The black channel
| Television broadcast | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The black channel |
 | |
| Country of production | German Democratic Republic |
| original language | German |
| Year (s) | 1960-1989 |
| Production company |
DFF |
| Episodes | 1519 |
| genre | Politmagazin , propaganda broadcast |
| Moderation | Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler |
| First broadcast | March 21, 1960 on DFF |
The black channel was a political agitation series of the GDR television during the Cold War . The chief commentator, Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler, devoted himself to individual excerpts from programs on Western television in line with SED propaganda .
In the last version of the opening credits (from the late 1970s) the federal eagle took its place on a forest of television antennas . His black, white and red chest band was intended to symbolize the reactionary character of the Federal Republic. The acronyms of ARD and ZDF circled above the scenario visualized as a cartoon. The music consisted of electronic beeps that matched the rhythm of the Deutschlandlied .
history
The program started on March 21, 1960. It was a response to the television program Die Rote Optik , broadcast every three months by ARD between 1958 and 1960 , in which Thilo Koch , head of the West Berlin studio of the North German Broadcasting Corporation , excerpts from broadcasts on GDR television as propaganda. The title The Black Channel was an allusion to this show. Schnitzler himself said at the beginning of the first broadcast about his intention and the title as follows:
“The Black Canal, which we mean, ladies and gentlemen, carries rubbish and sewage; but instead of flowing onto sewage fields, as it should actually be, it pours into hundreds of thousands of West German and West Berlin households every day . It is the channel on which West German television broadcasts its program: The Black Channel. And from now on we will dedicate ourselves to it every Monday at this hour, as a sewage treatment plant, so to speak.
The media observations of the Philological Institute at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich described his contributions as "polemical-aggressive tirades of hate".
In his broadcasts, Schnitzler also put his finger into actual wounds in the warring West, albeit often polemically exaggerated. In later years, because of its similarly agitating-polarizing effect, the ZDF magazine broadcast between 1969 and 1988 with Gerhard Löwenthal was its counterpart . Löwenthal and Schnitzler provided each other with templates for their political agenda for two decades.
The Black Channel had its permanent slot on Monday evening before 10 p.m. The exact start could vary, as a feature film was previously broadcast. The broadcast was repeated on Tuesdays at 11:30 a.m., like all broadcasts on the previous evening.
In the course of political change , GDR television stopped broadcasting on October 30, 1989 after 1519 episodes. In 1992, the ORB broadcast a “very last black channel”, newly produced at the end of 1991, with comments by Schnitzler that he wrote and presented himself.
concept
The weekly program The black channel showed Monday evening, immediately after the broadcast of the popular Monday film ( UFA -Reprisen from the State Film Archives the GDR ) respectively at 21:35 for 20 minutes clippings of news, reports and political magazines from the West television, Schnitzler , who was in front of the camera in 1322 out of a total of 1519 issues, commented with aggressive polemics . Günter Herlt , Ulrich Makosch and Heinz Grote , among others, acted as representatives , who used a less aggressive style . Other speakers for the program were Götz Förster , Volker Ott and Albert Reisz , who only commented on a few issues.
At the start of the program, Schnitzler wanted broad target groups “from Lieschen Müller to Dr. Lieschen Müller ”achieved that in the 1970s the focus was increasingly on party functionaries, officers of the NVA who were not allowed to watch Western TV programs, teachers, journalists and other groups: multipliers who took up Schnitzler's polemics and interested citizens selected Western news along with ideological news Present interpretation. In propaganda fashion, the West German news and magazine programs were presented as propaganda of the class enemy .
reception
The German Broadcasting Archive accuses Schnitzler of having manipulated statements by distorting the meaning of scenes and specially ordered sequences of excerpts .
Schnitzler, who originally worked for the BBC and Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk , was one of the most famous commentators in the GDR media. Mostly he was called "Karl-Eduard" in a respectful and ambivalent way. In the proverbial GDR joke , he was also referred to as "Karl-Eduard von Schni-" to express that the television was switched off or switched on before his name was fully pronounced. Even Wolf Biermann reviled Schnitzler on 1 December 1989 as Ballad of the corrupt old men as "Sudel-Ede," the "in the grave lie nor the worms" had.
At times, especially in the 1960s and early 1970s, the show was viewed as a kind of mandatory event in some areas. So the content of was the Black channel for example in political education in the army (NVA or border guards ) and for the civics lessons used in school. That depended on the respective teachers and schools and was very different from region to region.
In the GDR district of Dresden and in other places where West reception was not possible (colloquially “ Valley of the Ahnungslosen ”), The Black Channel offered the opportunity to see at least excerpts from news from ARD and ZDF ; however, they were often greatly shortened and taken out of context so that they could hardly serve as a neutral source of information.
The German Broadcasting Archive archived the show's participation files from 1965 to 1990. In the first few years, The Black Channel - with the exception of repetitions - achieved quotas of mostly 14 to 25 percent with large deviations from individual programs. At the end of the 1970s it barely reached double-digit values and continued to decline, with average rates of three to five percent until it was discontinued.
Whereabouts of the programs
As stated on the website of the German Broadcasting Archive as the administrator of the estate of GDR television, GDR television only recorded the feature films for magazine programs such as the Black Channel , but not the live commentary and introductions by the moderators. In the case of the Black Channel , neither the recordings of the comments by the author and presenter Schnitzler have survived, nor the feature films, which consisted of clips from Western television, because Schnitzler mostly had them destroyed just a few days after they were broadcast. The manuscripts, however, have largely been preserved and are also in the German Broadcasting Archive.
Around 350 of the 1519 episodes of the Black Canal that were recorded by Western institutions during the live broadcast of GDR television have been preserved. 33 episodes of the Black Channel are available in stores on a twelve-hour DVD box.
literature
- Marc Levasier: The Black Channel . In: Jürgen Wilke (ed.): Journalists and journalism in the GDR. Professional organization. Western correspondents. "The Black Channel". Böhlau, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-36205-8 , pp. 217-305.
- Kirsten Nähle: The Black Channel - A Political Magazine on GDR Television. Tectum-Verlag, 1st edition, Marburg 2005, ISBN 3-8288-8908-5 .
- House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany (Ed .; Red .: Hans Walter Hütter): Pictures that lie. Book accompanying the exhibition of the House of History Foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany. 3rd edition, numerous Ill., Graph. Darst., Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 2003, ISBN 3-416-02902-X .
- Matthias Steinle: From the enemy image to the external image. The mutual representation of FRG and GDR in the documentary. With a foreword by Marc Ferro, (CLOSE UP series, vol. 18), UVK, Konstanz 2003, ISBN 978-3-89669-421-8 .
Web links
- The black channel in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- Digitized broadcast manuscripts "The Black Canal", 1960–1989 from the German Broadcasting Archive
- Programs of the "Black Channel" (excerpts on YouTube)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of 18 March 1960: 10. The "television broadcasting program" from March 21, 1960 therefore includes eight programs, which began at 12.45 am with the "TV studio Natural Sciences", followed by the children's TV, sports and music, 19:45 Current Camera , then The Honorable Whore , 9:35 pm The Black Channel, followed by “At the cradle of the human race” and the late edition of the current camera.
- ^ Propaganda. Riesel field battle . Information from Spiegel dated April 13, 1960
- ↑ (see web link)
- ↑ Horst Rörig: 'Hygiene in the ether' or the missed reality - Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler and the 'The Black Canal'. ( Memento from October 25, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Claudia Dittmar: Enemy television. GDR television and its strategies in dealing with West German television. Transcript, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-8376-1434-3 , p. 146, on the placement of the Black Canal Jürgen Wilke (Ed.): Journalists and Journalism in the GDR. Professional organization. Western correspondents. "The Black Channel". Böhlau, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-412-36205-8 , p. 300
- ^ Jürgen Wilke: Journalists and Journalism in the GDR: Professional Organization, Western Correspondents, "The Black Canal". Böhlau Verlag, Cologne and Weimar. P. 240. ( Online at Google Books )
- ↑ Not revenge, no, pension! In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1999 ( online ).
- ↑ "Sudel-Ede" is dead . In: Manager Magazin , September 20, 2001.
- ↑ Schnitzler's carvers. In: Spiegel Online , April 23, 2004.
- ↑ Wolf Biermann - Ballad of the corrupted old men
- ↑ Visual participation index (1965–1990). ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Journalistic series Main Evening - The Black Channel. German Broadcasting Archive, dra.de.
