Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,994
Death penalty for listening to the radio!
In April 1939, Nazi Propaganda Minister Dr. "Siegesmund" Goebbels writes in his diary...:
“The ever-increasing addiction to listening to reports in German from foreign radio stations is worrying. As a result, less well-to-do people in rural areas prefer expensive and powerful radios, which can also be used to listen to broadcasts from abroad, instead of the simple, cheap people’s receivers.”
This listening to foreign stations, which the Nazis could not control, had been a thorn in Goebbels' side for a long time!
As early as 1937 he had suggested to his "Führer" Adolf Hitler that citizens should be fined and imprisoned for not less than two years if they listened to foreign stations.
Hitler had refused.
Now - the planning for the "Fall Weiß", the code name for the attack on Poland - is already in full swing, Goebbels brings the topic back onto the agenda, even in a much more severe version:
In September 7, 1939 - it's already been a week of war! - "Ordinance on Extraordinary Broadcasting Measures" published in the Reichsgesetzblatt...
...there is now a risk of at least several years in prison - in "severe cases" even the death penalty!
The NS block wardens are instructed to visit all homes and put a card on the radio or on the control knobs containing the following warning:
"Eavesdropping on foreign broadcasts is a crime against the national security of our people. It is punished by order of the leader with severe penitentiary sentences. Remember that!
In addition, the Nazi controllers are instructed to regularly check which transmitter the receivers are tuned to in the future.
So, for example, if you secretly listened to the German-language news service of the British BBC (very quietly and under a woolen blanket, because block attendants listened to the well-known transmission times at the apartment doors!), but afterwards forgot to turn the dial back to a German station, which was delivered!
According to an internal guideline of the "Secret State Police" (GESTAPO), simply listening to music broadcasts on enemy radio stations for the first time should result in a warning, but the further dissemination of messages should in any case lead to a criminal complaint.
This is what the back of a receipt for the payment of the monthly "Rundfunkteilnahmegebühr" (radio subscription fee) of 2 Reichsmarks looked like, which at that time still had to be paid in cash...:
It is no longer possible to say exactly how many listeners to "enemy stations" were actually caught and punished. According to a GESTAPO situation report from 1941, between 200 and 440 people were arrested every month for listening to enemy radio propaganda (read: broadcast news).
The Nazis were in a bind!
They could not simply ban broadcasting and confiscate radio sets everywhere! They needed him for the constant propaganda sprinkling of the population...
...and also as a warning instrument against bombing raids - the air situation report had been a constant part of the program since 1942.
On July 8, 1943 - after the first heavy bombing raids on German cities (Hamburg, July 24 to August 3, 1943), the defeat at Stalingrad and the Germans getting stuck during the Battle of Kursk, the GESTAPO reported with alarm "loosening signs in the attitude of the population showing understanding" for "Rundfunk-Verbrecher" ("broadcast criminals"):
"The listening to foreign stations (has) evidently increased sharply over the past few months. [...] Nobody admits that they listen to foreign stations, but it is often discussed in political talks that listening to German stations is not prohibited in England and that the insufficient information given to the German people by the press and the radio (the latter) is driving them into the arms of enemy propaganda."
Most of the Germans knew exactly how they were being lied to on German radio stations - and by whom!
The small...
... as well as the large "Volksempfänger"...
... (mass-produced and relatively affordable devices) were generally just called "Goebbelsschnauze" because of their round loudspeaker openings, which reminded of a gaping mouth...:
From 1939 to 1942 there were 2,704 convictions under the Broadcasting Ordinance in the "Großdeutsches Reich" (excluding the occupied countries). Also several death sentences!
In truth, there must have been a lot more!
Because anyone who continued to tell or commented on news from "hostile" sources was attacked by the Nazi henchmen for the much more serious criminal offenses "high treason" or "preparation for high treason" or "undermining of military strength" - and there was certainly a risk of the death penalty!
In any case, on September 17, 1941, the Nazi newspapers reported the first seven death sentences due to "listening to enemy transmitters" - in Nuremberg, it was Johann Wild...:
Almost exactly one year later, more "traitors" were caught...:
Executions were usually carried out with a guillotine...
... in every German penitentiary there was such an apparatus.
In the next picture, 1945, Soviet soldiers in Berlin-Ploetzensee inspect such a murder machine...:
In April 1939, Nazi Propaganda Minister Dr. "Siegesmund" Goebbels writes in his diary...:
“The ever-increasing addiction to listening to reports in German from foreign radio stations is worrying. As a result, less well-to-do people in rural areas prefer expensive and powerful radios, which can also be used to listen to broadcasts from abroad, instead of the simple, cheap people’s receivers.”
This listening to foreign stations, which the Nazis could not control, had been a thorn in Goebbels' side for a long time!
As early as 1937 he had suggested to his "Führer" Adolf Hitler that citizens should be fined and imprisoned for not less than two years if they listened to foreign stations.
Hitler had refused.
Now - the planning for the "Fall Weiß", the code name for the attack on Poland - is already in full swing, Goebbels brings the topic back onto the agenda, even in a much more severe version:
In September 7, 1939 - it's already been a week of war! - "Ordinance on Extraordinary Broadcasting Measures" published in the Reichsgesetzblatt...
...there is now a risk of at least several years in prison - in "severe cases" even the death penalty!
The NS block wardens are instructed to visit all homes and put a card on the radio or on the control knobs containing the following warning:
"Eavesdropping on foreign broadcasts is a crime against the national security of our people. It is punished by order of the leader with severe penitentiary sentences. Remember that!
In addition, the Nazi controllers are instructed to regularly check which transmitter the receivers are tuned to in the future.
So, for example, if you secretly listened to the German-language news service of the British BBC (very quietly and under a woolen blanket, because block attendants listened to the well-known transmission times at the apartment doors!), but afterwards forgot to turn the dial back to a German station, which was delivered!
According to an internal guideline of the "Secret State Police" (GESTAPO), simply listening to music broadcasts on enemy radio stations for the first time should result in a warning, but the further dissemination of messages should in any case lead to a criminal complaint.
This is what the back of a receipt for the payment of the monthly "Rundfunkteilnahmegebühr" (radio subscription fee) of 2 Reichsmarks looked like, which at that time still had to be paid in cash...:
It is no longer possible to say exactly how many listeners to "enemy stations" were actually caught and punished. According to a GESTAPO situation report from 1941, between 200 and 440 people were arrested every month for listening to enemy radio propaganda (read: broadcast news).
The Nazis were in a bind!
They could not simply ban broadcasting and confiscate radio sets everywhere! They needed him for the constant propaganda sprinkling of the population...
...and also as a warning instrument against bombing raids - the air situation report had been a constant part of the program since 1942.
On July 8, 1943 - after the first heavy bombing raids on German cities (Hamburg, July 24 to August 3, 1943), the defeat at Stalingrad and the Germans getting stuck during the Battle of Kursk, the GESTAPO reported with alarm "loosening signs in the attitude of the population showing understanding" for "Rundfunk-Verbrecher" ("broadcast criminals"):
"The listening to foreign stations (has) evidently increased sharply over the past few months. [...] Nobody admits that they listen to foreign stations, but it is often discussed in political talks that listening to German stations is not prohibited in England and that the insufficient information given to the German people by the press and the radio (the latter) is driving them into the arms of enemy propaganda."
Most of the Germans knew exactly how they were being lied to on German radio stations - and by whom!
The small...
... as well as the large "Volksempfänger"...
... (mass-produced and relatively affordable devices) were generally just called "Goebbelsschnauze" because of their round loudspeaker openings, which reminded of a gaping mouth...:
From 1939 to 1942 there were 2,704 convictions under the Broadcasting Ordinance in the "Großdeutsches Reich" (excluding the occupied countries). Also several death sentences!
In truth, there must have been a lot more!
Because anyone who continued to tell or commented on news from "hostile" sources was attacked by the Nazi henchmen for the much more serious criminal offenses "high treason" or "preparation for high treason" or "undermining of military strength" - and there was certainly a risk of the death penalty!
In any case, on September 17, 1941, the Nazi newspapers reported the first seven death sentences due to "listening to enemy transmitters" - in Nuremberg, it was Johann Wild...:
Almost exactly one year later, more "traitors" were caught...:
Executions were usually carried out with a guillotine...
... in every German penitentiary there was such an apparatus.
In the next picture, 1945, Soviet soldiers in Berlin-Ploetzensee inspect such a murder machine...:
