Modernity, World Wars and Dictatorships | 113and the military. Despite the fact that the Bufa lacked both professionalism
and basic influence, it signified a novel cooperation between the film industry,
the economy and the state. In late 1917, this indirectly led to the foundation
of the large film studio ‘Universum-Film AG’ (Ufa), in which film companies,
banks, and – covertly – government invested in order to represent German
interests with the help of film. In this way, the OHL hoped to gain influence
over Northern, Eastern, and Southern Europe (Kreimeier 1992: 20–23).
It is difficult, however, to establish how successful this endeavour was, and
many studies on propaganda significantly omit this aspect (see e.g. Schmidt
2006). Immediately after the end of the war, the idea quickly spread in
Germany that the Allies had won the war by their modern use of the media,
which had mobilised their populace more effectively. Especially in Great
Britain and the United States, propaganda may indeed offer an explanation
as to why innumerable men enthusiastically went to war. The fact that many
Germans were completely taken aback by the country’s swift capitulation in
the autumn of 1918, thoroughly convinced that the Democrats should be
taking the blame, also points to the fundamental impact of the media whose
reports on the impending defeat were not publicised until early October 1918
(Welch 2000: 243). Hence the media contributed indirectly to the strain
under which the first German democracy was now placed. At the same time
one must keep in mind that acceptance and interpretation of media contents
is shaped by established cultural dispositions, and even towards the end of the
war they were influenced by the people’s belief in German superiority.
Golden Years? Media and ‘Mass Culture’ of the 1920s
The media culture of the 1920s differed in many respects from the pre-war
period. The greatest change was wrought by the establishment of radio. The
idea of simultaneously speaking to many people by radio and also telephone
had already been tested in numerous countries before the war. Countries like
Hungary and Italy had already broadcast musical events to registered listeners
via telephone. The main foundation for the radio was wireless telegraphy. Nev-
ertheless, radio was also an offspring of the war, where hundreds of thousands
of soldiers had gained experience in wireless transmission. Since early radio was
technically quite complicated still, these ham operators formed basic listener
groups in many Western countries when the war was over, from Germany to
British India (Pinkerton 2008: 169f.).
Radio, too, expanded rapidly in many parts of the world. During the
first half of the 1920s, radio stations came into being in North America and
Western Europe, and also in many South American and East European coun-
tries, and Japan. In the second half of the 1920s, radio stations were already