Transocean (news agency)
The Transocean Ltd. (TO) was a German news agency . It was founded in 1915 and was the first office in the world to broadcast its news wirelessly . An extensive photo agency also belonged to her. In 1933 Transocean was placed under the Reich Ministry of Propaganda, and in 1945 the service was terminated.
history
The Transocean GmbH emerged on May 10, 1915 from the predecessor of the German Overseas Service (DÜD), the Syndicate of German Overseas Service , founded a year earlier by German industrialists and the Foreign Office (AA), and was supposed to supply foreign countries with journalistic reports from Germany. Transocean belonged to a network of press companies in which the armaments and media entrepreneur Alfred Hugenberg was involved and which appeared as a German national competitor to the internationally oriented Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau . The TO was primarily intended to have a propaganda effect on the neutral countries and provided the newspapers there with news and images free of charge. The loss-making business was offset by grants from the AA.
In 1933 the TO, together with the agency Europapress (EP) responsible for Europe and the German News Office (DNB), was subordinated to the Reich Propaganda Ministry under Joseph Goebbels . The TO should appear to the outside world as “a news organization independent of the state”. The agency supplied the foreign media with reports which, in order to increase its credibility, should be free of National Socialist terminology. At the same time, forty Transocean foreign correspondents were working undercover overseas for the Reich Propaganda Ministry. In 1942, due to the war, the Transocean and Europapress were equipped with greater competence as a joint foreign intelligence service, merged and taken over by the Reich's own umbrella company "Telos GmbH". The radio service was discontinued in 1943, the company formally existed until 1957. In 1955 the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government acquired the Transocean archive with all rights and in 1978 transferred it to the Federal Archives in Koblenz.
A large number of employees, some of them leading, worked for German newspapers and radio after 1945. Georg Schröder (1905–1987) was Bonn correspondent for the world , Werner von Lojewski (1907–1980) in the evening and press spokesman for the CDU , Peter von Zahn (1913–2001) worked as a radio and television presenter for various radio stations.
organization
During the First World War, the Transocean transmitted its news about war events, politics, economy and sport by radio to fourteen overseas countries, mainly in German, English and French. At the same time, passenger ships were served which used Transocean reports for their on-board newspapers . In unfavorable weather conditions, the messages could only be received incompletely or not at all. "[...] Technical deficiencies and journalistic amateurism meant that the importance of Transocean GmbH was largely limited to its function as the official German news organ."
Initially, the messages were sent via the major radio station in Nauen . After 1935, Transocean put its own broadcasting station Remate in the Niederbarnim district into operation, because the 1936 Summer Olympics were to take place in Berlin , "[...] which expected a particularly high volume of press reports, and the Deutsche Reichspost (DRP) was the largest in their smooth transmission Was interested […]. ”For this reason“ […] the DRP took over the system with one 100 kW transmitter , four 50 kW and three 10 kW transmitters, eleven dipole antennas , six omnidirectional antennas , two vertical antennas and a rhombus antenna ". The expansion was the prerequisite for 24-hour operation.
In 1938, Transocean broadcast 38.5 hours a day, consisting of six German, seven English, two Spanish and a reduced French service. Furthermore, the German ship service and the CQ radio message "An Alle" were looked after. After the outbreak of war in 1939, TO broadcasted 55 hours a day, 66 hours in 1940 and finally 70 hours in 1941, with the English service being the most expanded and the French being discontinued.
literature
- Heinz Pürer, Johannes Raabe: Press in Germany (= UTB 8334 Media and Communication Studies, History, Political Science ). 3rd, completely revised and expanded edition. UVK-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Konstanz 2007, ISBN 978-3-8252-8334-6 .
- Ulrike Oppelt: Film and Propaganda in the First World War. Propaganda as media reality in topical and documentary films (= contributions to the history of communication. Vol. 10). Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-08029-5 (also: Berlin, Free University, dissertation, 2001).
- Norbert Frei , Johannes Schmitz: Journalism in the Third Reich (= Beck'sche series 376). 3rd, revised edition. CH Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-45516-6 .
- Cornelius Klee: The Transocean GmbH. In: Jürgen Wilke (Hrsg.): Telegraph offices and news agencies in Germany. Studies of their history up to 1949 (= communication and politics. Vol. 24). Saur, Munich et al. 1991, ISBN 3-598-20554-6 , pp. 135-211.
Web links
- Transmitter on seefunknetz.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Pürer, Raabe: Press in Germany. 2007, p. 79.
- ^ Oppelt: Film and Propaganda in the First World War. 2002, p. 113 f.
- ^ Astrid Freyeisen: Shanghai and the politics of the Third Reich. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-8260-1690-4 , p. 320, (also: Würzburg, University, dissertation, 1998).
- ↑ André Uzulis: news agencies in National Socialism. Propaganda instruments and means of controlling the press (= European university publications. Series 3: History and its auxiliary sciences. Vol. 636). P. Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1995, ISBN 3-631-48061-X , p. 93 (at the same time: Hannover, Universität, Dissertation, 1994).
- ↑ Hans Booms (Ed.): The Cabinet Protocols of the Federal Government. Volume 9: Ursula Hüllbüsch: 1956. Boldt, Boppard am Rhein 1998, ISBN 3-486-56281-9 , p. 84, note 34.
- ^ Frei, Schmitz: Journalism in the Third Reich. 1999, p. 192.
- ^ Oppelt: Film and Propaganda in the First World War. 2002, p. 113.
- ^ Archives for German Postal History. 1988, ISSN 0003-8989 , p. 58.
- ^ Klee: The Transocean GmbH. In: Wilke (ed.): Telegraph offices and news agencies. 1991, p. 191.