Südfunk

The Southern part of Germany was split at the end of World War II into two occupation zones, an American and a French one. In Bavaria and in Württemberg-Baden, Radio München (Munich) and Radio Stuttgart went on air in 1945. In the next years, Radio München was transformed to a Bavarian broadcaster, and in Germany's South West, two public broadcasting corporations started and produced radio and (subsequent) television programs up to their merger in 1998:

The merger of 1998 in the two German States of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate made SDR and SWF the precursors of Südwestrundfunk SWR. The German word Rundfunk means broadcasting (corporation), and the ending "-funk" in Südwestfunk and Südfunk is short for Rundfunk, or means 'radio (program)'.

The Südwestfunk (SWF) was a German radio and television station with its head office in Baden-Baden and with radio and TV-studios there and in the old arsenal of Mainz. It was operating in the former French zone of Germany, which became the southern part of Baden-Württemberg and the Land of Rhineland-Palatinate. Those regions are not as densely populated as the North of Baden-Württemberg with Süddeutscher Rundfunk.

The Südwestfunk was member of the ARD and produced TV programs for ARD and in cooperation with Süddeutscher Rundfunk for Südwest 3 (a so-called "drittes Programm" / 3rd TV-program), with Saarländischer Rundfunk as third partner for this regional television program. Südwestfunk also produced 4 radio programs,

SWF3 was one of the most popular radio stations in Germany, with many listeners near the borders of its area, in Stuttgart, in Frankfurt and especially in Cologne, the same as today SWR3.

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