Oddity of the Week: The First German TV Broadcast
Created | Updated Mar 17, 2013
Another important media anniversary this week.
22 March 1935: The Birth of Television
22 March 1935: This was what you saw on your TV set. If you could see one. They measured only 18x22 cm. If you didn't have a set of your own – and who did? – you could watch for free. Where? At the Post Office.
Here's the kicker: you had to go to a German post office. This TV service was a German breakthrough. Oh, and the first words you would hear were:
'Achtung, Achtung! Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow! Wir begrüssen alle Volksgenossen und Volksgenossinnen in den Fernsehstuben Grossberlins mit dem deutschen Gruss. Heil Hitler!'
Translation:
'Attention, Attention! Television network Paul Nipkow! We greet all comrades, male and female, in the television lounges of Greater Berlin with the German Greeting. Heil Hitler!'
That's the way it was. Then they ran the circus acts, dances, songs, cooking shows, and infotainment. Just like a modern network, really – even if it was black and white, tiny, distorted, and full of Nazi propaganda. Can't have everything. The Olympics in 1936 were really popular. The Sender shut down for a few weeks in 1939, due to a small problem in Poland, but started up again, supporting the troops, telling housewives how to deal with rationing, entertaining invalided soldiers, etc. They didn't stop broadcasting until 1944.
If you want to see the test pattern, you'll have to click one more time to let Youtube know you won't be offended by the swastika.
Want more? Here's a brief collection of clips from archived film footage of early broadcasts, thoughtfully preserved by the late German Democratic Republic.
For a tantalising glimpse of what all this looked like on the small (okay, tiny) screen, go to archive.org. They've got a very rare clip of a very bad TV set. This sort of thing didn't impress Herr Dr Goebbels very much. The Reichspropagandaminister decided that radio was more effective, and kept pushing for people to listen to it. (He was also unhappy when he saw what he looked like on TV. We don't blame him.)
Would you like to know what a typical week's programming looked like? Check out this schedule from a week in 1939.
A few years after Berlin started, the BBC experimented as well. It even went transatlantic once! It was a fluke of the atmospherics, but hey, we'll take what we can get. An enthusiast in the US recorded this in 1938. No sound, unfortunately.
Aren't you glad you have cable? Don't you wish there were a V-chip to remove propaganda?
