Heft 1-2/2018

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Sound aus dem Archiv
Ein Expertengespräch über den Stellenwert historischer Tondokumente
Sound from the archive
An expert discussion on the status of historical sound documents 3

Karin Pfundstein
Robespierre hört Radio und Fetzer flüchtet in den Westen
Die Funkoper in der SBZ und der DDR
Robespierre listens to the radio and Fetzer flees to the West
Radio opera in the Soviet Occupation Zone and the GDR 14


The radio opera (Funkoper – in German also known as a Rundfunkoper or Radio-Oper), is the music-theatrical counterpart to the radio drama (Hörspiel): a genre developed specifically for the radio, its specific conditions of production and dissemination. It is a result of discussions and experiments in transposing the stage opera satisfactorily to the medium of radio. This article examines radio opera in the East of Germany after the Second World War: the Soviet Occupation Zone and the GDR. Besides observations on media and art aesthetics, the political implications of these works are at the centre of the essay: a society wrestling with itself in the wake of a devastating confronts the listener in ‘The Flood’ by Boris Blacher, after a libretto by Heinz von Cramer. “’Tandaradei’ (1949) by Hans-Hendrik Wehding represents quality light entertainment in times of new beginning. ‘Fetzer’s flight’ (1959) by composer Kurt Schwaen and librettist Günter Kunert takes up the themes of divided Germany and flight from the GDR. Finally, the state’s movement toward dissolution is reflected in ‘Danton’s Bones’ (1988) by Friedrich Schenker and Karl Mickel.

Dennis Basaldella
Filme machen, den Umständen zum Trotz
Der private freie Filmhersteller Horst Klein
Making films in spite of the circumstances.
The freelance filmmaker Horst Klein 27


Academic research on television and cinema in the GDR has focused primarily on the two important institutions: the state-owned DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft) and the state television broadcaster Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF). In so doing, it has neglected other important elements of the East German film industry such as freelance filmmakers. This article, based on my current PhD dissertation, focusses on the work of freelance GDR filmmaker Horst Klein (1920–1994). Klein’s work is essential for understanding this neglected chapter of GDR film history. He left behind films, documents, and 1827 diary pages documenting his entire work and private life, stored since 1994 at the Filmmuseum Potsdam. The importance is based on the size and the variety of the archival sources of his legacy on one hand and to the length of his career on the other hand. As one of twenty freelance filmmakers in East Germany, Klein’s’ professional career from 1937 until 1994 covers the entire period of the Soviet occupation zone (1945-1949) and the GDR (1949 – 1990) and grants us an alternative view of the GDR media industry. During his career, he mostly worked as a freelancer, producing short and medium-length documentary films and TV reports for television and various state institutions, either working alone or with other people. The article briefly describes Klein’s career, which lasted almost 56 years, by giving an overview of the different periods of his work and highlighting his impact on the various productions. Finally, it gives an example of the reconstruction process of one of Klein’s films undertaken during the research process.

„Es war atemlos“
Rundfunkhistorisches Gespräch mit Alfred Eichhorn (Auszüge)
„It was breathless“
Broadcasting history, oral history interview with Alfred Eichhorn (Excerpts) 39

„Das öffentliche Reden war ein großes Glück für mich“
Rundfunkhistorisches Gespräch mit Norbert Schneider (Auszüge)
„Public speaking was a great boon for me“
Broadcasting history, oral history interview with Norbert Schneider (Auszüge) 49


Studienkreis-Informationen

Medienhistorisches Forum 2017 58

speichern | orientieren | produzieren
Workshop der Fachgruppe Speicherkulturen am 12.2.2018 in Potsdam 59

Forum

„Diskurs und mediale Realitätskonstruktion in der Kommunikationsgeschichte“
Jahrestagung der Fachgruppe Kommunikationsgeschichte der DGPuK
18. bis 20. Januar 2018 in Berlin 61

Lokale Medienarchive – Digitales Gedächtnis der Regionen?
Tagung der Bayerischen Landeszentrale für neue Medien (BLM)
am 13.11.2017 in München 62

Dissertationsvorhaben

Beyond Public Service: Towards an Expanded
History of Television in Switzerland, 1960 to 2000

• Introduction 64

• Marie Sandoz
The Archaeology of Satellite Television in Switzerland, 1957-1984
(Université de Lausanne, Schweiz) 65


The collective research project “Beyond Public Service: Towards an Expanded History of Television in Switzerland, 1960 to 2000” is conceived around three strands that concern the history of audiovisual professions, the analysis of discourses on and about television, and the study of the media’s technological developments. Adopting a cultural history perspective, my thesis examines this last strand through an examination of the beginnings of satellite television in Switzerland. In line with scholarship developing in the fields of media archaeology and new media studies, the goal is to write the archaeology of Swiss satellite television by considering its emergence from a longue durée perspective. The dissertation aims to analyse distinctive forms of satellite television, forms that can be tangible realizations as well as discursive constructions. An important part of the research considers also the role that new media technologies, in particular satellite television, take in the liberalization and the transnationalization of the Swiss audiovisual landscape from the 1960s to the 1980s.

• Roxane Gray
Television Directors in French-speaking Switzerland (1954-1990s).
Birth and Construction of a Professional Group
(Université de Lausanne, Schweiz) 67


My doctoral thesis retraces the professionalization of television directors in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. In line with the scholarship in the field of media industry studies, this thesis aims at revisiting Swiss television history with particular focus on its production processes and its professions. The study of television directors’ professional trajectories also shifts the focus away from the institutional framework of television. This research examines the diversity of professional practices within both the public service and the private sectors. It pays attention to the circulations between both spheres and analyses transnational and transmedia collaborations. To meet these objectives, different resources will be consulted, among others the Swiss Television Archives, the Swiss Film Archives as well as press and professional publications. Interviews with television professionals will be conducted as well.

• Adrian Stecher
Dekodierung des Fernsehens in der Schweiz. Die Diskurse
von und über das Fernsehen zwischen 1967 bis 1991.
(Université de Lausanne, Schweiz)
Decoding Swiss television. Discourses on television in Switzerland from 1967 to 1991 68


The aim of my PhD project is to document and analyse the ideas on television produced by different sub-areas of Swiss society – such as science, politics, media, and television itself. Based on discourse analysis, the project aims to identify the main actors who took part in the conceptual, legislative, social and cultural (re-)definitions of TV, to analyse the structures of power within these multiple discourses, and to document the testimonies made by television itself. The discoursive approach allows me to understand television beyond its institutional framework and its public service duties as a communication product that not only ensures openness and transparency but is also capable of creating social realities.

Stefanie Palm
Verwaltung von Medienkonflikten. Die Medienpolitik des
Bundesinnenministeriums nach dem Nationalsozialismus
(Universität Potsdam)
Administering media conflicts: media policies of the Federal Ministry of the Interior after National Socialism. 70


The media policies of the Federal Ministry of the Interior was in many respects overshadowed by National Socialism: the debate on ‘smut and trash’, the initiatives for a federal press act or ‘Soraya’s Law’, as well as the establishment of voluntary self-regulation of the film industry are only a few examples of legislative initiatives from the ministry’s Culture Department that sparked public conflicts in Germany. After National Socialism, exertions of federal influence on the media and cultural landscape were viewed with a particularly critical eye, whereas in other European countries centralist cultural concepts even expanded. In a permanent process of negotiation over spheres of activity and competences, therefore, the question of which actors possessed so-called cultural sovereignty was repeatedly re-negotiated. The prevailing contemporary concept of the ‘powerful media’ implies that state actors’ concrete ideas of order manifested themselves especially in the fields of film, television, radio and the press. The objective of this survey will be to probe the conflicts, scandals and tensions within the Culture Department of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and to place them both within the space of interaction of governmental action and the biographical ‘fivefold horizon of expectations’ of the actors, as well as in the traditional models of freedom of speech and the press. How did the Culture Department position itself vis-à-vis a changing and pluralistic society? Where were the fractures and continuities in its understanding of democracy and the public sphere, and to what extent did this correspond to general developments among the German general public? Finally, it will ask how and to what extent the controversies over freedom of speech and the press helped to shape interaction with the legacy of National Socialist media politics.

Rezensionen

Beate Meyer
Fritz Benscher. Ein Holocaust-Überlebender als
Rundfunk- und Fernsehstar in der Bundesrepublik.
(Hans-Ulrich Wagner) 72

Thomas Kleist / Axel Buchholz
Fundstücke aus 60 Jahren Saarländischer Rundfunk. Geschichte(n), Leute, Erlebnisse.
(Alexander Kulpok) 73

Thomas Fischer/Thomas Schuhbauer (Hrsg.)
Geschichte in Film und Fernsehen. Theorie – Praxis – Berufsfelder.
(Edgar Lersch) 74

Eli Nathans
Peter von Zahn‘s Cold War Broadcasts to West Germany: Assessing America.
(Niklas Venema) 76

Sven Ismer
Wie der Fußball Deutsche macht. Die Fußballweltmeisterschaft 2006 in der Fernsehberichterstattung.
(Martin Stallmann) 77

Corina Erk
De-/Konstruktionen der RAF im Post-2000-Kino.
Filmische Erinnerungsarbeit an einem Mythos.
(Christian Hißnauer) 78

Holger Rust
Virtuelle Bilderwolken. Eine qualitative Big Data-Analyse
der Geschmackskulturen im Internet.
(Uwe Breitenborn) 79

Autorinnen und Autoren dieses Heftes U4