Aktuelle Kamera

Aktuelle Kamera
Aktuelle Kamera logo from the late-1980s
Starring	See Hosts below
Country of origin	East Germany
No. of episodes	over 12,000
Production
Running time	0:30 minutes (per episode)
Release
Original network	Fernsehen der DDR
Original release	December 21, 1952 – December 14, 1990

Aktuelle Kamera ("Current Camera") was the flagship television newscast of Deutscher Fernsehfunk, the state television broadcaster of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) (known as Fernsehen der DDR from February 11, 1972 to March 11, 1990). On air from December 21, 1952 (daily broadcasts did not take place until October 11, 1957) to December 14, 1990, Aktuelle Kamera was one of the main propaganda tools of the East German government.

Originally, Aktuelle Kamera was (at least by Eastern Bloc standards) fairly critical of the ruling Socialist Unity Party. This was because television was not considered part of the mass media at the time due to its limited reach. However, this changed when the television service reported accurately on the uprising in East Berlin on 17 June 1953. In the repression following the uprising, DF's director was sacked. Afterwards, DF/DDR-FS's newsroom was directly linked to the SED Politburo, and Aktuelle Kamera took on a similar look to its radio and newspaper counterparts. For most of the next 37 years, it had a marked pro-government bias and typically did not report on news that could potentially fuel anti-government sentiment. With few exceptions, stories promoted socialism and portrayed the West in a negative manner.

Aktuelle Kamera's main edition was originally scheduled at 8pm before being moved to 7:30pm in the 1960s, so as not to coincide with the major West German newscasts, ZDF's Heute at 7pm and the ARD's Tagesschau at 8pm, both of which were widely watched in East Germany. The broadcast lasted 20 minutes until 1972 when it was expanded to a full half-hour.

Starting in the mid-1970s, another 30-minute edition was presented on DDR2 (launched in 1969) around 9:30pm. Prior to that, both channels aired Aktuelle Kamera simultaneously at 7:30pm, then repeated the next morning when DDR1 signed on around 9:30am (later 8:30am), before airing school-oriented programming, co-produced by the DDR-FS and the GDR Education Ministry.