During the Second World War, the BBC operated a German Service, which was tasked with broadcasting propaganda programs into Nazi Germany and occupied Europe. Psychological warfare was transmitted ...through radio waves to spread defeatism on the fighting front and amongst civilians, and to convince the German people that there was no future for the Third Reich. Dozens of German-speaking Jews who fled Central Europe and arrived in England as refugees found employment in the German Service. Many of these individuals worked as journalists, actors, comedians or authors in their previous homelands, some had even earned a degree of fame and recognition before the persecutory policies of National Socialism restricted their lives and forced them into exile. From the perspective of BBC officials, these refugees’ experience in the press and in the performing arts, as well as their intimate knowledge of German society and culture, set them in a unique position to create effective and powerful propaganda. This paper explores how, branded as unwelcome outsiders by their native societies, it was precisely their familiarity as ‘insiders’ that paradoxically primed them to perform the task.
Following the end of the Second World War, the ideals of public service broadcasting that had first been exemplified by the BBC came to lay the groundwork for a new type of broadcasting system in ...Northern Germany. This led to intensive discussions between British Military Officers and their German counterparts about the principles of public service broadcasting. Repatriated Germans came to play a crucial role. Having worked for the BBC German Service during their years of exile, some of them helped to nurture a new generation of democratic journalists. Focusing on these men, this article reveals the difficulties in transferring and adapting public service ideals. Making use of a wide range of sources, we highlight the multifaceted roles of the repatriated Germans, as both intermediaries and transmitters of public service broadcasting. We show how many of them came to play a pivotal role in resisting pressure from conservative forces in West German society.
The anti-Jewish pogrom staged by the Nazis during the night of November 9–10, 1938 was carried out in the full glare of world publicity.¹ The Nazis made no attempt to conceal evidence of the ...atrocities, which subsequently became known as Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass.² The Nazi terror deeply shocked the British government and public, particularly as it came only a few weeks after the Munich Agreement, which Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain considered a first step towards a peaceful settlement with Hitler. The pogrom helped, more than anything else, to harden British opinion towards Germany.³
Given the development
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