Audible Silence - the Nazi Regime on the Radio

Ten years after the end of Nazi rule, the radio produced several elaborate programmes that narrated a certain version of Austrian national history. They all concealed Austria’s shared responsibility for Nazi crimes, and instead presented a story of the country’s sufferings.

Where it might have given testimony about the Nazi past, radio instead played sound effects: books were closed; shutters came down to bring the “night” over Austria; text was replaced by dramatic music. When they made a reference to Nazi Germany, the programmes portrayed Austria as its “victim”.

Both the expectations of the audience and the perspective of the programme designers were shaped by National Socialist propaganda. Sounds that had been heard on Nazi radio during “triumphal” announcements also featured in the radio programmes of the democratic era, in order to convey strength and perseverance.

Radio play “The Passion of Austria”, Österreichischer Rundfunk, 1:11 min, 8 April 1955, Österreichischer Rundfunk ORF 

“Over the next few months, the horror escalates. Tens of thousands of Austrians are sent to Nazi prisons and concentration camps. The men of Austria are drafted into the forces of the Greater German Reich. Hitler increasingly expands his power in Europe, grasping for Bohemia and Moravia. On 1 September 1939, the Second World War breaks out. But our diarist could not have known all this on that Good Friday in 1938.  

He wrote a despairing line in that moment”:

“I don't know whether I will have the strength to open this diary again.”  

[Motif of the march O You, My Austria by Franz von Suppé, played on the flute]

“Good Friday, 1945”

“After seven years, I open my diary once more.” 

Radio play “From the First Republic to the Second”, Österreichischer Rundfunk, 0:52 min, 12 November 1955, Österreichischer Rundfunk ORF 

Radio play “10 Years of the Second Republic: Cultural Reconstruction”, Österreichischer Rundfunk, 1:32 min, 24 April 1955, Österreichischer Rundfunk ORF