VOLUME 15 NO.7 JULY 2015 journal The Association of Jewish Refugees German-Jewish refugees and German public service broadcasting ne of the most successful Perry, a native speaker of German, was institutions established by the the station announcer; his duties included Allies in occupied Germany after introducing British and American war O1945 was the system of public service reporters who were making broadcasts from broadcasting that originated in the British Radio Hamburg, both for local audiences Zone of Occupation and was subsequently and to be picked up for onward transmission. extended to the rest of the country. It An added irony was that Perry found himself was no accident that this development, broadcasting from the same microphone that crucial to the creation of a functioning only two days previously the notorious Nazi democracy in post-Hitler Germany, was propagandist William Joyce, known as Lord started by the British, for in the BBC Britain Haw-Haw, had used for his final broadcast. possessed the model of a broadcasting service The irony was compounded when Perry independent of governments, political subsequently came across Joyce in woods parties and commercial interests. outside Flensburg, shot him in the backside Less well-known is the part played by when he made to escape, and took him German-Jewish refugees in this transfer prisoner. Joyce was executed for high treason of a quintessentially British institutional on 3 January 1946. structure to occupied Germany. Some Walter Eberstadt was born in Frankfurt in had been involved in the BBC’s radio 1921, into a banking family that had moved broadcasts to Germany during the war; to Hamburg in 1930. He came to England others contributed to the creation of the very Walter Albert Eberstadt in 1935 to be educated at Tonbridge School first public service broadcasting organisations (Major Everitt), 1921-2014 and then at Christ Church, Oxford, where in post-war Germany, often while on active his studies were interrupted by internment service with the British forces. Among Findlay, who had been a senior engineer at in 1940. Like Geoffrey Perry, he joined the the latter were Geoffrey Perry and Walter the BBC, the target was Radio Hamburg Pioneer Corps and was commissioned as an Eberstadt. Geoffrey Perry (obituary, AJR and the city’s newspaper offices, subsequently officer, serving with the Oxfordshire and Journal, November 2014) was born Horst extended to all the newspaper offices in Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (the ‘Ox Pinschewer in Berlin in 1922. He followed Schleswig-Holstein, from Hamburg north and Bucks’) in Normandy, where he was his elder brother Joachim Pinschewer (Peter to the Danish border. When Hamburg was wounded in action in August 1944. Back Perry) to Britain in 1936, to be educated at surrendered to the British on 3 May 1945, in Britain, he underwent training for one Buxton College in Derbyshire. After leaving Lieven, Findlay and Perry made straight of the Information Control Units set up school in 1938, Geoffrey Perry set out on for Radio Hamburg and, with the support in the latter part of the war to control the a career as a press photographer, but the of troops attached to T Force, took it press, publishing and broadcasting in what outbreak of war put paid to his position as over. Perry was immediately dispatched to was to be the British Zone of Germany, and a staff photographer on the Daily Mirror. In find the station’s transmitter, which could was sent to join the psychological warfare July 1940, he was interned for four months, easily be destroyed and without which the division of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters until he enlisted in the Pioneer Corps. He station could not function. He located the Allied Expeditionary Force) at Radio was commissioned as an officer in October transmitter in the suburb of Moorfleet, took Luxembourg. Shortly after the end of the 1943 and sent to Normandy with his unit some of T Force’s soldiers, plus the chief war in Europe, he returned to Hamburg, in July 1944. engineer of Radio Hamburg to show him the the city from which he had been forced to Towards the end of the war, as part of way, and occupied the transmitter. flee ten years earlier, with No. 4 Information the planning for their post-war Zone of Radio Hamburg had ceased broadcasting Control Unit, which was to operate the city’s Occupation, the British made preparations at 10.26 am on 3 May 1945 and the British radio station. to take over the German media. Lieutenant had taken it over at 10 am on 4 May. At 7 pm Eberstadt, though not yet 25 years old, Perry, who had informed the authorities of his on 4 May, the station went back on air, under played an important part in laying the interest in this, joined the special unit known Allied military control. An announcement to foundations for the radio station, which as T Force (‘T’ for Target) that was tasked this effect was broadcast and Lt-Col. Lieven became Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk with preserving Germany’s infrastructure; in then handed the microphone to Geoffrey (NWDR) in September 1945; based in his case, along with his commanding officer, Perry, who proceeded to make what was Hamburg, it also had a transmitter in Lieutenant-Colonel Lieven, a Canadian who effectively the first Allied broadcast to the Cologne, thereby covering the entire British had worked as a newspaperman, and Major German people. For the next two days, continued on page 2 journal JULY 2015 German-Jewish refugees and German public service broadcasting continued Zone. In 1956, NWDR was divided into talents in the service of the East German speech by Hitler, ‘Der Führer spricht’ (The Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), serving regime, on the notorious programme Der Führer Speaks), broadcast appropriately Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and schwarze Kanal. Eberstadt later emigrated to on 1 April 1940, still sounds hilariously Hamburg, and Westdeutscher Rundfunk the USA, where he died in 2014. accurate. Humour was one of the principal (WDR), serving North Rhine-Westphalia. The British contribution to the creation weapons deployed by the German Service The model established by Eberstadt and his of the (West) German broadcasting system to undermine enemy morale. The Features colleagues has thus survived to the present has not received the acknowledgement it Section, headed by Walter Rilla, produced day: NDR now also serves Mecklenburg- deserves, remaining largely unknown to series like ‘Frau Wernicke’ and ‘Kurt Vorpommern, the northern part of the the public in both Germany and Britain. und Willi’, scripted by Bruno Adler, or former East Germany. Eberstadt had Nevertheless, in 2002 the Research Centre Robert Lucas’s long-running series of letters changed his name, returning to Hamburg for German and Austrian Studies held a three- supposedly written by a particularly dim as Captain Walter Everitt, but had retained day conference in London entitled ‘“Stimme German soldier, Gefreiter Adolf Hirnschal his knowledge of German and of Germans, der Wahrheit” [Voice of Truth]: German- (Corporal Adolf Brainshallow), to his wife. enabling him to make shrewd choices of Language Broadcasting by the BBC’. The This was, one might say, a prelude to the personnel as the station was increasingly conference proceedings were published institutional interaction between the BBC turned over to German-speaking staff. in 2003, as volume 5 of the Yearbook of and Germany in the years after 1945. Though he had perforce to man the new the Research Centre, edited by Charmian Anthony Grenville station with Germans who had lived in Brinson and Richard Dove. Among the Germany throughout the Nazi years, he was conference speakers were two of the greatest able to select those whose views had made German experts on the subject: the late Special KT Lunch them unsympathetic to the regime or those Jens Brüning contributed a detailed and Wednesday 9 September 2015 whose conversion to democracy was genuine. knowledgeable piece on the BBC as a model Knowing that he had to work with people for German post-war broadcasting, while at New North London who were to some extent compromised by Hans-Ulrich Wagner, the doyen of German Synagogue their past, Everitt interrogated potential staff scholars in this field, spoke on the role of Guest speaker: Barbara Winton members searchingly; his natural acumen the ‘London-Remigranten’, the refugees Please join us for a special KT Lunch enabled him to enlist men of the stature who returned from Britain to Germany, in on Wednesday 9 September at the New of Jürgen Schüddekopf and Peter Bamm. the history of West German broadcasting. North London Synagogue, 80 East End Road, Finchley N3. We are delighted Among those with whom he worked in Wagner has recently published a further that Barbara Winton, daughter of Hamburg were such future star reporters article entitled ‘Repatriated Germans and the Sir Nicholas Winton, will be our and broadcasters as Axel Eggebrecht and “British Spirit”’ in the journal Media History, guest speaker. Peter von Zahn, names to conjure with in accessible online at http://www.tandfonline. Barbara will be talking about her the German media world of the post-war com/eprint/8nyzjfCvegUSX5Fj8zr4/full father’s remarkable achievements and signing copies of her book decades. Everitt’s aim was to democratise and The German Service of the BBC used If It’s Not Impossible … The Life of civilianise German society, to convince his refugees to remarkably good effect in its Sir Nicholas Winton. German staff that they were not working for wartime broadcasting to Nazi Germany: We are also delighted that some of the the British but were involved in laying the the actor Martin Miller’s parody of a Year 6 pupils from Akiva School will be foundations for a democratic Germany for in attendance to meet you and Barbara.