Abstract
Summary form only given, as follows. As propaganda minister for the Nazis, Joseph Goebbels understood the power of radio. But radios in the early 1930s were expensive. Goebbels turned to electrical engineer Otto Griessing to design a cheap, technically simple, and easy-to-mass-produce device. Industrial designer Walter Maria Kersting fabricated the housing out of Bakelite, a plastic that could be molded and had a modern flair. The resulting Volksempfänger ("people's radio") debuted on 18 August 1933 at the 10th International Radio Show, in Berlin. At 76 Reichsmarks (about US$250), it was about half the price of the cheapest radios then on the market. More than 100,000 units sold during the two-day show; by 1941, nearly two-thirds of German households owned one. The radio carried state-sanctioned music and entertainment. And Hitler gained a direct conduit into people's homes.
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