The Radio Hobby, Private Associations, and the Challenge of Modernity in Germany

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Bruce B. Campbell

   Pages 1-24

3. The Beginnings: Radio in the 1920s

   • Bruce B. Campbell

   Pages 25-75

4. German Radio Before Broadcasting: Scientists, War, and Imperialism

   • Bruce B. Campbell

   Pages 77-89

5. Technology and the Radio Hobby Mature, 1927–1929

   • Bruce B. Campbell

   Pages 91-141

6. The Nazification of the Radio Clubs, 1929–1935

   • Bruce B. Campbell

   Pages 143-194

7. The Radio Hobby in the Service of National Socialism, 1935–1945

   • Bruce B. Campbell

   Pages 195-255

8. The Radio Hobby Comes in from the Cold, 1945–1955

   • Bruce B. Campbell

   Pages 257-308

9. Conclusions and Questions

   • Bruce B. Campbell

   Pages 309-315

10. Back Matter

    Pages 317-369

    PDF

In the early twentieth century, the magic of radio was new, revolutionary, and poorly understood. A powerful symbol of modernity, radio was a site where individuals wrestled and came to terms with an often frightening wave of new mass technologies. Radio was the object of scientific investigation, but more importantly, it was the domain of tinkerers, “hackers,” citizen scientists, and hobbyists. This book shows how this wild and mysterious technology was appropriated by ordinary individuals in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century as a leisure activity. Clubs and hobby organizations became the locus of this process, providing many of the social structures within which individuals could come to grips with radio, apart from any media institution or government framework. In so doing, this book uncovers the vital but often overlooked social context in which technological revolutions unfold.

• History of Radio
• Radio as a hobby
• technology of Radio
• Weimar Republic
• post-war Germany
• Hobbyists
• hobby culture
• 20th century Germany
• Radio in the 1920s
• German Radio
• Imperialism
• the Great Depression
• rise of National Socialism in Germany
• History of media

“In this book, Campbell demonstrates in a very convincing way how people in Germany integrated new technologies in their daily lives and thus came to terms with a technical modernity between the 1920s and the 1950s. … The book is impressive, putting the development of the radio hobby in the context of societal, technological, political, and economic changes during an important period of changeful German history—a must-read for understanding the genesis of today’s mobile and connected society.” (Christian Henrich-Franke, Technology and Culture, Vol. 62 (2), April, 2021)

• William & Mary, Williamsburg, USA

  Bruce B. Campbell

Bruce B. Campbell is Professor of German Studies at William & Mary, USA. He has published on the Nazi Stormtroopers and German detective fiction as well as radio.

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