Volkemphanger VE301

In the context of the creation of other propaganda objects : a TV, a fridge, flats : Volkswohnung, the radio was the only one to gain mass success and therefore mass production. The aim behind this object was to get one in each household, as a way to get nazi ideals in each home. Because of the cheap price of the radio, other smaller companies went bankrupt because they could no longer compete with the prices which led the government to have monopole over the radio production market. The radio could get short and medium length waves, and should have only been limited to national nazi radio and another national station in the whole of Germany. It was commonly thought that the VE could not get foreign stations but it has since been proven that the machine could very much get access to over-the-border radio stations, creating a massive fault in the propaganda objective of exclusivity to nazi dominated stations. Goebbels, aware of the limit of the VE in terms of propaganda tool and its potential to go beyond the borders, issued death threats to those listening to foreign channels (especially German language BBC programs whose objectives were to get their message across the border an into German household through the radio, breaching the propaganda bubble created by the Nazi party). The nazis attempted radio jamming without much success. Foreign stations could be received after dark with an external antenna, particularly as stations such as the BBC increased their transmission power over the course of the war. According to war correspondent Howard K. Smith, the nazi authorities issued a little orange cardboard disk with a hole to make sure the radio frequencies were the nazi one and that the radio had not been tampered with to get foreign stations, which goes to show how difficult it was to ensure the radio didn’t allow the population to go beyond its borders in terms of access to content.

Cross border echoes of the Resistance, a short play

Characters in order of appearance :

The Narrator

Volksemphänger, the grandfather of Smartphone

Smartphone, the grandson of Volksemphänger

Décor described by the Narrator :

The sound of people on the street, cars on the road that fade gradually as the listener enters the room.
On the first floor, the sun shines brightly through two windows into the cozy living room. A beam of light hits two objects, both geometric in shape, one square and brown, the other, a flatter black rectangle of glass. An ordinary living room of the 21st century, in which the flat’s owner’s 1930s radio is the centerpiece of the room. A treasured box with three dials on the front and a large round, almost mouthlike, speaker. It is a sunny Sunday and as their usual routine, the grandfather and the grandson are out for a walk in the park. A radio and a smartphone are left by their owners on a chest of drawers. The grandson’s forgotten smartphone, abandoned on the wooden furniture next to the grandfather’s radio seems small and fragile next to the robust wooden looking box. The grandfather’s Körting VE 301 and the grandson’s smartphone, two generations of communication tools left to their own devices by their respective owners. Little do they know about the talkative personalities of their cherished little magical boxes.

ACT I

Smartphone, with an impatient tone

Tell me a story Grandfather Körting… I’m bored this afternoon. I can’t believe my owner has forgotten me ! He is lost without me and he usually never forgets me. I hate being left behind. I feel as though I’m missing out on all the fun ! I don’t want to stay still at home.

Körting, smugly

Now stop whining, that simply is not true. Sometimes to stay still is the best thing one can do, both as listeners to create a better listening experience and as objects, such as myself, around which people gravitate to listen to the sounds we are able to transmit. We are the underdogs you and I, people underestimate us and what we can be used for. Look at me, I can’t be easily carried and yet I was very important back in my day. If you want a story, let me tell you about a time I was a double agent during the war…

Smartphone

I don’t believe you ! You, a double agent, when you can’t even be picked up and moved about ! I don’t see how you could have played such an important role sitting in here doing nothing all day !

Körting, with agitation

Stop that insolence right now ! If your father Transistor could hear you now, he would be as ashamed as I am !

Smartphone, with reluctance

Fine… what did you actually do in the war Grandfather ?

Körting, in a story teller’s tone

Settle down, and listen. I was created by Otto Griessing who worked in the company Seibt and I was proudly presented to the public for the first time in August 1933. I was an instant hit ! I was accessible to many people of all social backgrounds in Germany as I was rather cheap for the time between 65 and 76 Reichmarks, that’s roughly 35 to 50 euros. I was one of the best, I could get short and medium length waves. Now here is the twist… pause for dramatic effect I could even reach radio signals from other countries, beyond the borders of Germany !

Smartphone, interrupting

So what, we can all do that now ! We can reach the four corners of the earth and even beyond !

Körting

Don’t interrupt me ! This is my life story and all of it is true ! Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. At first, I was meant to only be used to listen to Germany, well I really should say to Nazi radio stations, exclusively. It was forbidden to transmit anything else at that time…

Shift in tone, in auditory decor, transition to Act II, a flashback to World War II :

Classical music intro extract from Wagner and Beethoven .

Decor, narrated by the Narrator

Wagner and Beethoven as we just heard them played by the Reich Orchestra were instrumentalized by the Nazi regime to be part of the official, and therefore “non degenerate”, music that was allowed in Germany. Goebbels, the cultural and propaganda minister of the Third Reich was the one who ordered the creation of the Körting VE 301. In 1937, the number of listeners went up after extensive and intensive advert campaigns by the Germany ministry of propaganda, the aim was to get a radio in each household, as a way to get Nazi ideals in each home. The accessibility to radio stations should have only been limited to national nazi radio stations in the whole of Germany. It was commonly thought that the Körting VE 301 could not get foreign stations but it has since been proven that the machine, if tampered with, could get access to over-the-border radio stations, creating a massive fault in the propaganda objective of exclusivity to nazi dominated stations. Nonetheless, Nazi ideals and speeches were transmitted through the Körting radio. The radio created listening communities as people gathered around them which forged a sense of belonging to a single nation. These “imagined communities” as researcher Benedict Anderson names them were in a sense created and brought together around the object of the radio. This was understood by Nazi politicians such as Goebbels who tried to make the most of these objects to benefit their own ideals as they used them as “propaganda channels” to bring about “social change”.

Transition to Act II Sound effects of a Körting VE 301 being turned on and tuned: from 0:37 to 0:51

ACT II

Körting’s monologue

Picture it, the decade was the 1930s, the country was solely Germany, or so they thought, the radio (that was me) was brand spanking new. My rich brown casing and my iconic round mouth that served as the secondary mouth to the many singers and politicians whose voices echoed on the airwaves. This was what they wanted all in Germany to hear : extracts from Goebbels’ speech, Hitler’s speech. But some had other plans you see. Inside me was a little orange cardboard plaque that, if tampered with, allowed my listeners to get access to radio waves from beyond the Nazi borders. I, Volksemphänger (that was my nickname back in the day, the People’s Receiver), was a double agent. I refuse to dwell on the fact that some called me Goebbels Schnauzer, that is to say Goebbels’ snout, for I bite and barked back at them at the hands of the right people that is ! By day, I did my duty loyally as a propaganda tool for the Nazi regime but by night to the wise and the brave challengers to the regime, I was their tool to freedom. I say brave because the penalty if found guilty of this “broadcasting crime” as the Nazis called it, was death. That’s right, those brave individuals, albeit in very small numbers, were willing to die to listen to foreign stations and breach the borders and go beyond the tyrannic grasp of totalitarianism. I was the one who brought them beyond the borders and opened new wavelength for my listeners to have access to a whole new world of sounds and content. Their plans had failed you see my little one, they thought that I was theirs alone. They did try to control me and my listeners by ordering the verification of my little orange cardboard plaque to freedom, but alas for them it failed massively. They had failed to see that by inciting so many people to buy me, they had also brought into the homes of the people the very object that could bring the downfall of the regime ! Don’t look at me like that, you know I like to exaggerate but I exaggerate not, for the radio was one of the most important tools to bring hope and support to the people beyond the borders of their countries. Around me, new communities were created. Although people could not see each other and were miles away, they were all huddled together at the same times to listen. They may have been fragmented by I was the glue that indirectly brought them closer and held them together. I could take them on a journey in the comfort of their own homes ! I could take them to freedom !

Extracts from De Gaulle’s speech fading out into Mendelssohn

The Narrator speaks over the sound of De Gaulle in the background, followed by Mendelssohn

Radios became in the first half of the twentieth century one of the focal points of the household as the family would congregate around it, place it in the living room and make it a part of the daily routine to sit around it and listen to the different programs. During the Nazi regime, it was seen as a tool to get their propaganda into the homes of the people. The radio was not only used for political matters as people made it their own by fiddling and tinkering their pushed the boundaries of the object and the limits of the borders of their own nations. And so the voices of resistance were heard across the Channel, throughout Europe as echoes of hope and music, that the Nazis considered “degenerate music” as heard with an extract of Mendelssohn’s work, banned and forced into exile because he was Jewish, was played as a form of resistance to the constraints of the Nazi regime.

ACT III

Körting, proudly

So you see my little one, that I was a double agent working for the bad and the good. Although I was sold by people with ill intent, others turned me into a tool for good.

Smartphone

I find it hard to believe that people opened you up like that and tinkered with you without breaking anything and knowing how to put you back together. I know I wouldn’t trust my owner to open me up without killing me !

Körting :

Ah but you see, once they opened me up I was able to live out my fullest potential as a tool for resistance. Back then the technology was a little simpler and easier to figure out. Nowadays, you all get scratched easily and replaced with the newest model even though you still work perfectly fine ! I for one an glad that some are still taking good care of the likes of me. Some people are even collecting me and, believe it or not, keeping my memory and my story alive by putting me on display for all to see in museums, and for that I am eternally grateful !

Smartphone :

I am sure one day I’ll be in a showcase too !

Images sources :

1. Photo of Körting VE 301, from Albert Walter’s collection
2. https://archive.org/details/koertingradiodasprogrammderreife193435einweitererschrittzurvollko2mmenheit
3. “German, buy the people’s receiver!”: Poster advertising for the Jedermann radio. Photo: Deutsches Rundfunkmuseum Berlin, www.drm-berlin.de, find on : https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/75-jahre-volksempfaenger-a-949544.html#fotostrecke-9e3fd202-0001-0002-0000-000000109341
4. Image Archive Prussian Cultural Heritage, find on : https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/75-jahre-volksempfaenger-a-949544.html#fotostrecke-9e3fd202-0001-0002-0000-000000109341
5. Goebbels, 5th August 1938, opened the Great German Radio Exhibition. Here he is inspecting the new people’s receiver. To his right is the President of the Reich Broadcasting Chamber, Dr. warrior : Signature in the Federal Archives: picture 183-H10252, find on : https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/75-jahre-volksempfaenger-a-949544.html#fotostrecke-9e3fd202-0001-0002-0000-000000109341
6. https://www.viehl-radio.de/homeda/vegw.html

Audio sources : street ambiance : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX-0Wb_wQsY Drumroll sound effect : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek56AgxwybI Classical music transition act II : Furtwängler (Wagner/Beethoven: 9.) as from 31.11, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Ltwx0k8JE Goebbels’ speech : from 0:42 to 1:11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLrrUsnRTf4 Hitler’s speech : from 0:00 to 0:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkFUgVXo5xc Turning on a Körting (before act II) : from 0:37 to 0:51 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEAeR3cYFqs De Gaulle’s speech : from 0:00 until 0:35 fads out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm8Dl9vDHvs Mendelssohn : from 0:00 to 0:23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUm41WqTix8

Bibliography :

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• REUCHER, Gaby, „Beethoven as Nazi propaganda“, Deutsche Welle 05/04/2020 https://www.dw.com/en/beethoven-as-nazi-propaganda/a-53262640
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