Western television

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With Western television were everyday language in the use of language in the GDR , the television programs from the Federal Republic referred, during the German division next to the East German television were received too. ARD and ZDF could be received almost everywhere (except in eastern Saxony, where the term “ valley of the clueless ” was coined, and the extreme northeast), NDR , SFB , HR and BR and, from the mid-1980s, RTL , Sat.1 and RIAS-TV only in certain regions. The morning program of the ARD , later together with the ZDF, was broadcast exclusively for the GDR from 1961 to 1980. In the Berlin area, American , British and French soldiers' television with suitable or converted television receivers was mostly only receivable in the immediate vicinity of the border because of the use of other television standards and low transmission power.

meaning

Large parts of the GDR's population were able to get an impression of life and consumerism in West Germany through West German television. It was not until the 1980s that video recorders and video cassettes from western countries and the Federal Republic were accessible to GDR citizens, but only to a limited extent and only through private contacts. For most of the GDR citizens, the reasons for receiving Western television were the increased range of television programs, interesting films, television series, music programs, entertainment shows and sports broadcasts that GDR television did not broadcast.

But news broadcasts on western television were also considered interesting, as they viewed current issues from a different angle. West television also broadcast reports that were not published in the GDR , for example about church and regime-critical activities or about successful and unsuccessful escapes from the GDR . For example, a successful (and filmed) escape was shown on West German television in May 1989, in which the brothers Holger and Ingo Bethke picked up their brother Egbert Bethke in East Berlin at the Treptower Memorial with two microlight aircraft . There was also much more detailed coverage of the GDR refugees in Hungary on West German television, and this information also led to the intensification of the wave of emigration through Hungary.

During the turnaround and peaceful revolution , political issues came to the fore on West television reception, such as the Monday demonstrations in Leipzig and the reunification of Germany.

GDR propaganda broadcast The Black Canal

The opening credits of the show The Black Channel

Up until 1989, the government of the GDR tried to use television propaganda in the television program The Black Channel to deal politically and agitatively with broadcast excerpts from Western television. This is why short excerpts from television programs in the Federal Republic of Germany were also shown on this program on GDR television.

Own initiative and self-construction of antenna systems

Interested GDR citizens often had to take the initiative to procure suitable antennas, filters, amplifiers and UHF converters to receive West German television . Many self-built systems demonstrated the improvisational skills and technical skills of the GDR citizens, but especially the interest in receiving West television. In the GDR trade there were accessories from RFT such as antenna amplifiers and channel switches that were also suitable for receiving Western television. Building instructions for antenna amplifiers and specialist books for antenna construction such as the book Antennen by Eberhard Spindler or the antenna book by Karl Rothammel were freely available. As early as 1961, ZDF went on air in the UHF range in the Federal Republic of Germany. But it was only with the introduction of the 2nd program of the German television broadcast on the 20th anniversary of the existence of the GDR on October 7, 1969, that UHF antennas and antenna amplifiers from the antenna works in Bad Blankenburg as well as UHF converters came into the GDR trade. At this point in time the third programs had already started in the Federal Republic. The retail range in the GDR was mainly geared towards receiving GDR television, which for a long time was only used up to UHF channel 39.

Prohibitions

The Ochsenkopf transmission tower in Bavaria
FDJ members write an appeal: "The FDJ group wants to take up the fight against western television and listening to NATO radio stations", Leipzig (1961)

Members of the state organs of the GDR, such as the NVA , the police and the fire brigade, were forbidden to receive western television and radio stations until 1987. In the TV rooms of the NVA barracks, attempts were made to enforce this ban by sealing the TV sets and taking disciplinary action, but this was only partially successful.

At the beginning of the 1960s, the “Aktion Ochsenkopf ” asked the population to remove devices in the television sets that enabled reception from the west and to eliminate antennas that were directed to the west. FDJ troops occasionally removed antennas from the roofs of houses on their own initiative, occasionally there were scuffles. The campaign was named after the West German Ochsenkopf transmitter near the inner-German border , which broadcast specifically to the GDR. The campaign was accompanied by large, state-controlled press coverage and attempts at denunciation by the FDJ. Nevertheless, the campaign failed after just a few weeks because too many citizens were able to evade surveillance in their private apartments - if necessary through so-called night antennas, which were only pulled out in the dark to receive television.

Despite such actions, however, there was never a legal ban on Western television consumption. Since the 1970s, the government - accompanied by the détente between the Federal Republic and the GDR - saw the issue more calmly and accepted it. At that time, according to surveys, 70 percent of all television set owners were said to have seen western television. The handling was regionally and locally different.

From this point onwards, in regions with particularly difficult reception conditions, the formation of local antenna communities, a forerunner of cable television, was tolerated. Many municipal and cooperative housing administrations also offered or allowed their tenants the opportunity to watch western television. The reception of these channels in state facilities such as dormitories and barracks was still officially prohibited and was also partially prevented with the help of blocking filters or seals or with mechanical locks on the channel selectors. In places where reception was still possible, however, it was often tacitly tolerated until 1990.

Range and jammer

In some regions of the GDR, western television and radio could be received poorly or not at all due to the interference from local radio and television stations as well as from neighboring TV converters such as the Calau telecommunications tower . However, it was mostly broadcast on internationally coordinated frequencies.

Television reception

Rough representation of the ARD range in the GDR area with transmitter locations

Thanks to the topographical conditions, West TV reception was more or less possible in most of the GDR: ARD and ZDF had deliberately positioned strong basic network stations near the border (as did the DFF in the other direction) and thus extended up to 200 kilometers into the GDR inside. The fact that the south-west of the GDR protruded like a “peninsula” into the territory of the Federal Republic helped it to have particularly good reception conditions. The stations in West Berlin also filled a regional gap due to their location.

In unfavorable reception locations in the GDR, a great deal of effort was often made for the antenna, for example for the so-called ox - head antenna , which also increased the range of western television. Continuous terrestrial reception was no longer possible only in the northeast and southeast, with the exception of a few local locations. The great distance both from the West German border and from Berlin and the particularly unfavorable valley location in Dresden often prevented reception. The television reception from West Germany was never actively technically interrupted by the GDR. TV reception in black and white was possible without any problems with commercially available TV sets in the 1960s after the changeover from GDR television to the Western European CCIR system. Many modern color television sets from RFT were already freely available from the factory with an additional PAL color system decoder common in the Federal Republic of Germany , and a subsequent expansion to the PAL system was often technically problem-free.

Radio reception

The West Radio could be received well on medium wave in most places in the GDR under favorable conditions, but often only after dark. B. in Saxony the Bavarian radio, which broadcast with up to 600  kW from Ismaning on 801  kHz , and in Western Pomerania the North German broadcast, which broadcast on 972 kHz with 300 kW from Hamburg . Then it was also possible to receive Radio Luxembourg and Europa Welle Saar ( SR1 ). The German wave settled on shortwave received throughout the GDR.

The long-wave transmitters of the Deutschlandfunk were also a powerful tool to get information from Western sources throughout the GDR and also in countries in Eastern Europe. In principle, reception was possible all day in the entire GDR area.

Active technical disruptive measures by the GDR, which were directed against the reception of Western programs, are known for two programs. The medium wave frequencies of the RIAS were disturbed until the end of the 1970s, this did not affect the VHF broadcast. The interference ended with the entry into force of a new international frequency plan for the medium wave range.

Due to the similar physical propagation conditions, VHF radio reception was usually also possible where ARD TV stations could be received. Often the range of the FM radio stations was somewhat larger than that of the ARD television stations.

In the spring of 1988, the program Radio Glasnost produced by East Berlin opposition members on the West Berlin radio station Radio 100 (frequency: 103.4 MHz) was disrupted by twelve jammers in East Berlin and Potsdam.

During the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) the program of the West Berlin station Hundert, 6 on VHF was disrupted by a station installed in the Berlin television tower . These disturbances were conspicuous as they only applied to verbal contributions, the television station RIAS-TV informed about them. The reception in parts of West Berlin was also disrupted. Ironically, after the fall of the Wall, the regular program of Hundred, 6 was broadcast on the broadcasting system used by the GDR for jamming.

Antenna communities and private cable networks

Direct satellite reception and antenna communities were legally permitted in the GDR. Like large community antenna systems , they were subject to approval, but the approval was usually easy to get. With privately imported satellite dishes, cable networks built by initiatives in regions without western television emerged in the late 1980s. The networks were tolerated, and later even indirectly supported by cabling new building areas as early as the construction phase. Existing communal apartments in the city centers were also upgraded with a communal antenna connection.

Programs such as 3sat or the recently created private channels RTL , Sat.1 , Tele 5 and the pay-TV channel Teleclub were fed into the cable networks . ARD , ZDF and the majority of the third programs were not yet available via satellite at the time. In some cases, expensive antenna systems have therefore been set up at particularly favorable locations in order to be able to feed these programs into the cable networks from there.

Some of these systems are still operated today as cable television by the successors of the operators at the time. Other systems disappeared after German reunification and the introduction of cable television by the Deutsche Bundespost .

Important transmitter locations in the Federal Republic

Important basic network transmitters were from north to south:

as well as the Scholzplatz (ARD) and Schäferberg (ZDF / N3) broadcasting systems in West Berlin.

Radio and television broadcasters from Poland and the ČSSR

The People's Republic of Poland and Czechoslovakia had television and VHF radio according to the OIRT standard. Therefore it was not possible to receive the VHF radio in the OIRT band with commercially available VHF radio receivers from the GDR . When watching television, the sound could only be received with special OIRT / CCIR two-standard receivers, such as the Combi-Vision, a more portable black-and-white television produced by Robotron in the GDR . However, the general interest in receiving these channels was quite low.

In some areas, however, these television stations unintentionally also acted as local jammers , as they also broadcast on the same or neighboring frequencies and thus impaired reception of western television. In these cases, attempts were often made to suppress reception of these interfering transmitters with directional antennas and blocking filters (the so-called Czech trap ).

Allied radio and television stations

In and around Berlin the radio and television stations of the allied armed forces could be received, but because of the lower transmission power, they only had a very limited range. The TV channels AFN (US), BFBS (British) and France 2 (French) were broadcast from the corresponding western sectors of Berlin .

Because of the different television standards used by AFN (NTSC) and BFBS (PAL I), playback of these programs on television receivers commonly used in the GDR was only possible to a limited extent. However, the station France 2 was not broadcast in the French Secam L standard, but in the Secam-B / G method common in the GDR, so that it could be seen on receivers used in the GDR as well as in West Berlin.

The station of the Soviet armed forces , which represented a takeover of the first television program from Moscow and was broadcast from various locations within the GDR, also used the Secam-B / G standard (instead of the Secam D / K common in Eastern Europe) and was thus able to use of the GDR and West Berlin can be seen.

In addition, there were various Allied radio programs on VHF and medium wave. In addition to AFN and BFBS, the English-language BBC Worldservice was represented with its own FM transmitter in Berlin. The RIAS transmitters were also programs of the US allies.

literature

  • Thomas Beutelschmidt: Socialist Audiovision. On the history of media culture in the GDR. Potsdam 1995, ISBN 3-930850-14-1 .
  • Rainer Bohn, Knut Hickethier, Eggo Müller (eds.): Wall Show. The end of the GDR, German unity and the media. Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-89404-905-7 .
  • Rolf Geserick: 40 years of the press, radio and communication policy in the GDR. Munich 1989, ISBN 3-597-10568-8 .
  • Gerhard Gmel, Susanne Deimling, Jürgen Bortz: The use of the medium of television in the GDR before and after the fall. In: radio and television. 4/1994, pp. 542-554.
  • Kurt R. Hesse: Western media in the GDR. Use, image and effects of Federal Republican radio and television. Cologne 1988.
  • Tibor Kliment: TV usage in East Germany and the image of the Federal Republic. A contribution to the cultivation hypothesis. In: radio and television. 4/1994, pp. 485-509.
  • Norbert Linke: The reception of the programs of ARD and ZDF in the GDR as an object of the SED communication policy. In: Journalism. 32/1987, pp. 45-68.
  • Michael Meyen : The ARD in the GDR . In: From Politics and Contemporary History . 20/2010, pp. 28-34.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sabina Schroeter: The language of the GDR as reflected in its literature. Studies on the GDR-typical vocabulary Gruyter 1994, p. 61. online in Google books
  2. ^ Westfernsehen , duden.de, accessed on November 25, 2012
  3. ↑ Fly over the wall in eleven minutes and two seconds. In: The world. May 26, 2009.
  4. ↑ Ochsenkopf campaign . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 1961, pp. 23 ( online - September 6, 1961 ).
  5. ^ Rita Nikolow - Opposition on the air . Tagesspiegel website. Retrieved October 12, 2015.
  6. ↑ East vs. West on cable TV