Walter Geerdes

Walter Geerdes (born April 25, 1903 in Hildesheim , † May 28, 1960 in Berlin ) was the artistic director of Radio Bremen and of the Sender Freies Berlin .

biography

Geerdes was the son of a Hildesheim representative and former captain of the merchant navy.

Geerdes attended elementary school in Hildesheim and secondary school in Bremen from 1911 to 1917 . He then did an apprenticeship at Francke-Werke in Bremen, a mechanical engineering company, and then worked as a technical draftsman and advertising draftsman.

In 1923 he moved to the Julius Bamberger department store in Bremen and worked as a commercial artist , travel agent and in 1928 became head of the advertising department. In 1935 he became head of personnel and in 1936 managing director. After the Jewish department store was closed in 1937, he was employed by Kaufhof AG in the Koblenz branch .

From 1922 to 1933, after a short journalistic training, Geerdes worked as a freelancer for the Bremer Volkszeitung . In 1924 he was editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper Die Freie Hanse . From 1922 to 1933 he was a co-founder and board member of the non-partisan German Republican Reichsbund .

After the Second World War , Radio Bremen began broadcasting in the summer of 1945 under the direction of the Hamburg-born American officer Edward E. Harriman. On February 26, 1946, the American military government appointed him deputy director of Radio Bremen . On July 1, 1946, he became director of Radio Bremen, the smallest regional broadcaster of the ARD, which was founded in 1950 . The Bremen Broadcasting Council, founded in 1949, confirmed him as director. In this capacity, he developed the small radio station Radio Bremen into a high-performance company with a demanding and valued program. From February 4, 1952 to September 30, 1952 he was also chairman of the ARD.

The narrow financial base and the proximity of the powerful Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) led to a serious crisis for Radio Bremen in the 1950s. The broadcaster had to make significant restrictions on the program. In 1957, Geerdes led unsuccessful negotiations about aid from West German broadcasters. He remained artistic director in Bremen until the end of 1957; he was followed by Heinz Kerneck at Radio Bremen .

As a result of developments in Bremen, Geerdes accepted the election of the Broadcasting Council of the Sender Free Berlin (SFB) as artistic director in 1957 , although he was contractually bound to Bremen until March 31, 1958.

He died in 1960 as a result of an accident.

The Walter-Geerdes Street in Bremen- Osterholz bears his name.

literature

• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Monika Porsch: Bremer Straßenlexikon , Volume 8 · Hemelingen, Osterholz. Verlag Schmetterling, Bremen, 1999, ISBN 3-932249-06-2 .