facilitated this basic characteristic
of Weimar radio programming.
It is therefore inappropriate to see radio per se as part of a modern unstra-
tified “mass culture.” Using this term with regard to German broadcasting in
the 1920s misrepresents the educational hopes that were placed in the new
medium by its founders and leading executives. On the contrary, Weimar
broadcasting can be justly regarded as a determined attempt to prevent the
development of such a commercialized and standardized culture in Germany.
The wireless was introduced to Germany at the height and end of inflation.
This happened, of course, by chance, but it is a historical coincidence full of
symbolic meaning. The inflation had not only eroded the foundations of vir-
tually all German cultural institutions—theaters, opera houses, universities,
publishing companies—but it had also shattered the assets and status as well
as the self-esteem and self-image of the German middle classes, especially
of their educated members, the so-called Bildungsbürgertum. Proletarized in
economic terms, they faced a complete “economization of life” and the emer-
gence of a new ruling class of ruthless money grubbers who thought little of
the values of education and culture.113 Weimar radio can be seen as a reaction
to these results of the inflationary process: it reestablished the endangered he-
gemony of traditional bourgeois culture and thereby reinforced the self-esteem
of the battered and embattled German bourgeoisie. Weimar radio programs
confirmed that Germany still existed as a Kulturnation and that the educated
middle class—albeit economically damaged and politically squeezed—was
still its main pillar. In this respect Weimar broadcasting achieved what it set
out to do. But the concept of defensive modernization, which was behind the
public regulation of the German wireless, came up against limiting forces:
broadcasting failed in the greater task of turning the bourgeois cultural heritage
into the universal culture of German society since nothing much came of aspi-
rations to recreate the “wholeness” of the nation with the help of radio pro-
gramming. However, the fact that the attempt was made and that it met with
little more than passive resistance confirms the strength of conservative forces
in German cultural as well as political life in the 1920s. It also supports the
characterization of Weimar Germany as a society that was unprepared to expe-
rience and accept the transformations of modernity.
113
Gerald D. Feldman, The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the
German Inflation, 1914–1924 (New York and Oxford, 1993), pp. 857 (quotation),
533–55.

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A Medium of Modernity?

Broadcasting in Weimar Germany, 1923–1932

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In writings on German history in the 1920s, Weimar culture has come to be

* I am greatly indebted to Elizabeth R. Harvey for help and critical remarks on an

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Constraints and a Commission: Public Regulation

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Radio investors also had to content themselves with restricted profits: no

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iary companies of the Regionalgesellschaften, successfully amassing smaller

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intended to have an effect both on individuals and on particular social strata.

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Technology and Household Budgets: The

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Fig. 2.—Listening to the wireless in a German sitting room in the mid-1920s.

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ducers. See “Moderne amerikanische Rundfunkgeräte,” Der Radiohändler 3 (1927):

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worker or office clerk. In postinflation Germany very few households could

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an urban medium.50 Listeners were scarce in the countryside. In 1928, 83.5

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families were underrepresented among radio listeners. Only about a quarter of

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had to manage the purchase of newspapers, magazines, and books as well as

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long-distance reception.64 Germans regarded the American broadcasting sys-

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“Higher Things” and Entertainment: The

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ming such as “entertaining” or “demanding” are in themselves problematic.

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demands were “of course not to be met.” He regarded listeners as idle or

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ers wanted to be “radically distracted from brooding on their miserable exis-

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WERAG, if it were to mean that broadcasting would in the future transmit

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