Modernity, World Wars and Dictatorships | 129domestic reputation during the war because it cheered people on during the
Blitz, encouraging them to stand fast and fight. Meanwhile, American critics
and institutions like the Rockefeller Foundation supported educational public
service broadcasting like in Britain. Transnational adaptions increased, as did
governmental influence, even in democratic countries (Hilmes 2012: 23).
However, radio broadcasting and propaganda remained less developed in
Southern Europe. In many respects there were clear differences in radio pro-
gramming in Italy and Spain. Under Mussolini, the ratio of politics and direct
propaganda rose as of the 1930s, and cultural programming was not reduced
as much as it was in Germany. This may explain why radio was less widespread
in Fascist Italy and contributed less towards stabilising the system. Franquist
programming in Spain was even less attractive, although commercial broad-
casters were still allowed here and only a small, primarily urban middle class
were able to receive the broadcasts (Zimmermann 2007: 148–59). For this
reason, although airings in cafés, schools and public squares increased the
number of listeners, one cannot generally conclude that radio played a key
role in establishing right-wing dictatorships.
National Socialist orientation towards the public was also evident in how
radio was organised. The Nazi Party did indeed centralise it because regional
stations lost their shares to the Reichs- Rundfunk-Gesellschaft, but protests
of listeners and local party elites were able to prevent the standardisation of
radio programming until the war broke out (Dussel 2000: 83–87). In the
Second World War the regime then stopped making these allowances for the
medium, installing standardised programming in 1940, with only a few small
regional segments permitted during the forenoon hours. This also meant the
loss of previously widespread broadcasting in local dialects and made a more
standardised language accessible to Germans (Führer 2008: 89f.).
In Germany the National Socialists propagated radio listening as a practical
form of ethnic community, which was shaped by the concurrent reception of
the same broadcasts. The expansion of programming for diverse social groups,
such as farmers and young people, was intended to heighten social integration.
The most popular radio broadcasts, for instance ‘Das Wunschkonzert’ (request
concert), insinuated that it was an apparently non-political, plebiscitary enter-
tainment; sometimes several thousand musical requests per airing were sent
in, with messages for other listeners. The pieces were selected in such a way as
to appeal to all social groups and musical tastes, in part with personal input
from Goebbels. When the programme was renamed ‘Wunschkonzert für die
Wehrmacht’ (request concert for the Wehrmacht) in 1939, and thus became
a symbol of the bonds between homeland and front, it embodied the idea of
ethnic community in wartime (Koch 2003: 172–206).
Accordingly, the National Socialists strove for blanket radio expansion. The
construction of the inexpensive ‘Volksempfänger’ (people’s radio) was largely