Kurt von Boeckmann

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Kurt von Boeckmann (also: Kurt von Böckmann , Kurt Boeckmann ; * July 22, 1885 in Naples ; † January 5, 1950 in Munich ) was a German radio pioneer, director of the first radio station in Munich, the German Hour in Bavaria, and of the National Socialist international broadcaster German shortwave station .

Life

Von Boeckmann attended grammar school in Frankfurt am Main and studied law in Bonn, Heidelberg and Freiburg. He took part in the First World War as a first lieutenant in the reserve. After the war he went on trips abroad and conducted cultural-historical research, which in 1920 earned him the post of director of the Research Institute for Cultural Morphology (now the Frobenius Institute ) in Munich.

Radio in Bavaria started on March 30, 1924 with the German Hour in Bavaria - Society for wireless teaching and entertainment mbH . Von Boeckmann joined the company as a research associate, became director on April 1, 1926 and first director a year later. He kept this post even after the German hour was transferred to Bayerische Rundfunk GmbH on January 1, 1931 . In this position he attached great importance to the independence of the station from the other national stations of the Weimar Republic and the German station . Among other things, he forbade the Berliner Funk-Express to print BR GmbH's balance sheets.

After the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists, von Boeckmann joined the NSDAP on March 11, 1933 . On April 1, 1933, Richard Kolb replaced him as artistic director in Munich. On April 15, 1933, Nazi Propaganda Minister brought Joseph Goebbels von Boeckmann to Berlin, where he set up international broadcasting as the director of the German shortwave station. In this function he also headed the foreign department in the Reichsendeleitung and represented Germany in the top management of the World Broadcasting Association. Von Boeckmann was one of the signatories of a radio cooperation agreement with Poland on October 13, 1934, prepared by Goebbels.

In the German radio handbook "Rundfunk im Aufbruch" (foreword: Goebbels), von Boeckmann described the function of the shortwave transmitter as an instrument for "educating about the new Germany, strengthening our foreign Germans' ties to their homeland".

With the beginning of the Second World War , the department for foreign broadcasting was upgraded within the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft , which was subordinate to the Propaganda Ministry . According to his wife, Kurt von Boeckmann asked Goebbels to be released at the end of 1939. This refused. Von Boeckmann then withdrew from the directorship of the shortwave transmitter to his Bavarian homeland "for reasons of illness". His successor was temporarily Adolf Raskin , formerly the first director of the Reichsender Saarbrücken. Von Boeckmann reappears in the documents in 1940, 1942 and 1943 as director of shortwave, but was presumably represented by Horst Cleinow and never returned to the KWS in Berlin. There are indications that he was in contact with resistance groups , including the mayor of Leipzig, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, who was executed by the Nazis in 1945 . He also refused offers from radio circles (Glasmeier, Winkelnkemper) to become General Director of the UIR World Broadcasting Association, whose Vice President he had been until 1938.

Kurt von Boeckmann was married to the radio journalist Ewis Engl, who was in charge of women's, children's and youth radio at the German hour in Bavaria. He died on January 5, 1950 after a stay in a Lindau hospital in Munich.

literature

  • Reichs Handbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft - The handbook of personalities in words and pictures . First volume, Deutscher Wirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1930, ISBN 3-598-30664-4
  • Ansgar Diller: Broadcasting policy in the Third Reich (= broadcasting in Germany. Vol. 2 = dtv. 3184). Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-423-03184-0 .
  • Kurt von Boeckmann: Vom Kulturreich des Meeres (= documents on cultural physiognomics . = Annual series of the Volksverband der Bücherfreunde. 5, 4, ZDB -ID 1003715-9 ). Wegweiser-Verlag, Berlin 1924.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the history of radio in Germany and the forerunner of Bavarian radio
  2. ↑ Kurt von Boeckmann's wife Ewis on June 18, 1971 to Werner Schwipps, author of: Word battle in the ether. The German international broadcaster in the Second World War. Deutsche Welle, Haude & Spenersche Verlagbuchhandlung, Berlin 1971, ISBN 3-7759-0147-7 . This book is also the source for several other facts in this article.
personal data
SURNAME Boeckmann, Kurt von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Boeckmann, Kurt; Böckmann, Kurt von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, broadcast director
DATE OF BIRTH July 22, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Naples
DATE OF DEATH 5th January 1950
Place of death Munich