In August 1939,

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

introduced the ''Einheits-Fernseh-Empfänger E1'' (i.e. ''Unitary-TV-receiver E1''), also called ''Volksfernseher'' (i.e. ''People's TV''), a 441-line, 25 interlaced

frames per second A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...

(or more correctly 50 fields per second)

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

system. The TV was presented to the public in the 16th International radio exhibition Berlin. The project started in 1938, associating the

Reichspost ''Reichspost'' (; "Imperial Mail") was the name of the postal service of Germany from 1866 to 1945. ''Deutsche Reichspost'' Upon the out break of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the break-up of the German Confederation in the Peace of ...

and several companies, including Bosch,

Blaupunkt Blaupunkt GmbH () was a German manufacturer of mostly car audio equipment. It was owned by Robert Bosch GmbH from 1933 until 1 March 2009, when it was sold to Aurelius AG of Germany. It filed for bankruptcy in late 2015 with liquidation proceed ...

, Loewe, Lorenz, TeKaDe and

Telefunken Telefunken was a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the ''Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft'' (AEG) ('General electricity company'). The name "Telefunken" app ...

. The objective was to produce 10,000 units, but the start of

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 ...

caused only about 50 devices to be installed in military hospitals and various government departments. The

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 ...

transmitter was destroyed by Allied bombing in November 1943. Like British televisions of the era, the Einheitsempfänger could receive only one channel with its

frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is eq ...

pre-tuned at the factory to reduce construction costs. Only a few surviving and functioning units are known: * Museum for Communication Berlin (Telefunken) * Museum for Communication Berlin (Blaupunkt, incomplete) * Museum of Communication in Frankfurt (Telefunken, with a new speaker, otherwise completely preserved) * Private collection of August-Peter Nehrig (Telefunken, completely preserved) *

German Museum of Technology (German Museum of Technology) in Berlin, Germany is a museum of science and technology, and exhibits a large collection of historical technical artifacts. The museum's main emphasis originally was on rail transport, but today it also features e ...

, Berlin (reproduction without original chassis and a new speaker fabric) * University of Mittweida (Blaupunkt, with a new speaker material, condition unknown) * Fuerth Radio Museum (original chassis with power transformer in the exhibition) * Fuerth Radio Museum (functional, for demonstration)

Technical data for a typical set

* Case dimensions (W×H×D): 65 cm × 37 cm × 38 cm * Image size: 19.5 cm × 22.5 cm, 29 cm diagonal; aspect ratio 15:13 (approx 3.46:3) * Power consumption: 185 W in television reception mode, 60 W in radio reception mode

References

* * ''Fernsehen und Tonfilm'', (i.e. ''Television and Sound film'', journal) October 1939 {{DEFAULTSORT:Einheitsempfanger Television sets History of television History of telecommunications in Germany German inventions of the Nazi period 1939 introductions

Technical data for a typical set

See also

References