The Volksempfänger (German for "people's receiver") was a range of radio receivers developed by engineer Otto Griessing at the request of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.
The purpose of the Volksempfänger-program was to make radio reception technology affordable to the general public. Joseph Goebbels realized the great propaganda potential of this relatively new medium and thus considered widespread availability of receivers highly important.
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The original Volksempfänger VE301[1] model was presented on August 18, 1933 at the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin. The VE301 was available at a readily affordable price of 76 German Reichsmark (equivalent to two weeks' average salary), and a cheaper 35 Reichsmark model, the DKE38 (sometimes called Goebbels-Schnauze – "Goebbels' snout" – by the general public) fitted with a multisection tube, was also later produced, along with a series of other models under the Volksempfänger, Gemeinschaftsempfänger, KdF (Kraft durch Freude), DKE (Deutscher Kleinempfänger) and other brands.
All Volksempfängers sold on the domestic market were purposely designed only to receive the Deutschlandsender and regional stations of the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft, so as to ensure that Nazi propaganda broadcasts could readily be heard while other media, such as the BBC's European Service (now the World Service), could not. To this end most Volksempfängers lacked shortwave bands and did not follow the practice, common at the time among other receiver manufacturers, of marking the approximate dial positions of major European stations on its tuning scale. Generally only German (and later Austrian) stations were marked and cheaper models did not have a proper scale at all (an example pictured above has its dial marked in arbitrary numbers rather than metres or kilocycles). The sensitivity was lower than a normal radio although in practice it could with some difficulty still be used to receive foreign stations (including the BBC)[2] particularly as these stations increased their transmission power during the war.
Listening to foreign stations became a criminal offence in Nazi Germany when the war began, while in some occupied territories, such as Poland, all radio listening by non-German citizens was outlawed (later during the war this prohibition was extended to most other occupied countries coupled with mass seizures of radio sets[3]). Penalties ranged from confiscation of radios and imprisonment to, particularly later in the war, the death penalty. Nevertheless, such clandestine listening was widespread in many Nazi-occupied countries and (particularly later in the war) in Germany itself. The Nazis also attempted radio jamming of some enemy stations with limited success.
Much has been said about the efficiency of the Volksempfänger as a propaganda tool. Most famously, Hitler's architect and Minister for Armaments and War Production, Albert Speer, said in his final speech at the Nuremberg trials:
| “ | Hitler's dictatorship differed in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. His was the first dictatorship [...] which made the complete use of all technical means for domination of its own country. Through technical devices like the radio and loudspeaker, 80 million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man.[4] | ” |
The British equivalent of the Volksempfänger was the Utility Radio which was produced to a standard government approved design by a consortium of manufacturers using standard components to make repair easier. However, the primary purpose of the British design was to economise on the use of scarce materials and simplify repairs rather than to frustrate attempts at listening to foreign stations. (Such listening was officially discouraged but not actually forbidden in the United Kingdom).