‘The Radio Today Is Our History’: Greta Kuckhoff’s Radio Broadcasts and Speeches

Abstract

The broadcast Kuckhoff refers to was for the Soviet-controlled station, the Berliner Rundfunk [Berlin Radio], in 1946 entitled ‘Adam Kuckhoff zum Gedenken’ [In Memory of Adam Kuckhoff]. It was initiated when Kuckhoff wrote to the radio station offering a programme with extracts from her husband’s works.² Commemoration of her husband and the members of the ‘Red Orchestra’ was at the heart of her public speaking and the subject of key broadcasts in the immediate postwar period. However, her topics also ranged far beyond that. Over the course of the next two years, Kuckhoff wrote and presented regular economics programmes entitled ‘Commentary of the Day’, as well as broadcasts on denazification, democracy and gender equality. These topics were also the subjects of many public lectures she gave in the immediate postwar period. This chapter explores her commemoration of antifascist activities on the radio within the context of these other public appearances prioritizing the spoken word. Using archival sources, it explores the ways in which Kuckhoff negotiated key issues of legitimacy (that is, having the right to speak), authenticity and familiarity in order create and maintain an audience.³ It examines the significance not only of the texts themselves but also of Kuckhoff’s involvement in emerging national institutions. As such, the chapter considers how the speeches and broadcasts were a part of Kuckhoff’s agenda of practical antifascism, how she considered each aspect of this work ‘ein Stein zum Denkmal für unsere Toten’ [a stone in the monument for our dead].⁴

Ich erinnere mich nicht gern an meinen ersten Rundfunkvortrag zum Gedenken meines Mannes. Cläre Jung, die damals die literarische Abteilung mit Güte und Festigkeit leitete, hatte mir ermöglicht, einen ersten Sprechversuch zu machen, obwohl sie eigentlich [hoffte] einen Schauspieler — ich glaube Paul Bildt, der selbst mit Adam gut bekannt gewesen war — zu gewinnen. Mir lag soviel daran, mein Manuskript, das sie alle gut fanden, selbst zu sprechen. Es war in einem großen Aufnahmeraum in der Masurenallee […]. In der Mitte des Raumes stand das Mikrofon und ich kam mir vor wie auf dem Potsdamer Platz. Mit Pathos und Stimmaufwand — ich wollte es extra gut machen — deklamierte ich den Text statt ihn still und ruhig zu lesen. Schon am gleichen Nachmittag rief Cläre mich an: Es geht nicht. Es geht wirklich nicht. Kommen Sie her, wenn Sie wollen und hören Sie sich selbst an, wie unmöglich das klingt. […] Ich fuhr hin, kaum waren die ersten Sätze gesprochen, als ich mir die Ohren zuhielt. Ich war erschrocken. Es klang unecht und überdreht. […] Es war eine Zumutung, das Ganze noch einmal — ohne Gewißheit, daß es nun wirklich klappt, zu versuchen. Ich hatte keinerlei Lampenfieber. […]

Ich weiß nicht, wieviele Leute mich damals daraufhin ansprachen. Ich meine nicht Bekannte und Freunde. Leute, die ich niemals gesehen hatte. […] Das war es auch, was mir den Mut gab, Gedanken in die Bevölkerung zu tragen durch ein Medium, das bald von vielen gehört werden würde, sehr viel mehr als auf Vortragsreisen. Und ich lernte, meine Gedanken auszudrücken, dass man wirklich zuhörte.¹

I do not like to remember my first radio programme in memory of my husband. Cläre Jung, who led the literary section at that time with kindness and firmness, allowed me to do a first take, even though she had hoped to get an actor — I think Paul Bildt, who had known Adam well — for the job. It was in a large recording studio in Masurenallee […]. The microphone stood in the middle of the room and I felt as if I was on Potsdamer Platz. With pathos and vocal effort (I wanted to do it especially well) I declaimed the text instead of reading it calmly and quietly. Already that afternoon Cläre rang me: It won’t do. It really won’t do. Come and listen if you want and hear for yourself how impossible it sounds. […] I went. The first few sentences were hardly spoken before I covered my ears. I was horrified. It sounded false and overexcited. […] It was unreasonable to try the whole thing again without any certainty that it would work. I had no stage fright at all. […]

I don’t know how many people spoke to me back then about it. I don’t mean friends and acquaintances but people whom I had never seen before. […] It was that which gave me the courage to take my thoughts into the population in a medium that would soon be heard by many, many more than on lecture tours. And I learnt to express my thoughts so that people really listened.