Adolf Raskin

Adolf Raskin (born November 17, 1900 in Cologne ; † November 8, 1940 in a plane crash near Brauna , Kamenz ) was a musicologist , journalist (culture and feature pages ) and a German radio pioneer during the Nazi era. He was the first director of the Saarland Broadcasting Corporation, director of the German shortwave station and responsible for program development for German television. Under Joseph Goebbels , he was the head of propaganda at the Saar vote and head of the secret broadcasters that had the task of conducting psychological warfare.

The early years

Origin and childhood

Adolf Raskin was the eldest of five children of the postman Bernhard Josef Raskin (born January 25, 1871, † June 10/25, 1925 in Cologne) and his wife Johanna Katharina Henriette Raskin, née. Giesen (born April 12, 1874 in Bergisch Gladbach ; † October 23, 1961 in Cologne).

He grew up with his siblings in Cologne-Ehrenfeld and in the center of Cologne on Werderstrasse and, together with his brother, also had to take on financial responsibility for the younger siblings after the early death of their father.

Studies, military service and internship

Adolf Raskin visited one in Cologne grammar school and then to 1918 the teacher training seminar in Cologne to become an elementary school teacher.

At the end of the First World War , he did a short military service from spring to November 1918.

Because of the poor prospects of getting a job as a teacher, he changed his career perspectives. He graduated from high school with an external examination. Then he studied musicology , art history , theater studies , German and philosophy / psychology in Cologne and Bonn .

Adolf Raskin received his doctorate in Cologne in June 1923 on Johann Joachim Quantz , his life and his compositions, especially for flute.

Adolf Raskin did an internship at Röchling-Bank in Saarbrücken , wrote theater reviews and became a journalist .

Professional background

Newspaper journalist

From 1924 to 1929 A. Raskin was a feature editor for the Saarbrücker Zeitung .

In 1929 he moved to Essen and was head of the cultural and political department at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung from 1929–1933 .

This influential newspaper, close to the industrialists of the Ruhr mining industry, existed from 1883 to 1944. It was published by Theodor Reismann-Grone (1863–1949), one of the founders of the radical national Pan-German Association , an enthusiastic supporter of Hitler , which he and his newspaper promoted.

WERAG = Westdeutsche Rundfunk AG in Cologne

Raskin was one of the " March Fallen " and had been a member of the NSDAP since May 1, 1933 . 1933 joined Adolf Raskin for broadcasting , was first in Cologne (May to December 1933) in the course of Gleichschaltung West German as head of the Department of music, literature and entertainment at the Cologne-based broadcaster Rundfunk AG ( WERAG ), then from April 1, 1934 Reichssender Cologne was called and a branch of the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG) became. There A. Raskin was responsible for all musical programs, among other things. On June 26, 1933 and October 14, 1933, the first radio reports were made by WERAG, from the balloons "Cologne" and "E. Brandenburg", Rudi Rauher was at the microphone in the gondola, A. Raskin moderated in the Funkhaus with amusing counter-speeches and supplemented them the report with record music.

1933 took place Gleichschaltung of WERAG with personal consequences for director Ernst Hardt (1876-1947), who on 23 April 1933 by Heinrich Meier glass was replaced (1892-1945), and z is about 50 more politically dissenting employees (. B. Hans Stein , Fritz Worm , Carl Heil , Martin Rockenbach ).

The Kölner Funkhaus was located at Dagobertstrasse 38. It was opened on January 15, 1927 and was in operation until the technical operation of the Reichsender Köln was closed in 1941 and until the bombs were destroyed in 1942. After the war it was quickly repaired and from September 26, 1945 it served as the broadcasting house of the NWDR .

Saarkampfzentrale of the German radio in Frankfurt / Main

In 1934 Adolf Raskin was commissioned by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels , who made use of Raskin's experience in the Saar region , to manage the German Broadcasting’s Saarkampfzentrale in Frankfurt am Main (January 1, 1934 to May 1935). Here he worked "with three employees and with the help of experienced Saarland journalists" to influence the Saar vote on January 13, 1935 (Schäferdiek, p. 105).

Adolf Raskin set up weekly Saar broadcasts and placed around 1,000 individual programs on the subject and had 14,000 people's receivers distributed primarily to NSDAP members in the Saar area. The programs were broadcast from Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Neustadt an der Weinstrasse.

Reichsender Saarbrücken

From May 1935, Adolf Raskin was entrusted with setting up the Reichsender Saarbrücken (first radio station within the Saarland) and despite a conflict with Joseph Goebbels (see Schäferdiek, p. 109f.) On December 4, 1935 (until 1938) first director of the Reichsender Saarbrücken . The trial phase began in March 1935, and broadcasting began in July 1935. From September 27, 1935, the first own broadcasts took place and from September 29, 1935 the Reichssender Saarbrücken broadcast its own full program under Adolf Raskin.

Raskin was supported by a team that had been friends with him for a long time: Gustav Kneip (Head of the Main Entertainment Department), Hanns Költzsch (Head of the Music Department), Horst Slesina ( Current Affairs Department ), Karl Mages ( Broadcasting Director), Chief Dramaturg Willi Schäferdiek (the in his memoir "Lebens-Echo" reported extensively on these radio pioneering times), the two band masters Albert Jung and Hans Hörner , director Josef Reichert , senior director Hanns Farenburg .

The directorship was initially housed in a villa at Am Eichhornstaden 11 and settled in the autumn of 1937 at Wilhelm-Heinrich-Strasse 33-35. The RS Saarbrücken under Adolf Raskin was the first German broadcaster to use the new technical system of magnetic recording .

Berlin

From the beginning of 1937 Adolf Raskin (initially in addition to the Saarbrücken director function) in Berlin-Charlottenburg ( Haus des Rundfunks , Masurenallee ) in personal union

1. Foreign Head of the Reich Broadcasting Society ,
2. come over. Director of the German Shortwave Transmitter ,
3. entrusted with the management of the German television and
4. under Goebbels supervision special commissioner for clandestine channels directed against France and England (secret channels ).

After the annexation of Austria in the then so-called Greater German Reich in March 1938 was sent A. Raskin of the kingdom of directors glass Meier to Vienna as a special representative of the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft in place of the liquidated Austrian radio traffic AG (RAVAG) the " realm transmitter Vienna " to build, which was subordinate to the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft.

Foreign chief of the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft

A. Raskin was director of the German international broadcaster and at the same time director of the German shortwave station, succeeding Kurt von Boeckmann (1885–1950). He was succeeded in November 1940 as director of the German international radio station Toni Winkelnkemper , as director of the shortwave station Horst Cleinow.

The German short-wave transmitter broadcast abroad in twelve languages. After the location of the short-wave transmitter in Zeesen near Königs Wusterhausen, these German international broadcasts were also called "Radio Zeesen". Unlike all Reich broadcasters, the transmitter was not under the control of the Reich broadcasting line and thus the Ministry of Propaganda, but rather the broadcasting department of the Foreign Office, since the broadcasts were only intended for foreign countries. (Schäferdiek, p. 125)

The broadcast was in twelve languages, including German, English, Spanish, Portuguese and Afrikaans for the following zones: Asia, Africa, Europe, England, North America, South America and Brazil.

The later Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger was the liaison between the German shortwave transmitter and the Foreign Office.

Secret broadcasting special adviser

Adolf Raskin headed the foreign propaganda stations: Against France Voix de la Paix, Camarade du Nord, Voix de la Bretagne and especially Radio Humanité . The New British Broadcasting Station - NBBS (from February 25, 1940) was directed against Great Britain.

The headquarters of the propaganda transmitter was also known under the name "Büro Concordia".

The liaison to the Foreign Office in the editorial meetings was Günter Diehl , who had become a member of the NSDAP in 1938 and later became spokesman for the federal government under Kurt Georg Kiesinger from November 1967 to October 22, 1969 .

In retrospect, the best known was Radio Humanité (first broadcast December 16, 1939 - discontinued after the armistice on June 25, 1940), which was entrusted with broadcasts in French with the role of psychological warfare in order to “open up” before and during the military raid to cause confusion in all situations ”(Braunbuch, Diehl Propaganda-Ministry).

The development of communications technology as a war technique was then also known as "wave artillery".

From May to July 1940, Goebbels' diaries record the use of the Nostradamus divination in secret broadcasters (Prophecy of the Destruction of London 1940).

“Radio Humanité is seen as the best coup of German propaganda in World War II” (André Scheer).

“The demonic master of propaganda” Goebbels let a desolate drumfire of calls for the laying down of arms in French fall non-stop on the beleaguered French army via numerous portable small transmitters, which completely demoralized them. In this way, radio became the third of those great forces, alongside the tank armies and the Stukas, "which together led the blitzkrieg against France to victory", says Schäferdiek (p. 125)

Head of German television

During this time, A. Raskin, in addition to his radio activities, was also in charge of German television, which was in "poor beginnings" (Schäferdiek, p. 90). Until his accidental death in November 1940, he was responsible for the further development of television (organizational and program issues). In 1943 the German television stopped its work due to the general development of the war.

Death in plane crash

Raskin died in a plane crash on November 8, 1940 near Brauna on a business trip to Sofia , where he wanted to explore the possibilities of a secret radio war against Greece . The aircraft was the four-engine Junkers Ju 90 No. 10 "Brandenburg", a civil aircraft of the German Lufthansa . Flight captain Stache, the five crew members and all 23 passengers were killed. It was the worst accident of Deutsche Lufthansa DLH to date. The dead from the plane crash were laid out in St. Annen's church in Kamenz.

Friends, employees and family members said goodbye to Raskin with a memorial service in the large broadcasting hall in the Haus des Rundfunks in Berlin. The deceased was then transferred to his hometown of Cologne and buried in the Westfriedhof .

Raskin family

A. Raskin's brother, Heinrich Raskin (* July 17, 1902 in Cologne; † July 31, 1990 in Baden-Baden) was a member of the CDU and from September 1, 1949 to 1963, Trier's first full-time mayor after the Second World War, the Mayor of the Trier reconstruction.

The three sisters Elisabeth / Ella Hennes geb. Raskin (born May 8, 1906 in Cologne; † September 13, 1951 in Schildgen), Luise Raskin (born January 25, 1909 in Cologne; † October 23, 2002 in Cologne) kindergarten teacher and youth leader, religion teacher, long head teacher of a Catholic. Social education college in Cologne with a focus on Montessori education and her twin sister Maria Magdalena / Leni Hoerner born. Raskin (born January 25, 1909 in Cologne, † September 2, 2001 in Cologne) became educators and lived in Cologne or the immediate vicinity until her death.

Adolf Raskin was married to Maria Raskin, born in February 1925. Dunsche (born October 4, 1896 - † August 6, 1960 in Cologne).

The two had a son: Karl-Bernd Raskin (May 21, 1927 to May 3, 1968). The son was married to Ilse Raskin, born on August 30, 1952. Dregger (born July 24, 1925 - † May 27, 2003). Their sons are Bernd Raskin (born September 20, 1955) and Robert Raskin (born February 15, 1958).

In addition, there was an extra-marital relationship between Adolf Raskin and Eva Schatz. A daughter emerged from this connection: Brigitte Schmitz, geb. Schatz (born September 2, 1939). She married the composer, conductor, arranger, pianist and accordion virtuoso Christian Schmitz-Steinberg . Their children are Michael Schmitz (1957–1971) and Alexandra Schmitz (born August 1, 1966).

Awards

1940 War Merit Cross 1st Class (posthumous)

Fonts

• Johann Joachim Quantz, his life and his compositions; Dissertation, Cologne 1923 (typescript, 166 pages). Open Access via ViFaMusik
• The musical theater of the present - An attempt by A. Raskin; in: Die Tribüne, bi-monthly publication of the Cologne city theaters, 2nd year 1929/30, 2nd February issue, issue 12, Cologne, self-published, pp. 321–327
• Symptomatic Music Policy In Melos, IX / 7, 1930, pp. 299–302, Schott-Verlag, Mainz
• At a loss in the industrial area - in Melos 11-1932, pp. 64–65, Schott-Verlag, Mainz
• From the 700-year history of the Deutschlandlied - in: Musik und Volk, published by the Reichsbund Volkstum und Heimat, first issue 1933, Bärenreiter-Verlag; Kassel, pp. 17-22
• Reichsrundfunk in the service of nationality - a plan for the reorganization of the German radio program, memorandum 1936 (Federal Archives, Vol. 2 H - St (1936–1937))
• (Ed.) Südwestdeutsche Heimatblätter, 3 volumes - reprint of the SZ supplements 1926–1931, Saarbrücken, Saarbrücker Zeitung, no year 1975? 1982?

literature

• Willi A. Boelcke (Ed.): War Propaganda 1939–1941. Secret ministerial conferences in the Reich Propaganda Ministry. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1966.
• Ludwig Hoerner: Luise Raskin, your life memories, compiled and supplemented . Eigendruck, Cologne undated (2002) p. 3
• Willi Schäferdiek: Life echo, memories of a writer . Droste, Düsseldorf 1985
• FI professional biographies 345 "Adolf Raskin" in FI 6/1982 - television information, independent correspondence for radio and television, Leipzig and Gauting
• Birgit Bernard: "A unique radio propaganda talent Adolf Raskin (1900–1940), unpublished manuscript, Cologne 2008
• Birgit Bernard: "Adolf Raskin" in Spiegel Wissen, 2009
• Hans Jürgen Koch & Hermann Glaser: All ears - A cultural history of radio in Germany . Böhlau, Köln & Weimar, 2005, p. 112
• Ortwin Buchbender and Reinhard Hauschild: secret broadcasters against France. The "Radio Humanité 1940" deception operation . Herford 1984
• Hans G. Helms: Ici Radio Humanité. An episode in the history of propaganda . In: Mercury . 2/1986 No. 444
• www.koelner-luftfahrt.de Heribert Suntrop: The Chronicle of Cologne Aviation . June 26, 1933 and October 14, 1933
• Martin A. Doherty: Nazi Wireless Propaganda . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2000, p. 7
• Marquilandes Borges de Sousa: Rádio e propaganda politica . Annablume, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2004, p. 54
• Timothy Crook & Tim Crook: International Radio Journalism . Routledge, London, 1998, p. 187
• Friedrich Kittler: wave artillery , lecture on Ö1 of the Österr. Radio ORF on October 27, 1988
• Martin Miller Marks: Music and the Silent Film, Contexts & Case Studies 1895–1924 . Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 227
• www.bundesarchiv.de - R55 / 20827: "Concordia" office under Director Dr. Raskin
• uni-saarland, de Correspondence Oskar Wöhrle 2385–2393 “Letters to RRF GmbH Berlin, Dr. Raskin "
• www.ratzer.at - Christoph Ratzer: Information on short wave wwh 3/5: Bremer Funkgeschichte
• The German newsreel 533/1 from November 20, 1940, 4th contribution

Web links

• Literature by and about Adolf Raskin in the catalog of the German National Library

supporting documents

1. ↑ ^{a b} Willi A. Boelcke (Ed.): War Propaganda 1939–1941. Secret Ministerial Conferences in the Reich Propaganda Ministry , 1966, p. 92
2. ^ Gerhild Krebs: Saarländischer Rundfunk . Section The radio in the voting campaign (1933–1935)
3. ↑ Raskin Tomb. In: knerger.de. Retrieved October 27, 2019 .