XGRS

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XGRS was a radio station in Shanghai operated by Germans from June 1940 . The call sign "X" stood for China, "GRS" for "German Radio Station". The broadcast was initially on medium wave and - at different times - on the short wave frequencies : 11880, 11920 or 12015 kHz.

history

The radio station, officially supported by the “German community of Shanghai”, was financed by the Foreign Office , as Ribbentrop tried to counterbalance the Goebbelian propaganda . At first it was broadcast as the “German broadcasting station Shanghai. The Call of the Far East ", later, after expanding the range and improving the equipment, as" European broadcaster Shanghai - The Voice of Europe ". Most broadcasts were in English. Individual programs were also broadcast in Hindi , Mandarin Chinese and Russian. The station's antenna was on the roof of the German Kaiser Wilhelm School on Great Western Road within the International Settlement.

The responsible Japanese ( Radio Control Bureau ) issued a transmission license with 10 kW, but claimed the transmitter for their purposes two hours a day at night. Initially, it was financed by renting airtime to Italian operators (XIRS). Initially, the transmission was 300 W on medium wave and 100 W on short wave, which was audible up to Harbin .

After being taken over by the Foreign Office in the autumn of 1940, it bore all the costs, including the monthly rent of RM 5000  to the German community. Transocean was used as the news agency , the German news agency later also United Press . It saw itself as a propagandistic counterpart to the British channel XMHA (“The Call of the Orient”) and the American XMHC . News was broadcast four times a day in English, once in German and once in Chinese. During the day there was initially almost only march and folk music , in the evening classical concerts. After Wickert had taken over, attempts were made to make the program more attractive to foreign listeners through operettas, dance music, request concerts and, after quarrels with the Berlin propaganda department, even “Negro music” ( jazz ). Anti-American propaganda was also cut back. At the same time, bribery payments to journalists from other western stations ensured that anti-German reporting was attenuated. Clear KW reception was possible up to the American west coast .

In December 1941, 3½ hours of broadcasting time for the program “Bill and Mack” written by Flick-Steger was rented at station XQHB, which was operated by the American Ella M. Robertson. The plans to set up a large transmitter with 100 kW became obsolete with the beginning of the Pacific War , the Japanese closed the Shanghai competing transmitters of the Allies .

On May 25, 1945 the Japanese took over the station completely and gave it the new callsign XGOO, transmission was only on shortwave with a power of 5 kW. The national-Chinese government ran the station as XORA from November 25, 1945.

staff

The radio attaché, sent in September 1940, acted as director. Erwin Wickert (1915-2008). Wickert, who was controversial because of his manners , was replaced by Rudolf Grau in early 1941 at the instigation of the local group leader Siegfried Lahrmann . Jesco von Puttkamer (1903–1973) ran the information center . The Swiss Walter Leo Meyer, who was followed in the spring of 1942 by Eva Tonn, was in charge of a monitoring station set up in parallel, a branch of the Seehaus special service . After his arrival in Shanghai in December 1940, the editorial management was taken over by Carl Flick-Steger (1899–1961 German-American), who became a leading Nazi propagandist. Herbert Moy (1913–1945, American of Chinese descent), Robert Fockler (American) and the Austrian Peter Waldbauer (aka Reginald Hollingsworth. His column was called "A Briton's Point of View!") Worked as commentators. From 1942, the SD employee Frederick Wiehl also moderated . The Australian John Holland, a temporary employee from 1942, was sentenced to five years imprisonment for high treason after the war.

literature

  • Astrid Freyeisen: German radio propaganda in Shanghai during the Second World War; in: Rundfunk und Geschichte, Volume 29, No. 1/2 (January / April 2003); Pp. 38-46; ISSN  0175-4351 . Online as a pdf on the homepage of the study group for radio and history under [1]

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ These efforts include B. also the magazine XXth Century published by Klaus Mehnert .
  2. ↑ Program overview: XXth Century, Vol. 2, Issue 4: Tuning In: Program of Station XGRS in Shanghai , Shanghai 1942 (XXth Century Publishing Co.)
  3. ↑ Minutes of the meeting of the information service for East Asia and the South Seas, Berlin August 22, 1944, citing a journal article in "Amerasia".
  4. ↑ Joined the SA as a high school student in 1933 . PhD in art history in April 1939. Transferred to Tokyo in 1941.
  5. ↑ Schmitt-Englert (2012), p. 219
  6. ↑ CHARGE OF TREASON. . In: The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW: 1842–1954) , National Library of Australia, March 26, 1947, p. 1. Retrieved April 3, 2013.