Deutschlandsender (, ''Radio Germany''), abbreviated DLS or DS, was one of the longest-established
radio broadcasting
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
stations in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. The name was used between 1926 and 1993 to denote a number of powerful stations designed to achieve all-Germany coverage.
History
Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany
''
Deutschlandsender I'' at first was the name of a powerful transmitter situated at
Königs Wusterhausen
Königs Wusterhausen () is a town in the Dahme-Spreewald district of the state of Brandenburg in Germany a few kilometers outside Berlin.
Geography
Geographical location
Königs Wusterhausen – or "KW" () as it is often called locally – lie ...
in
Brandenburg
Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...
near
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, put into operation on 7 January 1926. The station was run by the
Deutsche Welle GmbH, a commercial company – unconnected to today's similarly named
international broadcaster – which had been set up by the
Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft
The Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG; ''Reich Broadcasting Corporation'') was a national network of German regional public radio and television broadcasting companies active from 1925 until 1945. RRG's broadcasts were receivable in all parts o ...
(RRG) network for nationally relaying programmes from Germany's nine regional broadcasting stations.
Broadcasting on
long wave
In radio, longwave, long wave or long-wave, and commonly abbreviated LW, refers to parts of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave broadcasting band. The term is historic, dating from the e ...
(182 kHz) from what was then a central position in the
German Reich
German ''Reich'' (lit. German Realm, German Empire, from german: Deutsches Reich, ) was the constitutional name for the German nation state that existed from 1871 to 1945. The ''Reich'' became understood as deriving its authority and sovereignty ...
, the ''Deutschlandsender I'' transmitter enabled programmes from these stations to be heard throughout the country and its name was adopted as a station identification. The first programme broadcast was a concert from the RRG Berlin regional station, the Funk-Stunde AG. With effect from 1 January 1933, the Deutsche Welle company was renamed ''Deutschlandsender GmbH''. Within a few weeks of this date the Nazi
Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
The Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (; RMVP), also known simply as the Ministry of Propaganda (), controlled the content of the press, literature, visual arts, film, theater, music and radio in Nazi Germany.
The ministry ...
was to take over direct control of all broadcasting in Germany in the course of the ''
Gleichschaltung
The Nazi term () or "coordination" was the process of Nazification by which Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party successively established a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied b ...
'' process.
A second transmitter, ''
Deutschlandsender II'', broadcasting from nearby
Zeesen, had been opened on 20 December 1927. Also in Brandenburg, ''
Deutschlandsender III'', then with a height of the world's second largest structure after the
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...
, started its transmissions on 19 May 1939 from
Herzberg. These transmitters were destroyed and dismantled by the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
in 1945.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
the name Deutschlandsender was used to denote the
long-wave
In radio, longwave, long wave or long-wave, and commonly abbreviated LW, refers to parts of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave broadcasting band. The term is historic, dating from the e ...
service which covered most of Germany (and indeed Europe) while the regional
medium-wave
Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the daytime ...
stations were normally identified as ''Reichssender
..' with the name of the city at or near which they were based.
East Germany
In the immediate post-war period, in 1947, a new long-wave radio transmitter, known as ''Deutschlandsender IV'', was erected at Königs Wusterhausen. From 1 May 1949, the ''IV'' was dropped and the station became known as simply the Deutschlandsender programme of what was to become the
Rundfunk der DDR
Rundfunk der DDR (, 'GDR Broadcasting'; from about 1948 to 1972 Deutscher Demokratischer Rundfunk, 'German Democratic Broadcasting') was the collective designation for radio broadcasting organized by the State Broadcasting Committee in the Germa ...
broadcaster. The transmissions from the newly established
German Democratic Republic
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
(GDR) aimed at listeners in
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
. The long-wave frequency used was 185 kHz and the station also broadcast via short wave.
In 1952 the GDR government began a programme of centralisation, which included concentrating all broadcasting in
East Berlin
East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...
, and built a new studio centre in the
Oberschöneweide
Oberschöneweide (, literally ''Upper Schöneweide'') is a German locality (''Ortsteil'') within the Berlin borough (''Bezirk'') of Treptow-Köpenick. It is, with Niederschöneweide (''Lower Schöneweide''), part of the geographic area of Schön ...
district, known as the ''Funkhaus Nalepastraße''. In September 1952, the short-wave Deutschlandsender service was renamed "Berlin I" and given a political programming emphasis. The long-wave Deutschlandsender service became "Berlin II", with an emphasis on culture and society. Both changes were, however, soon abandoned. In August 1953, the Deutschlandsender was relaunched as an "all-German" service, with FM coverage added.
A further reorganisation occurred when, in 1971, the State Broadcasting Committee of the GDR decided to merge the main station aimed at both sides of Berlin, ''Berliner Welle'', with the Deutschlandsender to create ''Stimme der DDR'' ("Voice of the GDR"). This new information and news service began in November 1972.
German reunification
In 1989 the
Peaceful Revolution
The Peaceful Revolution (german: Friedliche Revolution), as a part of the Revolutions of 1989, was the process of sociopolitical change that led to the opening of East Germany's borders with the West, the end of the ruling of the Socialist Unity ...
in East Germany and the
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of eve ...
took place. In February 1990, the "Voice of the GDR" changed its name to ''Deutschlandsender''. In May of the same year, it was combined with the existing national ''
Radio DDR 2
Radio DDR 2 ( en, Radio GDR 2) was a radio channel in East Germany run by Rundfunk der DDR, created in October 1958. It was a regional service in the morning and at 01:00 local time, broadcast centralized classical music and radio plays produced ...
'' to form ''Deutschlandsender Kultur'', with headquarters at Funkhaus Nalepastraße.
Broadcasting started on 16 June 1990. As set out in the
German Reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
Treaty of October 3, East German radio stations were to be closed, DS Kultur's operations therefore lacked a legal basis. Temporarily affiliated with the national
ARD and
ZDF
ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...
public-service broadcasters, it was merged with the former West Berlin
RIAS station to form
Deutschlandradio Kultur
Deutschlandfunk Kultur (; abbreviated to ''DLF Kultur'' or ''DKultur'') is a culture-oriented radio station and part of Deutschlandradio, a set of national radio stations in Germany. Initially named ''DeutschlandRadio Berlin'', the station was re ...
with effect from 1 January 1994. With the Federal Republic's all-Germany service,
Deutschlandfunk
Deutschlandfunk (DLF, ''Broadcast Germany'') is a public-broadcasting radio station in Germany, concentrating on news and current affairs. It is one of the four national radio channels produced by Deutschlandradio.
History
Broadcasting in the ...
at
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
, it today forms the
Deutschlandradio
Deutschlandradio (DLR) (''Radio Germany'') is a national German public radio broadcaster.
History
''Deutschlandfunk'' was originally a West German news radio targeting listeners within West Germany as well as in neighbouring countries, ''Deutsc ...
broadcasting organisation, providing two nationwide radio stations for the reunified Germany.
See also
*
Eastern Bloc information dissemination
Eastern Bloc media and propaganda was controlled directly by each country's communist party, which controlled the state media, censorship and propaganda organs. State and party ownership of print, television and radio media served as an important ...
*
Rundfunk der DDR
Rundfunk der DDR (, 'GDR Broadcasting'; from about 1948 to 1972 Deutscher Demokratischer Rundfunk, 'German Democratic Broadcasting') was the collective designation for radio broadcasting organized by the State Broadcasting Committee in the Germa ...
{{Authority control
Eastern Bloc mass media
German radio networks
Defunct radio stations in Germany
1926 establishments in Germany
1993 disestablishments in Germany
Defunct radio stations in East Germany
History of telecommunications in Germany
Radio stations established in 1926
Radio stations disestablished in 1993