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Rundfunk der DDR

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Broadcasting in East Germany was owned by the state, and was under its tight control and censorship.

Broadcasting's governing body in East Germany was the Staatliches Komitee für Rundfunk (the National Committee for Broadcasting), a government department directly controlled by the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany government and modelled after the Soviet Union's broadcasting system.

The committee controlled two overall organisations - Rundfunk der DDR for radio and Deutscher Fernsehfunk (later Fernsehen der DDR) for television.

Radio

Rundfunk der DDR was the radio broadcasting organisation for the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1952 until German reunification. The organisation was based in the Funkhaus Nalepastraße in East Berlin.

History

Post-war

The pre-war Deutschlandsender stations, under the control of Dr Goebbels's Propagandaministerium as Großdeutscher Rundfunk were closed by the Allied forces after the Battle of Berlin that ended World War II in Europe.

On 13 May 1945, the Soviet occupying forces in Berlin began a radio broadcasting service to the people of Berlin called Berliner Rundfunk, operating from what would become the British sector of West Berlin. The station was controlled by Walter Ulbricht.

As the four occupying sectors in Berlin were established, the American zone gained the station Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor (RIAS), whilst the British established Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR) which also broadcast in their zone.

In 1948, control of the NWDR was transferred to the provisional government in West Germany, whilst RIAS remained American-controlled.

On 15 September 1952, the Soviet occupying forces formally transferred control of broadcasting in the east to the GDR.

The Berlin Wall

The increase in hours of output from Rundfunk der DDR between 1965-1989

After the building of the Berlin Wall, the GDR began an aggressive programme to attempt to prevent its citizens listening to broadcasts from RIAS and the western ARD. The Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth, the official young persons' movement in the GDR) started the campaign "Blitz contra Natosender" - "Lightning against NATO's transmitters" - to encourage young people to remove or turn away aerials pointing at the west.

The GDR also instituted a programme of jamming foreign signals, both shortwave broadcasts from international broadcasters like the BBC and local broadcasts from RIAS. A network of jamming stations was built covering the entire country.

Nevertheless, people continued to listen (or attempt to listen) to RIAS and ARD broadcasts. In 1980, a further attempt was made to distract people - especially the young - from western broadcasts by launching a youth radio station, DT64.

After the Wall

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the radio organisation of the GDR began to wind up as services from the west were introduced and the GDR's stations were renamed and refocused in anticipation of the country joining the existing ARD system from 1 January 1992.

The Länder introduced two new public broadcasters (Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg in the east and Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk in the south) and extended two existing public broadcasters (Norddeutscher Rundfunk from the north of the Federal Republic to the north of the whole country, and Sender Freies Berlin from West Berlin to the entire city).

In 1994, RIAS merged with the GDR's Deutschlandsender Kultur to become DeutschlandRadio Berlin, which later became Deutschlandradio Kultur.

Broadcast hours

Year: 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1988 1989
Spoken word 32217 36866 32479 35435 38221 46033 48428
Music 31499 31131 29706 31583 33804 48112 48953
Total 63716 67997 62185 67018 72025 94145 97381
Hours per week 1222 1304 1193 1282 1381 1800 1868

Soviet radio broadcasts

The Soviet Union maintained a service for its troops on GDR soil, "Radio Volga", which broadcast on 261kHz longwave. The Soviet foreign service was broadcast from East Germany on 1323kHz mediumwave. Radio Volga closed when the last Soviet troops left German soil.

At Soviet military barracks, Programme 1 of Soviet television was transmitted on low power for the soldiers, in a similar way to the highly-localised broadcasts of AFN in the west. The last Russian transmitter was closed in 1994.

Radio stations

Domestic

  • Radio DDR 1 - information and discussion, with local news opt-outs.
  • Radio DDR 2 - culture and eductions, with regional programmes in the morning.
  • Berliner Rundfunk - the local station for Berlin, focussing on East Berlin.
  • DT64 - the station for young people.
  • Ferienwelle - a holiday radio service broadcast on the Baltic coast from May to September.
  • Messewelle - a West-oriented station broadcast during the week-long Leipzig trade fair in March and September.

International

Propaganda

Television

Deutsche Fernsehfunk (DFF), (from 1972-1990 known as Fernsehen der DDR or DDR-FS), was the state television broadcaster in East Germany.

History

Foundation

Radio was the dominant medium in the former Eastern bloc, with television being considered low down the priority list when compiling Five-Year Plans during the industrialisation of the 1950s.

In Germany, the situation was different as East and West Germany were in competition over available frequencies for broadcasts and for viewers across the Iron Curtain.

The West German Nordwestdeutsche Rundfunk (NWDR) had made early plans to begin television broadcasts in its area, which originally included West Berlin. The first western test broadcasts were made in 1950.

The GDR authorities therefore also made an early start on television, beginning the building of a television centre in Adlershof on 11 June 1950. The GDR television service began experimental test broadcasts on 20 December 1951.

The NWDR announced plans to begin a regular television service from Hamburg starting from Christmas 1952. This spurred the eastern authorities into further action.

A relay transmitter in the centre of Berlin was built in February 1952 and connected to Aldershof on 3 June. On 16 November 1952, the first television sets were made available to the public at 3500 Ostmarks each.

Opening

Regular public programming, although still described as testing, began on 21 December 1952 - Joseph Stalin's birthday - with two hours a day of programmes.

Continuity announcer Margit Schaumäker welcomed viewers at 20:00 and introduced the station's logo - the Brandenburg Gate. Speeches by senior figures in the television organisation followed, then the first edition of the East German national news programme, Aktuelle Kamera, presented by Herbert Köfer.

Party policy in East Germany was to censor the "mass media". As television had a limited audience, it was not classed as a mass medium and therefore Aktuelle Kamera was, at first, uncensored and even critical. This situation changed after the television service reported accurately on the uprising in East German on 17 June 1953. The director was removed and news was then sourced from official outlets.

Growth

Once television was established, the transmitter network grew quickly.

Technology and TV studios also extended quickly. In the summer of 1953, Studio I was opened at Adlershof. In 1955 the first mobile transmission unit and a third broadcasting studio were added to the system.

Full service

Hours of television output in East Germany per year.

On 2 January 1956 the "official test program" of the television centre in Berlin ended, and on 3 January the national Deutsche Fernsehfunk (German Television Broadcasting - DFF) began transmitting.

The new television service was deliberately not called "GDR Television", as the intention was to provide an all-Germany service. However, the geography of Germany prevented this - despite placing high-power transmitters in border areas, the GDR could not penetrate the whole of West Germany; whilst West German broadcasts easily reached all of East Germany except for Dresden (the area being in a deep valley).

By the end of 1958, there were over 300,000 television sets in the GDR.

Morning programmes

From 7 October 1958, DFF introduced morning programmes - repeats of the previous night's programming for shift workers, broadcast under the title Wir wiederholen für Spätarbeiter.

"The Sandman"

The next day, 8 October 1958, DFF imported "Sandmännchen" (the Sandman) from radio. Both East and West television ran versions of this idea - an animated film, telling a story and then bidding the children watching good night in order to send then to bed before the programmes for adults began after 7pm. With several generations of children growing up with the Sandman, it has remained a popular childhood memory.

The West version was discontinued by the ARD on reunification; however, stations in the former GDR continued to play clips from the East's Sandman every night. The character plays an important background role in the popular 2003 tragicomedy film Good bye, Lenin!, symbolising the feelings of loss of the main character played by Daniel Brühl.

Colour and DFF2

Colour television was introduced on 3 October 1969 on the new channel DFF2, which commenced broadcasting the same day, ready for the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the founding of the GDR on 7 October. DFF chose the French SÉCAM colour standard, common in the Eastern Bloc, whilst West Germany had settled on the PAL standard. However, many people altered television sets to be dual standard and allow reception in colour of West German programming.

The introduction of DFF2 marked an increase in the hours of broadcasting overall.

Year 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1988 1989
Hours broadcast per year 786 3007 3774 6028 6851 7704 8265 9194 8900
Hours broadcast per week 15 58 73 116 132 148 159 177 171

Renaming

On 11 February 1972, the DFF was renamed, dropping the pretence of being an all-German service and becoming Fernsehen der DDR - GDR Television or DDR-FS. The previous name survived in episodes of The Sandman, which were much repeated.

Olympic Games

The hosting of the 1980 Summer Olympics by Moscow was a source of pride for the Eastern Bloc. However, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 had caused outrage in the west, leading to a boycott of the games by 64 western-aligned nations.

DDR-FS therefore wished to present colour pictures of the games to West Germany, which was part of the boycott, and a programme of experimental transmissions in PAL was instituted (whilst dual standard sets were the norm in the East in order to watch West programmes, the West population had little inclination to buy dual standard sets to watch East programmes). However, little came of these experiments.

Collapse of the GDR

In 1989, the GDR made an attempt to bring its young people closer to the state and distract them from the media of the West. A new young-person's programme, Elf 99 (1199 being the postal code of the Adlershof studios) was created as part of this plan.

However, the plan was not successful as the GDR itself began to dissolve under economic and popular political pressure brought about by the reforms in Moscow under Mikhail Gorbachev.

At first, DDR-FS stuck to the party line and barely reported the mass protests in the country. However, when Erich Honecker and Politburo resigned on 18 October 1989 and the rule of the Communist party began to breakdown, DDR-FS reformed their programmes to remove propaganda and report news freely.

The main propaganda programme, Der schwarze Kanal - a retelling of the West German news programmes with an "explanatory" commentary informing viewers of the "real" stories and meanings behind the pictures - stopped on 30 October.

When the borders opened on 9 November, the main news programme on DDR2 began to show stories and pictures from the West German 3sat channel, sidestepping the remaining censorship. DDR-FS joined the 3sat consortium in February 1990.

At this point, DDR-FS became almost completely separate from the state apparatus, starting a number of new programme strands, including a free and open debate programme on Thursdays, complete with critical phone-in contributions from viewers. At first this had to be handled very carefully, as the Stasi - the state secret police - were still operating and had an office in the studios.

In February 1990, the Volkskammer passed a media resolution defining DDR-FS as a politically independent public broadcasting system. A law passed by the Volkskammer in September 1990 made this a requirement.

On 4 March 1990, emphasising the change and reflecting the forthcoming reunification, DDR1 and DDR2 were renamed back to DFF1 and DFF2.

With reunification approaching, the former Länder (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt and Thüringen) that had been abolished in 1952 were resurrected and regional broadcasting was slowly reintroduced.

Reunification

Upon reunification on 3 October 1990, the DFF ceased to be the state broadcaster of former GDR. Because the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany reserves broadcasting as a matter for the Länder, it was not permitted for the Federal state to continue to run a broadcasting service.

Article 36 of the accession agreement that governed reunification required that DFF must be dissolved by 31 December 1991 and that the former West system be extended to replace it.

On 15 December 1990, the ARD's Das Erste channel took over the frequencies of DFF1. Das Erste had regional opt-outs during the first part of the evening, but the former East did not have ARD broadcasters to fill these spaces. Therefore, until 31 December 1991, DFF1 continued to provide programmes in these slots:

  • Landesschau for Brandenburg (originally LSB aktuell)
  • Nordmagazin for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
  • Tagesbilder for Sachsen-Anhalt
  • Bei uns in Sachsen for Sachsen
  • Thüringen Journal for Thüringen

The new ARD broadcasters

The dissolution of DFF and its replacement by Länder-based ARD broadcasters remained controversial throughout the process.

Employees of the DFF were worried about job prospects in the new broadcasters and also had a loyalty to the DFF. Viewers, accustomed to the DFF's programming, were concerned at the loss of favourite shows and the choice most viewers had had between West and East channels.

The new Länder considered keeping a form of DFF running as the equivalent to the ARD members' "third programme" in other regions. However, political opinion was against centralisation and in favour of the new devolved system brought in from the west.

Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt and Thüringen agreed to pool their broadcasts into Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR), an ARD member broadcaster based in Leipzig.

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg and Berlin considered pooling their broadcasts into Nordostdeutschen Rundfunkanstalt - Northeast German Broadcasting (NORA). Another alternative was for Brandenburg and Berlin to consolidate and for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to have its own broadcaster.

No agreement could be reached between the three Länder; Mecklenburg therefore joined the existing Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), whilst the existing Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) expanded to the whole of the city and a new broadcaster, Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (ORB) was launched for Brandenburg.

The new organisations began transmissions on 1 January 1992.

Directors of DFF/DDR-FS

  • 1950 – 1952 Hans Mahle (Director-general)
  • 1952 – 1953 Hermann Zilles (Director)
  • 1954 – 1989 Heinz Adameck (Director)
  • 1989 – 1990 Hans Bentzien (Director-general)
  • 1990 – 1991 Michael Albrecht (Director)

Programmes for Schools

DFF/DDR-FS produced a number of educational programmes for use in schools, including programmes on chemistry, history, local history and geography, literature, physics, civics and Russian.

Also produced was "ESP" Einführung in die sozialistische Produktion - "An introduction to Socialist production" and an English-learners course, English for You.

Many of these programmes are archived and are avilable from the DRA in Babelsberg.

Technical information

Broadcast system

When television broadcasting started, the GDR chose to use the Western European B/G transmission system rather than the Eastern European D/K system, in order to keep transmissions compatible with West Germany.

Colour

However, when colour television was introduced, the SÉCAM system was chosen rather than the West German PAL. The incompatibilities between the two colour systems are small, allowing for pictures to be watched in monochrome on non-compatible sets. Many East Germans has PAL modules fitted to allow colour reception of West German programmes. The same did not apply in West Germany.

With reunification, it was decided to switch to the PAL colour system. The system was changed between the end of DFF programmes on 14 December 1990 and the opening of ARD programmes on 15 December. The transmission authorities made the (not incorrect) assumption that most East Germans had dual standard sets; those who did not could purchase decoders.

Technical innovations

DDR-FS was the first television broadcaster in all-Germany to introduce the Betacam magnetic recording system. Betacam was later adopted by all German broadcasters and is still in use by ARD and ZDF.

In 1983 DDR-FS also pioneered the use of Steadicam equipment for live reporting.

Finance

Broadcasting in the GDR was financed by a compulsory licence fee. An annual fee of 10.50 Ostmarks was charged for a joint television and radio licence. A separate radio or car radio licence cost between 0.50 and 2 Ostmarks.

In addition, broadcasting was heavily subsidised by the state. For example, in 1982, 115.4million Ostmarks was made through licence fees, whilst expenditure in 1983 for the television service alone was 222million Ostmarks.

Advertising

Advertising - in the form of "commercial" magazine programmes - had appeared on GDR television from 1959. However, in a command economy, there was little or no competition between brands, so advertising was limited to a form of reminding viewers what products were available. By 1975, the advertising magazines gave up the pretence of being western-style commercial programmes and converted to being "shoppers guides", listing availability and prices of surplus goods.

With the end of the Communist system, spot advertising was introduced to DFF in order to better cover the system's cost. The French advertising agency Information et Publicité was engaged to produce and sell commercials and airtime on the DFF networks.

Archives

The archives of the GDR radio and television stations are administered by Deutschen Rundfunkarchiv (German Broadcasting Archives - DRA) at Babelsberg in Berlin.

References

This article is heavily based on two equivalent articles on the German-language Wikipedia - de:Deutscher Fernsehfunk and de:Rundfunk der DDR.

The following are the sources for that article and are, therefore, in German.

Radio

  • Klaus Arnold u. Christoph Classen (Hrsg.): Zwischen Pop und Propaganda. Radio in der DDR. Berlin: Ch. Links, 2004. ISBN 3-86153-343-X
  • Sibylle Bolik: Das Hörspiel in der DDR. Frankfurt [u.a.]: Lang, 1994. ISBN 3-631-46955-1
  • Patrick Conley: Features und Reportagen im Rundfunk der DDR. Tonträgerverzeichnis 1964-1991. 2. Aufl. Berlin: Askylt, 1999. ISBN 3-9807372-0-9
  • Wolfgang Mühl-Benninghaus: "Rundfunk in der SBZ/DDR." In: Rundfunkpolitik in Deutschland, Bd. 2. München: dtv, 1999. S. 795-873. ISBN 3-423-30714-5
  • Ingrid Pietrzynski (Bearb.): Das Schriftgut des DDR-Hörfunks. Eine Bestandsübersicht. Potsdam-Babelsberg: DRA, 2002. ISBN 3-926072-99-7
  • Ingrid Scheffler (Hg.): Literatur im DDR-Hörfunk. Günter Kunert - Bitterfelder Weg - Radio-Feature. Konstanz: UVK, 2005. ISBN 3-89669-478-2

Television

  • Thomas Beutelschmidt: "Alles zum Wohle des Volkes?!?" Die DDR als Bildschirm-Wirklichkeit vor und nach 1989, 1999 (PDF file)
  • Lars Brücher: Das Westfernsehen und der revolutionäre Umbruch in der DDR im Herbst 1989, Magisterarbeit, 2000 ([1])
  • Peter Hoff: Kalter Krieg auf deutschen Bildschirmen - Der Ätherkrieg und die Pläne zum Aufbau eines zweiten Fernsehprogramms der DDR , In: Kulturation, Ausgabe 2, 2003. ISSN 1610-8329 ([2])
  • Hans Müncheberg: Ein Bayer bläst die Lichtlein aus – Ost-Fernsehen im Wendefieber und Einheitssog, In: Freitag 46/2004, Berlin, 2004 ISSN 0945-2095 ([3])
  • Hans Müncheberg: Blaues Wunder aus Adlershof. Der Deutsche Fernsehfunk – Erlebtes und Gesammeltes. Berlin: Das Neue Berlin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 2000. ISBN 3-360009-24-X
  • Christina Oberst-Hundt: Vom Aufbruch zur Abwicklung - Der 3. Oktober 1990 war für den Rundfunk der DDR die Beendigung eines Anfang, In: M - Menschen Machen Medien, 2000 ISSN 0946-1132 ([4])
  • Markus Rotenburg: Was blieb vom Deutschen Fernsehfunk? Fernsehen und Hörfunk der DDR 15 Jahre nach dem Mauerfall. Brilon, Sauerland Welle, gesendet am 9. und 16. November 2004. [5]
  • Sabine Salhoff (Bearb.): Das Schriftgut des DDR-Fernsehens. Eine Bestandsübersicht. Potsdam-Babelsberg: DRA, 2001. ISBN 3-926072-98-9
  • Erich Selbmann: DFF Adlershof. Wege übers Fernsehland. Berlin: Edition Ost, 1998. ISBN 3932180526 (Selbmann was from 1966 to 1978 the producer of Aktuelle Kamera.) – [6]

Additional sources

These sources are in English and were used to clarify or extend the translation.

  • Hancock, Dafydd Fade to black Intertel from Transdiffusion, 2001; accessed 19 February 2006.
  • Tust, Dirk Germany (1980s) Intertel from Transdiffusion, 2003; accessed 19 February 2006.
  • Paulu, Burton Broadcasting on the European Continent Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1967
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