Nazi Germany Require all Germans to Own a Radio...

5fish

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“The radio will be to the twentieth century what the press was to the nineteenth”-Josef Goebbels, 1933.

Nazi Germany required all citizens to own a radio... @rittmeister , @Wehrkraftzersetzer , @Daring Drea


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In the 1930s, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels led the charge to create a radio cheap enough that even workers could own one. A 1933 example of the Volksempfänger.

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The fact that the Volksempfänger was a propaganda machine was never hidden, but because it was cheap, and could play music along with Hitler’s speeches, most people bought one anyway. As historian Eric Rentschler cites in the New German Critique, “By 1941 65% of German households owned a ‘people’s receiver’ [Volksempfänger].” Although they were designed to tune in only to local stations, it was possible to get international transmissions like the BBC in the evening hours. Listening to these “enemy” stations became a crime punishable by death during World War II.

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The Volksempfänger recalls the how the Third Reich eliminated the freedom of press, and replaced it with propaganda that infiltrated every facet of daily life. Although mass communication has now expanded beyond the radio to include television and social media, it’s still important to be aware of who controls the medium and dominates its messages.


Here wiki take on the peoples radio...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksempfänger

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The Volksempfänger (German: [ˈfɔlks.ɛmˌpfɛŋɐ], "people's receiver") was a range of radio receivers developed by engineer Otto Griessing at the request of Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda of the Nazi regime. The purpose of the Volksempfänger program was to make radio reception technology affordable to the general public. Goebbels realized the great propaganda potential of this relatively new medium and thus considered widespread availability of receivers highly important.
 

5fish

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Here a link goes more into the propaganda purpose of the radio... it a good article it gave us cheap radios...

https://www.transdiffusion.org/2008/01/07/hitlers_radio

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Nazi Germany was the first totalitarian state to use radio as a propaganda tool and, uniquely, brought out a series of affordable radio sets – the Volksempfänger, or people’s radios – so poorer Germans, who generally did not have radios before 1933, could listen to Nazi propaganda and the infamous Nuremberg rallies, and little else.

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Hitler, and even more so Goebbels, saw the massive propaganda weapon radio could become. With the monopoly Reich Broadcasting Corporation under Nazi control, and its programmes strictly censored and made even more nationalistic than in the last days of the Weimar Republic, the radio offered the easiest way to spread Nazi propaganda.

On the radio, there was no escape from Hitler when he was broadcasting live, as the Reich Broadcasting Corporation was a monopoly and it was most politically incorrect and possibly foolhardy to turn off the Fuhrer – Hitler and Goebbels could virtually brainwash the populace with their fiery oratory and Sieg Heiling followers.

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Of course, even the production and sale of a radio set had a political role the Third Reich. While in other countries radios would be sold on their design, price and sound quality, the rather basic Volksempfänger was used as a propaganda tool. A popular advert for the radio showed a Nuremberg rally style crowd standing around a photograph of a Volksempfänger with the slogan, “The whole of Germany hears the Führer with the Volksempfänger.”

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5fish

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You there a the People's Airplane ...


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The Volksflugzeug (People's Aircraft) was a grand Third Reich scheme for the mass-production of a small and simple airplane in the 1930s. It was one of the attempts of the Nazi regime to use consumer technologies as a propaganda tool.[1] Unlike the Volkswagen car, the showpiece of the Nazi's attempt to appear to work for the good of the average German,[2] as well as the less-known Volksempfänger radio, the Volkskühlschrank refrigerator and the Volksgasmaske gas mask, the Volksflugzeug project was contemplated but never fully realized.[3]
 

Matt McKeon

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there is a complete Chinese house in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem MA, its an old house, but was occupied during Mao's period of rule. It was equipped with a radio that couldn't be turned off, like most other Chinese homes at the time.
 

Wehrkraftzersetzer

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You there a the People's Airplane ...


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The Volksflugzeug (People's Aircraft) was a grand Third Reich scheme for the mass-production of a small and simple airplane in the 1930s. It was one of the attempts of the Nazi regime to use consumer technologies as a propaganda tool.[1] Unlike the Volkswagen car, the showpiece of the Nazi's attempt to appear to work for the good of the average German,[2] as well as the less-known Volksempfänger radio, the Volkskühlschrank refrigerator and the Volksgasmaske gas mask, the Volksflugzeug project was contemplated but never fully realized.[3]
there was also a Volksjäger
 

5fish

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Here the People's Assault rifle...


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The Volkssturmgewehr ("People's Assault Rifle")[3] is the name of several rifle designs developed by Nazi Germany during the last months of World War II. They share the common characteristic of being greatly simplified as an attempt to cope with severe lack of resources and industrial capacity in Germany during the final period of the war. The weapon's name can be translated directly either as "People's assault rifle" or "Volkssturm rifle." Volkssturm, the German late war militia home defense force, means "People's Assault"; Sturmgewehr translates as "assault rifle".

As a last-ditch measure in the nearly lost war, on 18 October 1944 the Deutscher Volkssturm was mobilized – a German national militia. To arm them under conditions of depleted manpower and limited available production capacities the Primitiv-Waffen-Programm ("primitive weapons program") was initiated. It called for weapons that were as easy as possible to produce. Walther designed the Volkssturmgewehr VG 1 rifle, Spreewerk Berlin the VG 2, Rheinmetall the VG 3, Mauser the VG 4 and Steyr the VG 5 (a.k.a. VK 98). Best known is the Volkssturmgewehr by Gustloff which was a gas-delayed blowback semi-automatic rifle
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5fish

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Here is the People's pistol...


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The Volkspistole ("People's Pistol") was an emergency German pistol design that was assembled from simple steel pressings with a minimum of machined parts. Only prototypes were produced before the end of World War II. These prototypes had an unusual locking system that directed the propellant gases forward to retard the barrel until the bullet had left the muzzle. Some prototypes were also manufactured by Walther,[1] Mauser[2] and the Gustloff-Werke. These prototypes had slightly different actions.

Here a link to one of the Volkspistole weapons...


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