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chapter 11
Bridge over Troubled Water?
Mass Media in Divided Germany
Frank Bösch and Christoph Classen
T
he history of the media in divided Germany is full of contradictions
and interconnections. At fi rst glance, it seems as if there was hardly
any other area in which the diff erences between the two countries before
1989 were as monumental as they were in terms of media. While the GDR
had a centralized media system that was subject to strong political con-
trol, the contours of the media landscape in W est Germany were shaped
by the freedom of the press and a colorful array of diff erent outlets, which
included everything from American soaps to Communist papers. Simulta-
neously, the media formed an important bridge across the divide between
East and West, allowing mutual observation and interrelations even at the
height of the Cold War. Since most GDR citizens regularly watched West-
ern TV and listened to Western radio, commentators noted early that East
Germans “left the country every night.” Likewise, there was talk of an
“electronic reunifi cation”^1 or “two states, but one radio and TV nation.”^2
Moreover, the role of the media after reunifi cation was no less dynamic
than before the Wall came down. On the one hand, the West German me-
dia system moved part and parcel into the East. West German publishers
took over most of the newspapers in the GDR as well as the newly cre-
ated private stations, which seemed to create a tight bond between the
two media worlds after 1990. On the other hand, the media markets and
media use in West and East Germany are still quite diff erent even today.
This chapter looks at the interplay of these structural diff erences and
new entanglements. From this perspective, the 1970s mark a period in
which media interaction between East and West intensifi ed exponentially:
whereas only radio broadcasts had crossed the border prior to this point,
