It's always exciting to start new research, and I'm particularly thrilled to be running my own project this time as Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Warwick. The idea to research the BBC German Service grew out of my previous work as part of the Beyond Enemy Lines team at King's College London. Whilst researching cultural life in Germany under British and American occupation during the immediate postwar years, I repeatedly came across references to the BBC German Service, but was surprised to discover that very little scholarly work had been undertaken in this field. There exists to date no detailed history of the BBC German Service. Scholars have mainly focused on its role during the Second World War, but research on the Cold War and subsequent periods is sparse. Working across the disciplines of German, media studies, memory studies, and cultural history, I will seek to fill this gap over the next three years.
Here's why I think the BBC German Service is such a fascinating topic: Voice of Truth or Propaganda Tool? During the Second World War, the BBC German Service offered its clandestine listeners in the Third Reich a supposedly impartial ‘voice of truth’ and objective information on the war. Created hastily during the Munich crisis in 1938, and operating as part of the Political Warfare Executive during World War II, the BBC German Service continued to rely on funding from the Foreign Office after 1945 – a structural dependence which was at odds with its claims to impartiality. One of the project’s recurring concerns is to investigate to what extent the German Service avoided becoming a propaganda tool. Stringent control over broadcasting material lasted well into the 1960s and ‘70s with British subjects checking every script before it could go on air. Moreover, financial dependence on the Foreign Office also meant that from the 1950s onwards the BBC German Service repeatedly came under pressure through government-imposed cuts. This dependence ultimately caused its closure in 1999, when it was proposed that funding should no longer be drawn from the Foreign Office but from the licence fee. The BBC as Role Model and Employer In postwar Germany, the German Service became key to the Allies’ re-education project, with its former head, Hugh Carleton Greene establishing the BBC-inspired North-West German public broadcaster (NWDR) in the British Zone of occupation. The project traces the ways in which the BBC shaped the media of the Federal Republic – both as a role model for public service broadcasters such as NDR, WDR and ARD, and through training future leaders in the West German media landscape, such as Peter von Zahn and Gerd Ruge. Moreover, the study also examines how early employment in the BBC German Service shaped the careers of important émigré writers including Austrian poet Erich Fried, and Martin Esslin, who went on to become Head of Radio Drama at the BBC. Information, Education, Entertainment Another key focus of the project is the BBC German Service’s coverage of and commentary on important historical events in both Germany and Britain (e.g. the Normandy landings, the Berlin Blockade, the building and fall of the Berlin Wall, Winston Churchill’s death, the Falklands War, the British miners’ strike). In this context, it will be particularly instructive to compare programmes from the Service’s different subdivisions, including the Austrian Service (1943-1957) and the East Zone Service (1950-1975), to analyse how they tailored their outputs for specific local audiences, and what this tells us about the Service’s larger political aims. In addition to the BBC’s news and information remit, the project will also consider its entertainment and educational functions, examining the balance in broadcasting content between creative scripted content (plays, features, satires), music (e.g. the programme ‘Eine kleine Beatmusik’ introduced to attract younger listeners in the 1960s), language learning and tourism, and listener-generated content (e.g. the feature ‘Letters without Signatures’ of the East Zone Service). Seeking Interviewees In order to build up an accurate picture of the BBC German Service, I hope to interview former producers, and generally anyone who remembers working for (or even listening to) it. If any of the above applies to you, or you know someone who might be able to help out with this kind of information, please get in touch - I would be delighted to hear from you.
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Emily OliverResearcher at Warwick University. Interested in all things Anglo-German. Archives
September 2017
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