100 Years of Radio - Of Radio Spooks, Aliens and a Christmas Tradition

As the Imperial German answer to the British dominance in maritime radio, Norddeich Radio is put into operation on June 1, 1907 - for more than 90 years, the small station behind the dike in the East Frisian town of Norden broadcasts to ships all over the world before it is finally switched off. Norddeich Radio is used as a marine distress radio station. Norddeich Radio becomes famous by broadcasting the program "Gruß an Bord" ("Greetings on board") of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk from Christmas 1953 on. 

Relatives, friends and family of seafarers who are on the high seas or in distant ports at the holidays can send messages to their loved ones via the broadcast series - and vice versa. Everyone can listen. And so it is still a tradition for many (especially) northern German families today to listen to the maritime (and always a bit homesick) Christmas greetings to and from all over the world on Christmas Eve. Although no longer on Norddeich Radio.

 

The cradle of radio and an anniversary

The history of public radio stations starts a little later than the birth of Norddeich Radio, the history of the technology for transmitting messages via radio waves a little earlier. As a maritime radio service, Norddeich Radio starts with Morse transmissions, but this quickly changes to voice radio transmissions due to rapid technological development, and with which ships all over the world can be reached. Radio as a means of mass communication is not much longer in coming, and so a special anniversary will be celebrated in 2020: 100 years of radio. The associated historical date is 22 December 1920. 

Known today as the "cradle of radio", Transmitter House 1 on the Funkerberg in Königs Wusterhausen was put into operation as early as 1916 as the "Central Radio Station of the Army". As early as 1911, mobile transmitters were set up on horse-drawn carts and kept in the air by balloons. In the years that followed, a radio barracks and large antenna systems were built for what is now Germany's oldest broadcasting centre.

At the end of the First World War, the German Reichspost takes over the broadcasting centre as the main radio station, in order to start the first experiments with radio transmission in the summer of 1920. This was done at the suggestion of Dr. Hans Bredow, a German high-frequency engineer and Ministerial Director in the Berlin Post Ministry. Incidentally, the term "radio" originated from this same gentleman. In December 1920, his technicians had already spent many months tinkering with an arc transmitter that would transmit speech and music. On 22 December the time had come: Germany's first radio broadcast, moderated and designed by Reichspost officials, went over the airwaves, beginning with the words "Hello Hello, this is Königs Wusterhausen on wave 2700". A Christmas concert follows, radio has found its cradle. 

The radio spook and its consequences 

While radio has been popular and widespread in the Netherlands and the USA since 1920, there are a few hurdles for broadcasters and listeners in Germany. Not only do you have to buy a licence to listen to the radio, radio equipment also requires a licence. Not the best conditions for a mass medium in which Hans Bredow has such high hopes: "Radio will once have significance far beyond the borders of the countries. It will unite the peoples into one great community, and give them the realisation, through daily common experience, that they are all members of one great spiritual community."

The reason for these restrictive measures is the event that goes down in history as the "radio haunting". When Wilhelm II abdicates on 9 November 1918 and the empire in Germany ends, the democratic republic is proclaimed by the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann at 2 p.m. and the free socialist republic two hours later by Karl Liebknecht. On the same day, the headquarters of the German press news service in Berlin is occupied by the revolutionary Berlin Workers' and Soldiers' Council, which radios the victory of the radical revolution (USPD, KPD, Spartakusbund) in Germany. 

This is too much or too little control for the SPD government. The establishment and operation of radio and broadcasting facilities is declared a sovereign right - "radio sovereignty". In addition, from 1923 onwards, the licensing requirement for radio equipment and the radio licence fee were introduced. 

At the height of inflation in the Weimar Republic, it is the Berlin cigarette dealer Wilhelm Kollhoff who acquires the first broadcasting licence. Cost: 780 billion paper marks. No bargain even by the standards of the time. Nevertheless, Mr Kollhoff is one of the first (very few) listeners to witness the official start of radio in Germany. On 29 October 1923, the "Deutsche Stunde" broadcasts from the Vox-Haus on Potsdamer Platz: "Attention, attention, this is the Berlin broadcasting station in the Vox-Haus on wave 400 metres! Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to inform you that today the entertainment broadcasting service begins with the distribution of music performances by wireless telephone." This is followed by a foxtrot.

A triumphant advance, a press intrigue and the ARD

In 1923 there were only 500 registered radio receivers, but two years later there were already 500,000 in circulation. While in October 1923 only a few people listened to the "Deutsche Stunde", six months later there were already 100,000. And while the early listeners initially had to wear individual headphones, from 1925 there were radios with loudspeakers, so that the sense of community invoked by Bredow could develop much better.  

The existing restrictions made it easy for the National Socialists, after they came to power in 1933, to control the still young medium and to place it ideologically in their service. The Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, has a cheap radio produced, the "Volksempfänger", popularly known as "Goebbels Schnauze", and thus establishes radio as a mass medium. With the Volksempfänger, the National Socialists can quickly bring their propaganda to the listeners via medium wave, listening to "enemy stations" is forbidden, and passing on information from "enemy stations" is punishable by death.

After the Second World War, the Allies withdrew broadcasting control from Germany: never again should radio be a central instrument of state information dissemination. Broadcasting is to be organised according to the model of the British BBC: far from the state, controlled by committees, financed by fees. In 1949, the broadcasting stations are returned to Germany and the various broadcasting organisations merge to form the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Rundfunkanstalten Deutschlands (ARD). Public service broadcasting as we know it today is born. 

The American Allies had already discovered how easily radio can misinform people in the 1930s, on 30 October 1938. One day before Halloween, the radio play "War of the Worlds" by Orson Welles was broadcast in New York and New Jersey. The programme is staged as a fictional reportage: Welles repeatedly plays music between the "news" that the world is under attack by aliens and gives the listeners the impression that it is the actual radio programme. At least, that's what the newspapers wrote the next day: the broadcast was said to have caused intense irritation among the population, and there was even talk of mass panic. 

Orson Welles is famous overnight. But whether the population of the American East Coast really assumed an alien invasion is disputed today. More recent research literature assumes that the daily press let its imagination run away with it - perhaps out of sensationalism, perhaps to portray radio as a competing medium as irresponsible. In any case, radio history was written.

Last but not least: Exhibitions, frequencies and happy holidays

At this point, we will let the Museum für Kommunikation in Berlin tell us what happens next with radio - "ON AIR. 100 Years of Radio" tells of the successes, disruptions and futures of the world's first electronic mass medium from its beginnings to the present day. 

In our virtual exhibition "Geschraubt.Gelötet.Geleimt. Do-it-yourself and repair". The radio has a long tradition of do-it-yourself: due to the initially expensive acquisition costs and restrictions, people became creative and tinkered with their radios themselves. The exhibition also tells why the individual radio parts had to be sold as toys in the end or why tinkerers needed a "driving licence examination".

But back to the Norddeich Radio mentioned at the beginning: In summer 2015, a small museum moved into the premises of the marine radio station. There you can experience, for example, why the "pop radio transmitters" are called what they are (sparks really do fly - the devices are under high voltage!) and listen to old "Gruß an Bord" broadcasts on the website. 

We wish you happy holidays!

If you want to listen to "Gruß an Bord" on Christmas Eve: In the period from 7 to 9 p.m. UTC (8 p.m. to 10 p.m. CET), shortwave broadcasts over the following frequencies (UTC is the abbreviation for Universal Time Coordinated):

During the period from 21:00 to 23:00 UTC (22:00 to 24:00 CET), shortwave transmits on the following frequencies:

More Radios? Click here... 

Sources and links

NDR: https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/programm/Gruss-an-Bord-So-empfangen-Sie-die-Sendung,grussanbord624.html

Norddeich Radio: https://www.norddeichradio.info/

Deutschlandfunk Kultur: https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/gruss-an-bord-seemannssehnsucht-uebers-radio.976.de.html?dram:article_id=339769

Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norddeich_Radio

Deutsche Welle: https://www.dw.com/de/weihnachtsgr%C3%BC%C3%9Fe-an-seeleute-in-aller-welt/a-46818122

Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_des_H%C3%B6rfunks

Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_des_H%C3%B6rfunks_in_Deutschland

RBB24: https://www.rbb24.de/kultur/thema/2013/90-jahre-rundfunk/beitraege/90-jahre-radio-geschichte-anfaenge.html 

Planet Wissen: https://www.planet-wissen.de/kultur/medien/geschichte_des_radios/index.html

Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knallfunkensender

Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funkerspuk

Sächsische: https://www.saechsische.de/plus/roehren-radio-rundfunk-2701554.html

RBB24: https://www.rbb24.de/kultur/thema/2013/90-jahre-rundfunk/beitraege/radio-kalter-krieg.html

100 Jahre Rundfunk: https://100jahrerundfunk.de/100-jahre-rundfunk/

Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Krieg_der_Welten#Wirkung_des_H%C3%B6rspiels_von_1938

Museum für Kommunikation: https://radio.museumsstiftung.de/100-jahre-radio/