(EN) Episode 58 - Broadcasting in West Germany after 1945 - In German hands

In the early 1950s, the young Federal Republic of Germany faced a
fundamental question: Who owns the voice on the airwaves? After
the war, the Allies had handed over broadcasting to the Germans
based on the model of the British BBC – decentralized,
independent, and politically pluralistic. The Germans called it
the public broadcasting system.


But this independence didn't please everyone. A particularly
unambiguous attempt to regain media control came from Bonn. For
years, Konrad Adenauer's government fought tenaciously to create
a "federal broadcasting service" in order to restore balance to
what it considered "too left-wing" reporting.


It was a power struggle between the federal government and the
states, the state governments and the broadcasting corporations.
It was about airtime, finances, frequency allocation, and nothing
less than democratic control over the most important
communication platform of the postwar era.


Let's take a look at the struggle for media sovereignty in West
Germany.


Cover-Design: History lost in time & Google Gemini