RADIO HITLER: Nazi Airwaves in the Second World War

Radio Hitler follows the life of Deutschlandsender, the Nazi equivalent of BBC Radio 4, and its sister stations that transmitted to Germany and the world at large. The story of broadcasting in the years of National Socialism is in fact a fascinating social and political chronicle of one of the most turbulent periods in German life. Within these pages we breeze through 14 eventful years when the Nazis, which started with a group of discontented fanatics in Munich, were able to construct a vast political machine and become the sole instrument of the state. For Hitler, radio was an absolutely essential tool. Women were fearful about casualties at the front and soldiers fretted about the physical insecurity of their families. Radio acted as a constant link between separated families as did the mutterings of foreign renegades such as Lord Haw-Haw on Reichssender in Hamburg making his outrageous claims, night after night. Using first-hand interviews, archives, diaries, letters and memoirs, this book examines what Nazi radio was and what it stood for. Detailed here is the vast 'fake news' effort, which bombarded audiences in the Middle East, Africa, the United States and Great Britain. A light is also shone on the home service stations that, with their monumental announcements including Stalingrad, the assassination attempt on Hitler and the invasion of France, provided the soundtrack to everyday life in Nazi Germany. Details of entertainment shows and programmes designed to lift morale on the Home Front are abundant and offer a fresh insight into the psyche of the nation. The book also looks at Nazi attempts to develop television throughout Germany and in occupied France. A rich cast of characters is featured throughout, including Ernst Himmler, brother of Heinrich, who worked as technical chief at Deutschlandsender, and Lord Haw-Haw, the infamous British mouthpiece of the Nazi propaganda machine. Nathan Morley had unlimited access to former Reich radio studios and transmitter sites in Hamburg, Berlin, and Vienna, as well as to a vast archive of recordings and transcripts. The result is a fascinating and revealing portrait of propaganda, communication and media in Nazi Germany. Well illus, 288 pages.