1. Cited in Bryan Thomas Van Sweringen, "Cabaretist of the Cold War Front: Günter Neumann and Political Cabaret in the Programming of Rias" (Ph.D. diss., Free University Berlin, 1985), 94. The original is in the library of the Institut für Publizistik at the Free University.

2. Ibid., 96. According to the same report, "The population of the American zone takes this Soviet propaganda at its face value and even expresses the wish to be under Russian control." Cited in Sweringen, "Cabaretist," 95.

3. Fritz Lothar Büttner, Das Haus des Rundfunks in Berlin (Berlin, 1965), 61. A Russian, Major Popov, under whose command the building was confiscated and set in operation, had supposedly been engaged as a technician from 1931 to 1933 at the Berliner Rundfunk. Ibid., 63. In addition to a thirty-man SS unit as a guard, the German occupation consisted of one Volkssturm unit

whose members were predominantly cultural (including radio) figures. Ibid., 61.

4. According to Wolfgang Leonhard, the Ulbricht Group actually consisted of two groups. One contained the true core of KPD functionaries, the other selected members of the National Committee for Free Germany. Leonhard, Die Revolution entlässt ihre Kinder , 421-22.

5. Ibid., 415. This openness was possibly the reason for Mahle's short tenure as Intendant at Radio Berlin. That at least is the explanation for his dismissal in early 1946 by the Russian officer Mulin in charge of radio affairs. Mahle supposedly could not handle the infiltration of Western agents and journalists and maintained "overfriendly" relations with British journalists. "He became for them too much of an acceptable figure." Former Party Archive of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, RCChIDNI, fond 17, opis 128, delo 150, 93-94.

6. Hans Mahle, "So fing es an!" in Erinnerungen sozialistischer Rundfunk-Pioniere (East Berlin, 1985), 16 ff.

7. D. G. White, "Radio-Reorientation: U.S. Military Government in Germany, European Command, Historical Division" (copied typescript, 1950), 10, 30. (One copy is in the Archive of the Berlin-Projekt des Zentralinstituts 6 am Publizistischen Institut at the Free University.)

8. As cited in Markus Wolf, Die Troika (Düsseldorf, 1989), 176. On the use of the old station personnel, see also Leonhard, Die Revolution , 459.

9. A manuscript of memoirs from Mahle's assistant Ullrich Brurein states, concerning the use of announcers from the Reichsrundfunk, that "the particularly qualified announcers Siegfried Niemann and Horst Preusker, who used to be at the Nazi station," were able to continue on. N.d. [1967], archive of the former East German Radio, Berlin, Nalepastrasse.

10. White, "Radio-Reorientation," 10.

11. Harold Hurwitz, Die Stunde Null in der deutschen Presse (Cologne, 1972), 301 ff.; Harold Hurwitz, Die Eintracht der Siegermächte und die Orientierungsnot der Deutschen, 1945-46 , vol. 3 of Demokratie und Antikommunismus in Berlin nach 1945 (Cologne, 1984), 84 ff.

12. "The Russians ... also ask for common control of Broadcasting House (Radio Berlin) which is in the British Zone (Sector)," it reads in the report on the first inter-Allied meeting on July 5, 1945. Cited in White, "Radio-Reorientation," 13.

13. Radio Control Officer Mulin to a representative of the party central in Moscow, stenogram, n.d. [September 1946], in the former Party Archive of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, fond 17, opis 128, delo 150, 88.

14. "The Americans and British agree not to concern themselves with the operation of the studios and radio station in Tegel [i.e., Masurenallee]," reads the agreement of the commands of July 20, 1945. OMGUS/Berlin, Landesarchiv Berlin, 4/8-2/3. On the agreement over airtime, see White, "Radio-Reorientation," 14, 16.

15. Memorandum of the British Broadcasting Control Unit, April 24, 1946, PRO, FO 1056/13. At this time, in April 1946, the English division in

charge had given up these plans. The memo retrospectively describes American-English plans from the summer and fall of 1945.

16. Cited in White, "Radio-Reorientation," 78.

17. Telegram to the Foreign Ministry, November 11, 1946, PRO, FO 1056/13.

18. "The suggestion of Quadripartite Control of a zonal station had never been favored by Radio Section, since it became evident that occupational policies of the Allies were too divergent to make smooth operation likely." Memo of the Broadcasting Control Unit, PRO.

19. Charles S. Lewis to Robert McClure, March 13, 1946, OMGUS 5/270-1/14.

20. "Taking account of the paucity of its resources [RIAS] originally did not aim to conquer the general radio audience but conspicuously directed its program at the Berlin intellectuals." White, "Radio-Reorientation," 115. Audience numbers corresponded. Depending on the questions and group surveyed, the numbers at the end of 1946 fluctuated between 6 percent and 30 percent of the radio audience (i.e., the general population). Hurwitz, Die Eintracht , 133.

21. Statements to the author by Margot Derigs, Hans-Ulrich Kersten, and Wolfgang Geiseler.

22. Der Kurier , August 30, 1946, as cited in White, "Radio-Reorientation," 41.

23. Hermann Broch to Ruth Norden, January 4, 1946, Ruth Norden Collection, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach.

24. Norden to Broch, February 21, 1946, Norden Collection.

25. Hermann Broch, Briefe , ed. Paul-Michael Lützeler (Frankfurt, 1981), no. 295.

26. Broch to Norden, July 21, 1946, Norden Collection.

27. Norden to Broch, February 21, 1946, Norden Collection.

28. Archive of Franz Wallner-Basté, property of Dr. Franz Wallner, Berlin.

29. The Drahtfunk period was one of great independence. DIAS was indeed founded by the Americans, but in the legal form of a German corporation that received its operational funds of 250,000 reichsmarks monthly from the Magistrat. With the conversion from wired to wireless, this amount was no longer sufficient, and the American military government had to take over RIAS—with all the consequences of a hyper-bureaucratization so catastrophic for the internal operation, as Wallner-Basté described it. (Figures are from the auditor's report of the "Kontinentale Treuhandgesellschaft GmbH" from June 28, 1947, OMGUS 4/12-2/13.) Ruth Norden said of the conditions in RIAS after the takeover by the military government: "The business machine has broken down completely ... and conditions have been intolerable as a result." Memorandum to the Control Office, June 12, 1946, OMGUS 4/135-2/2. The American RIAS Control Officer Harry M. Frohman summarized the leading view among the German personnel and German contractors: "Rundfunk is bankrupt." Memorandum to Leonhard, March 26, 1947, OMGUS 4/12-2/13.

30. Franz Wallner-Basté, "A Conversation That Never Took Place" (manuscript), n.d. [August 1947], Wallner-Basté Archive.

31. Two of Wallner-Basté's letters to Ernst Reuter hint at his SPD member-

ship. On June 16, 1948, he speaks of "our comrade Leber" (referring to Annedore Leber), and on October 20, 1948, of "our party." Wallner-Basté Archive.

32. File note, November 6, 1946, as cited in Hurwitz, Die Eintracht , 137.

33. Memorandum by Hans Werner Kersten, June 21, 1948, OMGUS 4/12-1/13.

34. Cited in White, "Radio-Reorientation," 89. (The report followed in November 1947.)

35. Ibid., 89-90.

36. Wallner-Basté also described episodes that in his view illustrated Norden's political tendencies, like the visit of an American journalist who expressed her enthusiasm over the support of Hollywood figures like Chaplin and Katherine Hepburn for the American independent progressive presidential candidate Wallace. "Miss Norden: vain agreement ... I object: whether it is right to offer an example with precisely these two names, since even many of us know what kind of politics the two are making propaganda for. Miss Norden does not actually contradict this, but freezes up." Franz Wallner-Basté, diary, July 20, 1947, Wallner-Basté Archive.

37. Lt. E. Schechter, "To whom it may concern," January 3, 1949, Wallner-Basté Archive.

38. Wallner-Basté, postscript to "A Conversation."

39. Harry Frohman (formerly Frommermann) had a prominent past. In 1928 he founded the cabaret singing group Comedian Harmonists, which soon became an institution in Berlin's entertainment industry. According to his wife, Marion Kiss, he was "a comic by nature" and "a rebel," not in a political sense but because "he never did what others wanted." Cited in Eberhard Fechner, Die Comedian Harmonists (Berlin, 1988). According to information from Der Spiegel (January 10, 1948), Gustave Mathieu was friendly with known leftists like Günther Weisenborn, Herbert Sandberg, Alfred Kantorowicz, and Wolfgang Harich, and had close contact to Radio Berlin. From there he brought a commentator, Eugen Hartmann, to RIAS. On February 7, 1948, a notice under the title "Regret" appeared in Der Spiegel offering an apology to Norden and Mathieu from the editors "for calumny due to false and malicious information.'' On February 3, 1948, Rudolf Augstein sent a personal letter of apology to Mathieu. (A copy was shown to the author by Mathieu.)

40. Wallner-Basté to Colonel Leven, October 12, 1948, Wallner-Basté Archive.

41. White, "Radio-Reorientation," 80 ff.

42. Hurwitz, Die Eintracht , 137-38. Hurwitz himself still showed this misperception in his study published in 1972. He writes of Norden and Mathieu: "The American leader of the new station and the press officer responsible for political broadcasts were both communists" ( Die Stunde Null , 310).

43. "I don't feel we are accomplishing our goal with the occupation much as we would like to say we do. Loose talk of war is rampant and while here in Berlin the semblance of quadripartite working relations is maintained, there is a lot of unilateral action, suspicion of motives, breaches of confidence, etc. People like myself who would like to believe in the possibility of co-operation watch all the time how gentlemen's agreements are broken on the other side. And yet the

solution is not to stoop to the same practices, it would seem to me.... Here in Berlin particularly the anti-Russian feeling is at its height. People are scared to death of the Russians.... My job has grown in importance, but I am also much more exposed and vulnerable. I think it is generally accepted that I have done an excellent job, objectively speaking, but those are not the only considerations which count today and so I don't know what the developments will be." Norden to Broch, September 1, 1947, Norden Collection.

44. Cf. Barbara Mettler, Demokratisierung und Kalter Krieg (Berlin, 1975). Developments in the British zone were similar: in 1946, the NWDR Indendant Max Seydewitz and commentator Karl Eduard von Schnitzler were dismissed. Both moved to Radio Berlin, Seydewitz succeeding Mahle as the new Intendant .

45. Tom Wenner to Robert Murphy, August 8, 1947, POLAD 33/61.

46. Memorandum by Kersten, June 21, 1948, OMGUS 4/12-2/13.

47. Charles Leven was certain that Norden's exit was actually a dismissal, referring to "the removal of Miss Norden." Memorandum by Norden, March 17, 1948, OMGUS 4/136-2/10.

48. Mettler, Demokratisierung , 119.

49. William Heimlich, interview by Brewster Chamberlin and Jürgen Wetzel, 1981, Landesarchiv Berlin, Rep. 37, Acc. 3103, Nr. 88, p. 71.

50. Memorandum by Leven, March 7, 1948, and report by Leven, April 29, 1948, OMGUS 4/136-2/10.

51. Cited in Leven, report of April 29, 1948, p. 9.

52. Friedensburg, report to Colonel Textor, September 11, 1948, Friedensburg Archive, NL 114/26. Speaking to Ernst Reuter, Friedensburg called Shub "authoritarian, high-handed." February 3, 1949, Friedensburg Archive.

53. Annemarie Auer, interview by author, Berlin, August 13, 1992.

54. Leven, report of April, 29, 1948, pp. 4, 6.

55. Andreas Borst, "Rias und die US-amerikanische Kulturpolitik in Deutschland, 1945-49" (master's thesis, American Studies Department, Free University Berlin, 1990), 56.

56. The numbers Boris Shub indicated seem a self-serving exaggeration: according to his figures, 80 percent of listeners received RIAS, 15 percent Radio Berlin, and the rest NWDR-Berlin. Boris Shub, The Choice (New York, 1950), 104.

57. Cited in Sweringen, "Cabaretist," 123.

58. Herbert Graf in Musikblätter , July 1, 1948.

59. Der Tagesspiegel , April 20, 1948. The article was unsigned, but according to Herbert Graf (cf. note 58 above) came from copublisher Walther Karsch.

60. Cited in Gerhard Walther, Der Rundfunk in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands (Bonn and Berlin, 2961), 15.

61. Cf. footnote on p. 113.

62. Cited in Walther, Der Rundfunk , 22. In fact, a discussion jointly organized by Radio Berlin and NWDR-Berlin did occur on June 11, 1948. Axel Eggebrecht served as monitor; participating from the Western side were Peter von Zahn, Eberhard Schütz, and Willy Fröster; from the Eastern side, Wolfgang Harich, Peter Steiniger, Herbert Gessner, and Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler.