Request concert for the Wehrmacht
Request concert for the Wehrmacht was the title of a German radio program that was broadcast between 1939 and 1941 during the Nazi era .
precursor
Wish programs on the radio are as old as the medium itself. In Germany, listeners were able to submit written music requests as early as 1924. At that time, there was a program with the Südwestdeutsche Rundfunkdienst AG (SÜWRAG) in Frankfurt with the title "Wunschabend" and the Ostdeutsche Rundfunk AG in Königsberg had a "Wish afternoon".
When a listener reported during an entertainment program on Christmas 1935 and spontaneously offered a donation of 20 RM for the Winter Relief Organization (WHW) in return for fulfilling a music request , the announcer from the German broadcaster Heinz Goedecke took up this idea and designed the request concert for the winter relief organization . The first broadcast was on January 14, 1936 from 4 to 8 p.m. According to the broadcaster, donations totaling RM 238,000 had been collected for the WHW in 14 request concerts by the start of the war . Another forerunner of the wish concert for the Wehrmacht was the word music series Die Werkpause , which the Reichsender Cologne first broadcast on February 2, 1936.
Emergence
As after the outbreak of World War II soldiers in large numbers ' letters with musical wishes to the United German Radio taught who called Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Alfred Ingemar-Berndt the shipment request concert for the Wehrmacht in life. It was broadcast for the first time on October 1, 1939, between 4 and 8 p.m., and no longer only on the German broadcaster, but on all the Reich broadcasters. The audience at the live broadcasts from the large broadcasting hall in the Haus des Rundfunks consisted only of members of the Wehrmacht and medical services; the music requests came exclusively from soldiers and their relatives.
The program was broadcast on Wednesdays and Sundays until the end of 1939, and only on Sundays from 1940 onwards. There are no recordings of complete programs. On May 25, 1941, the request concert for the Wehrmacht was broadcast as scheduled for the last time. A resumption actually planned for September 7th was canceled without giving any reason. In total, donations of around 15.5 million RM were received.
review
The program was one of the most popular in the history of German broadcasting and played an important role in Nazi propaganda . In particular, through the “connection” between the front and home, the will to persevere should be strengthened and distracted from the war. The extraordinary popularity of the show can also be gauged from the fact that in 1940 a film adaptation entitled Request Concert was released in cinemas .
literature
- Hans-Jörg Koch: The request concert on Nazi radio. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2003, ISBN 978-3-412-10903-5 ( Media in the past and present , volume 20).
- Hans-Jörg Koch: Request concert. Popular music and propaganda on the radio of the Third Reich . Ares Verlag, Graz 2006, ISBN 978-3-902475-22-0 .
Web links
- A short excerpt to listen to ( memento from June 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) on rundfunkmuseum.at
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Gerd Walther: Good night, mother ... - The request concert in World War II. (PDF; 10 kB) November 5, 2005, accessed on November 11, 2010 .