A Voice for East Germany: Developing the BBC German Service’s East Zone Programme

Abstract

Originally conceived as part of Britain’s psychological warfare effort during the Second World War, the BBC German Service continued to broadcast from London to Germany throughout the Cold War. In 1949, in response to rising tensions between the Western Allies and the Soviets, the German Service created the East Zone Programme, specifically targeting listeners in what was to become the German Democratic Republic. This article analyses the perspectives and voices adopted by the East Zone Programme when addressing East Germans during the first decade of its existence, and the mutual risk-taking of broadcaster and listeners during the early Cold War. Drawing on scripts, correspondence, and policy documents from the BBC Written Archives Centre and the German Broadcasting Archive, the article examines contributions by British presenters such as Lindley Fraser and Richard O’Rorke, wartime German-speaking émigrés including Bruno Adler, Robert Lucas and Erich Fried, and East German letter writers and defectors, asking who was best placed to speak to and for listeners in the German Democratic Republic. An analysis of listener reactions to the East Zone Programme shows listeners’ gradual disillusionment with the BBC External Services’ non-intervention policy for broadcasting to states behind the Iron Curtain.