In 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, radio was about what the internet and social media are today. It was the premier medium of mass communication. However, radios were expensive, often costing more than an average monthly salary.

The Nazis had recognized early on the enormous potential of radio to influence the then almost 70 million Germans.

Just weeks after Hitler came to power, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels forced companies such as Telefunken, Loewe and Blaupunkt to offer a single, inexpensive device, the Volksempfänger, the so-called “people’s receiver”. The first model was called the Volksempfänger 301, it was the date of Hitler’s seizure of power on January 30 and cost about 400 euros today.

Propaganda radio

It was presented for the first time at the Great German Radio Exhibition in Berlin and the success is huge. At the beginning of 1932 four million households had a radio and by 1943 they had reached about 16 million.

The main goal was propaganda. All but one of the managers were replaced by people from the regime. In March 1933 Goebbels told them: “We do not hide the fact that radio belongs to us, to no one else. And we will put the radio at the service of our own idea. No other idea has a place here.”

The shows started with “Heil Hitler”. The dictator himself often spoke on the radio and all his important speeches were broadcast in full. The music of the marches replaced the dance music and in general the aim was to enliven the people and raise the morale. For example the battle of Stalingrad in early 1943, it looked like it was going to be lost and then Goebbels asked bluntly: “Do you want total war? You want him, if necessary, more total and radical than we can even imagine.”

A lie from start to finish

Radio played a key role as a propaganda tool. On September 1, 1939, the Germans learned through the Volksempfänger of an alleged Polish attack, which gave Nazi Germany the pretext to start World War II. And as the war began with a lie, so it ended. On May 1, 1945, Hitler was said to have fallen fighting for Germany in the Chancellery fighting against Bolshevism. He had actually killed himself.

A few days later, the war ended and with it the Nazi propaganda. The Americans banned German radio broadcasts, and in the following years, the Allies set up new radio and television stations in West Germany with the main goal of creating a new independent radio station independent of the state.