Königs Wusterhausen radio transmitter

The Königs Wusterhausen transmitter (German: Sender Königs Wusterhausen) was a large transmission facility for longwave, mediumwave and shortwave radio, located near Königs Wusterhausen southeast of Berlin, Germany. Initially built by the telegraph battalion of the German Army, operation began during World War I in 1916. On 22 December 1920, the transmission of a Christmas concert marked the birth of public broadcasting in Germany.

The German armed forces had conducted experiments in radio technology on the Windmühlenberg hill northwest of Königs Wusterhausen since 1911, with mobile stations mounted on horse carriages and antennas held up by captive balloons. Extended signal corps facilities were erected at the site from 1913 onwards, including a large antenna system and several functional buildings. Later called Senderhaus 1, the military broadcasting station was put into operation in 1916.

After the war, the German Reichspost took over the barracks with effect from September 1919 and used the facilities for the transmission of weather reports, financial news, and telegrams. Radio broadcasting was initiated by post official Hans Bredow and his staff when they used an arc converter supplied by C. Lorenz AG for the first transmission of speech and music in the longwave range on 22 December 1920, making Königs Wusterhausen the "cradle of German broadcasting". After private radio reception was authorised by law in 1923, transmissions quickly developed throughout the Weimar Republic. The facilities soon had to be enlarged and a second station building (Sendehaus 2) was inaugurated in 1923

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