Volksempfänger

The Volksempfänger (German: [ˈfɔlks.ɛmˌpfɛŋɐ], "people's receiver") was a range of radio receivers developed by engineer Otto Griessing at the request of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

The purpose of the Volksempfänger-program was to make radio reception technology affordable to the general public. Joseph Goebbels realized the great propaganda potential of this relatively new medium and thus considered widespread availability of receivers highly important.

The original Volksempfänger VE301 model was presented on August 18, 1933 at the 10. Große Deutsche Funkausstellung in Berlin. The VE301 was available at a readily affordable price of 76 German Reichsmark (equivalent to two weeks' average salary), and a cheaper 35 Reichsmark model (which was even sold on instalment plan ), the DKE38 (sometimes called Goebbels-Schnauze – "Goebbels' snout" – by the general public) fitted with a multisection tube, was also later produced, along with a series of other models under the Volksempfänger, Gemeinschaftsempfänger, KdF (Kraft durch Freude), DKE (Deutscher Kleinempfänger) and other brands.

The Volksempfänger was designed to be produced as cheaply as possible, as a consequence they generally lacked shortwave bands and did not follow the practice, common at the time, of marking the approximate dial positions of major European stations on its tuning scale. Only German and Austrian stations were marked and cheaper models only listed arbitrary numbers. Sensitivity was limited to reduce production costs further, so long as the set could receive Deutschlandsender and the local Reichssender it was considered sensitive enough, although foreign stations could be received after dark with an external antenna.particularly as stations such as the BBC European service increased transmission power during the course of the war.

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