Ostmarken Rundfunk AG

ORAG is a redirect to this article. For the building of the Munich tailor's cooperative see ORAG house .

The transmitter Koenigsberg-Amalienau on the Alte Pillauer Landstrasse in Koenigsberg

The Ostmarken Rundfunk AG ( ORAG ) in Königsberg i. Pr. Was a broadcasting company in the Free State of Prussia . It was of particular importance for East Prussia , which was cut off from the Reich territory . In 1933 it was taken over by the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft .

history

The radio was a new element in Konigsberg cultural life. The Königsberger Rundfunk was founded by the businessman Walter Zabel. Ostmarken-Rundfunk was founded as a stock corporation (ORAG) in the year of the Königsberg Kant celebration , on January 2, 1924 in a small barrack at the German East Fair . The Reichspost held 50% of the ordinary shares. On the Pregelwiesen in front of the Sackheimer Tor , the transmitter mast with a height of 45 m and a power of 0.5 kilowatts was erected. Broadcasting began on June 14, 1924. Despite advertising and trade fair information, the profitable zone was not reached. In 1929 the company bought the shares on behalf of the city of Königsberg. This made the city of Königsberg co-owner of Ostmarken-Rundfunk AG. This made the East Prussian provincial capital the only German city that operated its own radio station. In 1933 Eugen Hadamovsky had ORAG taken over by the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft . The successor organization, the Reichsender Königsberg, was founded in Königsberg .

program

Program booklet (1929)

At the beginning, the program consisted of only two news programs (at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.), the broadcast of the time signal and the stock market news.

Personalities

• Helmut Koch , conductor and choir director
• Walter Hilpert , director of the NDR, learned his trade at ORAG
• Hermann Scherchen , conductor of the ORAG symphony orchestra, at that time the dominant figure in Königsberg's musical life
• Leo Borchard
• Ruth Geede

literature

• Program history of radio in the Weimar Republic , 2 volumes, published by the German Broadcasting Archive . Munich: dtv, 1997. ISBN 3-423-04702-X
• Ulrich Heitger: From time signals to political means of leadership. Development tendencies and structures of the news programs of the radio in the Weimar Republic 1923-1932. Münster: LIT-Verlag, 2003. ISBN 978-3-8258-6853-6

See also

• History of radio

Web links

• Organization chart of ORAG 1924–1933 (PDF; 179 kB)