"This is Hans Fritzsche": A Nazi Broadcaster and His Audience

Abstract

In World War II Hans Fritzsche was Germany's most prominent radio commentator. His rise to mass popularity was testimony to the not entirely unsuccessful efforts of Nazi propaganda to promote a softer, wittier, more popular, and entertaining side of the regime. On the other hand, however, popular opinion surveys of Fritzsche's broadcasts, unpublished letters to Fritzsche, and other archival material provide a more nuanced picture of the relationship between a broadcaster and his audience. This leads to the question of the effectiveness of Nazi wartime radio propaganda and to what degree Germans approved of Nazi ideology during the war years.