Volksempfänger people's radio
Volksempfänger, la radio del pueblo
- Date
- 1933 · confidence high
- Place
- Berlin, Germany
- Credited to
- Otto Griessing (engineering) and Walter Maria Kersting (cabinet design)
- Field
- Communication
What it is
Commissioned by Joseph Goebbels, Griessing developed a cheap vacuum-tube radio to spread Nazi propaganda among the German population; it was unveiled at the 1933 Berlin Radio Show, priced from 35 Reichsmarks.
The device became a visual symbol of Nazi propaganda; Albert Speer later said radio and loudspeakers deprived 80 million people of independent thought.
What it led to
- Mass adoption of radio as a state propaganda medium
- Even cheaper derivative models (DKE, 1938)
- Use of industrial design as a political symbol