Dwarves, a Hitler microphone and a radio museum
On World Radio Day: a journey through time of the German-Polish city of Breslau/Wroclaw
Before the Second World War, the German city of Breslau made broadcasting history with its radio. After the war, Wroclaw, now Polish, remained a haven of culture and civil disobedience. The Jewish community was also revived. From my archive on World Radio Day. On February 13, 1946, United Nations Radio broadcast for the first time.
Radio Museum
In the Radio Wroclaw transmitter building. The radio museum is located on the ground floor. A red light shines above the door and a sign next to it says: "Close at red light". Inside, in the wood-panelled hall, no programme is being recorded, but a guided tour is taking place. Tomasz Sikora is explaining to a secondary school class how radio making worked before the Second World War. He has just demonstrated how sound effects were produced in the pre-war era: live and by hand. For example, with two wooden blocks. "What is this sound supposed to be?" he asks the class. It sounds like the pattering of horse. The youngsters guess pretty quickly.
"We always start by telling young people about the German history of radiophony or radio in Wroclaw, in Lower Silesia, which belonged to Germany until the Second World War." The first independent director of Radio Wroclaw after 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and thus also after the fall of communism in Poland, was Lothar Herbst. He had German roots. "Symbolically, this connection between Poland and Germany goes on and on."
Jewish community
Until the end of the Weimar Republic, until 1933, there was a significant Jewish community in then Breslau. Among them were Jews from Eastern Europe. Most of them came from Poland, were traditional and religiously orthodox, and isolated themselves in their "Städel". The German Jews, on the other hand, belonged to the liberal middle classes, were integrated and patriotic, and many of the men had fought in the First World War. There were latent tensions between the two groups, according to historian Katharina Friedla from the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem. "All the anti-Jewish laws that were passed after 1933 did not actually affect Polish Jews because they were not German citizens." This resulted in a sometimes absurd situation, for example when German-Jewish pupils were expelled from schools. "Then the Polish-Jewish children still went to German schools. That was allowed because they weren't German citizens."
In 1938, the Polish Jews were also expelled. Breslau, until then home to the third largest Jewish community in Germany, became a stronghold of National Socialism. Its "bulwark in the East". Due to its geographical remoteness, it was out of reach of Allied air raids for a long time, so that hundreds of thousands were evacuated to Breslau from other parts of the country. By the beginning of January 1945, the city was almost completely intact. The Red Army had already reached the river Oder - only then was the civilian population evacuated in sub-zero temperatures. "The Nazi leadership barricaded the city and turned it into a fortress. To defend the city, aisles were blasted through it," reports Eduard Mühle, Professor of the History of East Central Europe and Eastern Europe at the University of Münster, Germany. A temporary airfield was built, for which an entire neighbourhood had to make way. "The city was destroyed at least as much, if not more, from the inside by the Nazi representatives themselves as it was by the shelling of the Soviets, who had been besieging the city since March and April." In May, the first advance party of the Polish administration arrived to take over the city.
Many Jews from Breslau, both German and Polish, returned to their home town in 1945, which now belonged to Poland and was called Wrocław. "The two groups then met again in the city, and there were many clashes, many problems," says Katharina Friedla from the Yad Vashem Institute. Due to these tensions and rivalries, most German Jews eventually left the city. But that was not the only reason. "They were perceived as Germans and were persecuted by the Soviet military and also by the Polish administration."
Finally, the government of the new People's Republic of Poland also had the non-Jewish Germans expelled. In return, Poles from the eastern territories that had fallen to the Soviet Union were forcibly resettled. There was an almost complete exchange of the population. The city was now part of the "regained territories". This is what the new communist government called Silesia, Pomerania and Poznan, because these regions had once been Polish territory in the Middle Ages. The strategy was of little use: the former Breslau became a centre of the opposition trade union movement.
Solidarnosc and the Orange Alternative
Back then, in 1980, Poland was in a state of war, says journalist Tomasz Sikora from the Radio Museum. The media had been brought into line by the regime. But a number of Radio Wroclaw sound engineers worked with the opposition. Silent witness to this secret collaboration is a small black box in the Radio Museum, the size of a packet of cigarettes - a radio transmitter. Tomasz Sikora: "The technicians from Radio Wroclaw put it together at home in the cellar and gave it to opposition members." They recorded their own programmes - back then still on audio cassettes, built an antenna into the transmitter and then...
In their homes, people listened to the normal propaganda radio... and suddenly: "This is Radio Solidarność!" In other words, Solidarnosc radio.
Tomasz Sikora, journalist
The Solidarność trade union emerged from a workers' strike movement in the summer of 1980. Two years later, it was banned by a new trade union law - and Wroclaw became the birthplace of a new protest movement. It called itself the Orange Alternative. "We were not a political movement, but a counterculture movement. We saw ourselves as artists and used artistic means - happenings, performance, action." This is how Agata Saracynska, art critic at the independent daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborczka, remembers it. In 1981, she studied art history in Wroclaw together with Waldemar Fydrych, who became the head of the Orange Alternative and called himself "Major". Adam Chmielewski, a philosophy professor at the University of Wroclaw, was a friend of his. One day, he says, Fydrych turned up at his house with a manuscript that later became the manifesto of the Orange Alternative. "He came to me because he knew that I was one of the few students who had my own typewriter. They were in short supply back then. So I typed up the manifesto. He had it printed somewhere, illegally of course, and then distributed it everywhere."
Our society was locked up under a thick cheese bell, our actions seemed like a breath of air. We were not aggressive. We used the most effective method: laughter.
Agata Saracynska, journalist
The young intellectuals and students wanted to publicly mock and ridicule the regime with Dadist-style actions. Their main weapon: dwarves. Initially in the form of graffiti. The activists painted them on the walls of houses wherever white spots bore witness to the fact that Solidarność slogans had been whitewashed over on the orders of the police.
These dwarves brought a glimmer of hope. Life was so absurd in all areas back then. The absurdity that the communist regime offered us was pretty grim. This absurdity of ours was fun!
Adam Chmielewski, professor of philosophy
After all, the Orange Alternative took the dwarves to the streets. On communist holidays such as October Revolution Day, they organised demonstrations - all illegal. Wearing orange and red pointed caps on their heads, their supporters handed out toilet paper and sanitary towels to passers-by - consumer goods that were in short supply in shops in the planned economy of the time. The activists shouted: "Hooray, now we have Little Red Riding Hood!" and "No freedom without dwarves!"
After the fall of the Berlin Wall
Wroclaw was suitable for these actions because the city was a special place at the time. A city "on new ground". The Germans had left and Poles from all parts of the country were moving in. Back then, Wroclaw was known as the "Wild West", as there were still disputes over the Polish-German border in the 1980s. As a result, there were no good roads and no good railway connections to Warsaw. "Looking back, I think that was one reason why you could do things in the city back then that were unthinkable in other parts of Poland," says Agata Saracynska. With the fall of communism in 1989, the Orange Alternative lost its raison d'être as a movement. But its symbol, the dwarf, lives on in the form of a bronze statue in the pedestrian zone of post-communist Wroclaw.
Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, a lively Jewish community has flourished again in the city. Of the synagogues, however, only the White Stork synagogue has survived. There is also a Jewish foundation under the direction of the Norwegian musician and singer Bente Kahan. With her support, the synagogue, which had fallen into ruin, was renovated and turned into a cultural centre. An exhibition there commemorates the history of the Jews in the town. For a long time, no one did any research on the subject because there were simply no sources, as they had been destroyed during the war, says Katharina Friedla from the Yad Vashem Institute. "The memory of Jewish life there was forgotten - and for political reasons." The reason was the Cold War. Nobody dared to research it. It was only at the end of the 1980s that Polish historians began to look into this history. Today, the Jewish community only has around 300 members, compared to 23,000 at the end of the Weimar Republic in 1933.
Silesian Radio Hour
During this heyday of the city, Breslau radio also experienced its best time. In the building that is now the headquarters of Radio Wroclaw, the "Schlesische Funkstunde" (Silesian Radio Hour) broadcast in German. The programme was a pioneer in radio play production. It was broadcast on medium wave. The antenna tower was a free-standing wooden tower built by Telefunken, which at 140 metres high was one of the tallest transmission towers in the world at the time. "Hallo! Welle Erdball!" (Hello! This is Wave Earthball!) from 1928 by Friedrich Walter Bischoff, the director of Silesian Radio Hour at the time, is considered the last major radio play in the Weimar Republic.
(Woman:) Man needs.
(Man:) Man needs, man needs.
(Woman:) One needs to be able to live...
(Man:) From the Reich Statistical Office, file sheet, the machine man of the machine city reports. It's worth being a little thoughtful for his sake. For he lives, as we do - for the sake of appearances.
Radio play „Hello! This is Wave Earthball”
The radio play was pre-produced using film soundtracks - a revolutionary process at the time. Until then, radio plays had always been produced live. The new technology was to open up completely new creative possibilities.
(Announcer:) You heard a scene from "Hallo, Welle Erdball" by F.W. Bischoff. It was played back with the help of four discs. The transition from one disc to the next should be imperceptible.
Radio play „Hello! This is Wave Earthball!“
In April 1934, the acoustic experiments were over: the era of the "Reichssender Breslau" (Reich broadcaster Breslau) began. The Silesian Radio Hour became a National Socialist propaganda station. A rare exhibit in the Radio Museum is a reminder of this dark time: the "Hitler" microphone. The iron table microphone with an omnidirectional swivelling head was used by the German Führer in 1936 when he gave a speech in the Centennial Hall in - at the time - Breslau. Several of the radio receivers that carried Hitler's speech into people's homes are now also in the Radio Museum. And some large megaphones. Tomasz Sikora explains what they are all about. Every hour on the hour, someone would drive through the city with one of these megaphones and shout: "Now the news for the people of Wroclaw!" People would then open their windows to hear the news. "That's how radio worked in the post-war period because there was no electricity."
For a long time, Tomasz Sikora and his Polish colleagues at Radio Wroclaw had no idea of their station's great radio drama past. The radio archive had been burnt during the war and the German radio producers were no longer in the country. Tomasz Sikora says that it was only in 2015 that he learnt of the existence of the radio play "Hello! This is Wave Earthball", which is kept in the German Radio Archive in Frankfurt am Main. "We even had something like a radio play quadraphonic system here in Wroclaw," says Sikora, not without pride. He points to two radios that were suitable for quadrophonic broadcasting. "But in communist times you couldn't produce that, it was too expensive and too complicated. They had problems producing toilet paper - then quadraphony was really something from the mars".
European Capital of Culture
At the time, nobody would have dreamed that Wroclaw would one day be the European Capital of Culture. According to Eastern European historian Eduard Mühle, this transformation is the result of skilful city administration. Taking advantage of the city's favourable location, it has attracted internationally competitive businesses. However, it not only focussed on new technologies, but also promoted the tourism and cultural industries. According to Eduard Mühle, the new political and social start also gave the city the opportunity to reconcile itself with its German past. "For a long time, Wroclaw was politically instrumentalised as a bulwark against the supposed West German revanchism. The inhabitants could not be sure whether a new peace treaty, which was still pending, would perhaps lead to Wroclaw becoming German again. As long as this uncertainty existed, people never really felt at home in the city." Eduard Mühle believes that it was only after the Neighbourhood Treaty of 1991 finally clarified that Wroclaw would remain Polish that people became involved with the city. That also gave them the freedom and opportunity to engage with the city's German-speaking past.
Adam Chmielewski, professor of philosophy at the University of Wroclaw, wrote Wroclaw's application for European Capital of Culture on behalf of the city administration. In his own words, he also suggested that the symbol of the former Orange Alternative, the dwarf, be declared the symbol of the city. After Wroclaw was awarded the title of Capital of Culture in 2016, he says, this proposal turned out to be a boomerang. Waldemar Fydrych, considered the "father" of the dwarves, sued the city for damages because the city would use his ideas for advertising purposes. The process dragged on for several years until Fydrych was finally awarded compensation.
Resurrection of the Dwarves
In the eyes of journalist Agata Saraczynska, however, the dwarf belongs to everyone. Not least, she says, because the idea for the first dwarf statue in the city did not come from Fydrych, but from herself. “In the nineties, I wrote in an article that not only Warsaw and Krakow, but also the city of Wroclaw should have landmarks. And suggested a dwarf because he was connected to the idea of the orange alternative.” Together with a friend, the editor-in-chief of a newspaper, she organized a competition. “Major” Frydrych was also on the jury. “So the first dwarf in town is from both of us. It is the largest in the pedestrian zone. This dwarf was installed illegally, without any permission. Yet he is still there. A real sculpture – not kitsch like these dwarves that are everywhere now.”
The whole thing got out of hand at some point, says philosophy professor Adam Chmielewski. Businessmen had dwarves made for themselves and placed them in front of their shop windows and shops. “This dwarf played an incredibly important role for people during the communist era, but has now degenerated into a mere marketing product.” Most tourists and even many residents have no idea of the former political and cultural significance of the dwarves. Adam Chmielewski blames this lack of historical awareness on the part of the city administration. “Waldemar Fydrych with the Orange Alternative and the city's political elite belonged to different factions within the opposition to the communist regime. Inevitably, these two factions clashed because each claimed to have contributed more than the other to the fall of communism.”
Hello! This is Wave Earthball!
Journalist Tomasz Sikora, whose wife has German roots, is particularly interested in promoting the German language on Radio Wroclaw in order to contribute to understanding between Poles and Germans. Every Sunday evening the editor makes a radio program for the German-speaking minority in the country, which has been growing steadily for several years. More and more Germans are coming to work in Lower Silesia. It's not just for them that Tomasz Sikora wants to bring the radio play classic “Hello! This is wave earthball!” to the Radio Museum. On a special Sunday evening he wants to resurrect the Silesian Radio Hour on Radio Wroclaw for half an hour.
(Man:) Hello! This is Wave Earthball!. Who’s there? Just an excerpt, a snapshot, but that's life, dear lady! Life knows no logic, it jumps around with us. One, two, three… the plumpbag is going around.
Radio play „Hello! This is Wave Earthball!“
This text is the abridged translated and written version of my radio feature for the Swiss broadcaster SRF2 on the occasion of the nomination of Wroclaw, formerly Breslau, as European Capital of Culture 2016. The text was first published in German on my website here. You will also find the radio feature there.