128 | Mass Media and Historical Change
Radio as a Medium of Propaganda
The extent to which media politics and propaganda reacted to public moods
can also be seen in broadcasting. Radio was often seen as the most import-
ant for the daily propaganda of the Nazis. At the beginning of the 1930s,
very diverse regimes discovered the possibilities of using radio as a political
mouthpiece: as of 1933 in the United States, President Roosevelt had regularly
advocated his policies in his ‘Fireside Chats’ (Craig 2000), in Great Britain
ministers of state and party speakers were given programmes (Scannell and
Cardiff 1991: 51), and in Brazil the autocratic President Getúlio Vargas used
radio to cement his power. The fact that the Nazi party leadership regularly
aired political speeches and ceremonies on radio after 1933 thus corresponded
to a general politicisation of this medium. The communication structure of
the radio, whereby one person ‘speaks’ to the masses, was particularly suited
to the Nazis’ blueprint for society. Yet even in democratic countries, radio
enabled heads of state to appear as charismatic and exceptional personalities.
In the United States, for example, listeners reacted to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
speeches by sending him admiring letters (Craig 2000: 154f.).
Hitler’s major speeches were extensively broadcast, with cinemas, theatres
and concert halls even being cleared for collective listening so as to make
hearing him a great experience. However, because of their length and syntax,
Hitler’s speeches were less suited to radio than, for example, those of President
Roosevelt. The latter were more professional and probably more successful,
since they were personal, brief, easy to understand and delivered in a warm
voice, and had probably reached 30 million people even before the war began
(Craig 2000: 195; Führer 2008: 97f.).
In the same period, the Nazi regime began cutting down on its open
propaganda. In order to fulfil listeners’ wishes, it reduced the proportion of
textual broadcasts and consequently of party speeches and the cultural lec-
tures beloved of the educated bourgeoisie. On the other hand entertaining
programmes with light music increased. Next to music that was considered
typically German, even Germanised forms of tango, swing and jazz – although
jazz was officially opposed as ‘nigger music’ (Dussel 1999: 92–94). In this way
National Socialism proved to be a dictatorship of moods, in which radio was
to serve as a popular diversion – garnished with a few explicitly ideological
programmes. After setbacks in the war began to mount after 1942, Goebbels
intensified the entertaining programmes as a means of distraction. In 1944, 82
per cent of programming consisted of music, by which radio intimated nor-
mality in a lifeworld that had been destroyed (Dussel and Lersch 1999: 122).
This was a general international trend, too. Even the cultivated BBC yielded
to listeners’ wishes when the war began, and integrated the working class and
popular music into the world of radio. At the same time the BBC improved its