130 | Mass Media and Historical Change
responsible for the fact that by 1938 the number of radios had doubled to 9
million and peaked at 16 million in 1943. Although this was a commercial
success compared to the failed ‘Volks-productions’ (like the Volkswagen), it is
not proof of the stellar modernity of National Socialism. Listener density in
the United States remained unrivalled, and in France and Norway the number
of listeners rose even more at this time (Frei and Schmitz 1999: 84; König
2004: 84). In 1941/42, Sweden and Denmark had the highest listener density
in Europe, followed by Germany and Great Britain. In general, a north–south
divide continued to exist for radio. In Italy the number of radios only reached
1.8 million by 1942, despite enormous efforts to promote their spread. In
addition, although these dictatorships fostered broadcasting that addressed all
social groupings, one can hardly speak of this as ‘modern’, since it was enforced
through violence and prohibitions; freedom to choose from a variety of media
offerings in the manner of a modern, functionally differentiated society did
not really occur (König 2004: 255; Ross 2008: 386). Nazi media were a part
of modernity, but in its pathological and illiberal form.
Inland radio programming was especially easy to control in dictatorships.
Yet at the same time, radio was able to evade controls as no other medium
because people could listen to broadcasts from abroad, despite the fact that
reception quality on simple radio sets like the Volksempfänger was poor (König
2004: 39f.). Even before the war many foreign stations had emerged for the
dissemination of ideologies, like Radio Moscow in 1929, or the stabilisation of
colonial empires, like ‘BBC World’ in 1932. Parallel to its politics of appease-
ment, Great Britain had already established a German-language channel in
1938 in order to influence German sentiment against war. During the Second
World War an actual battle developed among numerous foreign stations. The
Germans broadcast foreign-language programmes just as the Americans did
in 1942 when they set up the ‘Voice of America’ (VOA) as a foreign broad-
caster after their entry into the war. According to Nazi court files, Germans
listened mainly to the BBC and the Swiss national channel ‘Beromünster’
(Hensle 2003: 321). Yet initially the German-language propaganda channel
for England was quite successful: in a survey taken at the beginning of 1940,
a quarter of Britons admitted to having listened to ‘Lord Haw-Haw’ on the
previous day, as the speaker William Joyce was mockingly called because of his
upper-class accent. His popularity can be explained by curiosity, derision and
a desire for information (Williams 2010: 127).
Nevertheless, the German-language channels of the BBC and VOA were
more influential. They not only promised more objective information about
the course of war, German losses and casualties, and the political situation, but
also lured listeners with modern music, satire and other forms of entertain-
ment. The presence of German speakers, in particular prominent figures like
Thomas Mann, served to increase listeners’ trust in the imparted information.