How not to build a world wireless network: German–British rivalry and visions of global communications in the early twentieth century

Abstract

Edward Snowden’s revelations laid bare an unprecedented scale of state influence on communications technology. But government elites have frequently shaped technological development through their beliefs about potentially nefarious uses of communications. This article argues that beliefs about how other states or groups might use a technology can shape innovation. In particular, German visions about the British use of cables spurred German investment in developing wireless telegraphy. Germans imagined that the British were using cable technology to damage Germany’s reputation, spy on Germany and ‘poison’ neutral countries against the Central Powers. The German government and military at first created a colonial wireless network to bypass British cables. In World War I, however, they sought to establish a world wireless network. In the end, innovation was significantly shaped by how Germans imagined their enemies’ uses of communications technology.

Keywords:

• Wireless
• radio
• Germany
• World War I
• Britain
• colonialism
• imperialism

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to my co-editor, Simone Müller, for her suggestions and for co-organizing the conference symposium at the International Congress on the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in 2013 that inspired this special issue. Many thanks to Graeme Gooday, David Hochfelder, and Michael Tworek for their insights and comments.

Notes

1. Mexican pesos had long served as an international currency, but only Mexico and China still viewed them as legal tender in 1900. Under pressure from and in consultation with the United States, Mexico reformed its currency in 1905 to base the peso’s value on the gold dollar. Germans generally referred to the currency as the Mexican dollar. See Passananti, “The Politics of Silver and Gold in an Age of Globalization”; Pomeranz and Topik, The World that Trade Created, 182. Thanks to William French and William Chiriguayo for their help on the question of Mexican dollars.

2. I have pieced together this story from letters and reports in Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde (henceforth BArch) R1001/7192a, 7194, and 7195. See later in the article for the exact citations of the details.

3. Bender, Der Burenkrieg und die deutschsprachige Presse.

4. Vleuten, “Toward a Transnational History of Technology.”

5. Badenoch and Fickers, Materializing Europe; Lagendijk, Electrifying Europe; Lommers, Europe – On Air; Schot and Lagendijk, “Technocratic Internationalism”; Vleuten and Kaijser, Networking Europe.

6. van Meer, “The Transatlantic Pursuit of a World Engineering Foundation.”

7. For wireless, see e.g. Campbell, Wireless Writing in the Age of Marconi; Hong, Wireless; and Solari, Guglielmo Marconi. There is an enormous literature on spoken radio. For the most important works on technological innovation in radio, see Aitken, The Continuous Wave; Anduaga, Wireless and Empire; Birdsall, Nazi Soundscapes; Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899–1922; Griset, Entreprise, technologie et souveraineté; Headrick, “Shortwave Radio”; and Tworek, “The Savior of the Nation?”

8. Balbi and Natale, “The Double Birth of Wireless”; Arapostathis and Gooday, Patently Contestable, Chap. 6.

9. Friedewald, Die ‘tönenden Funken’; Friedewald, “The Beginnings of Radio Communication”; Friedewald, “Telefunken und deutsche Schiffe”; Friedewald, “Funkentelegrafie und deutsche Kolonie: Technik als Mittel imperialistischer Politik,” in Handel, Kommunikation in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 51–68; Klein-Arendt, Kamina ruft Nauen!; and Klein-Arendt, Kamina.

10. The path-breaking work in the Sonderweg debate is Blackbourn and Eley, The Peculiarities of German History. On the difficulty of defining ‘German history’, see the classic Sheehan, “What is German History?”

11. Blackbourn, “Germany and the Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1820”; and Strasser, “A Case of Empire Envy?”

12. Krajewski, Restlosigkeit.

13. Conrad, Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany.

14. Slobodian, “How to See the World Economy”; and Torp, Die Herausforderung der Globalisierung.

15. Tworek, “Der Weltverkehr und die Ausbreitung des Kapitalismus um 1900.”

16. Calculated from Broadberry and Harrison, “The Economics of World War I,” 25.

17. Ciarlo, Advertising Empire.

18. Short, Magic Lantern Empire.

19. Conrad, German Colonialism; Kopp, Germany’s Wild East; Liulevicius, The German Myth of the East; Naranch and Eley, German Colonialism in a Global Age; and Nelson, Germans, Poland, and Colonial Expansion to the East.

20. Baranowski, Nazi Empire; Poley, Decolonization in Germany; and Schilling, Postcolonial Germany.

21. Bernhard, “Borrowing from Mussolini: Nazi Germany’s Colonial Aspirations in the Shadow of Italian Expansionism,” 621.

22. Bönker, “Global Politics and Germany’s Destiny ‘from an East Asian Perspective’”; Dunley, “Not Intended to Act as Spies”; Geppert, Pressekriege; Bösch and Geppert, Journalists as Political Actors; Rüger, The Great Naval Game; and Seligmann, The Royal Navy and the German Threat.

23. Rieger, Technology and the Culture of Modernity, 18.

24. On ships, see Bönker, Militarism in a Global Age; and Rüger, The Great Naval Game.

25. Müller, Wiring the World, Chap. 2.

26. Headrick, The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851–1945, 44–5; and Müller, “Beyond the Means of 99 Percent of the Population.”

27. Müller and Tworek, “The Telegraph and the Bank,” 270–2.

28. Huurdeman, The Worldwide History of Telecommunications, 308.

29. Griset, Entreprise, technologie et souveraineté.

30. E.g. Roscher, “Das Weltkabelnetz.”

31. Müller-Pohl, “Working the Nation State: Submarine Cable Actors, Cable Transnationalism and the Governance of the Global Media System, 1858–1914”, in Löhr and Wenzlhuemer, The Nation State and Beyond, 101–27.

32. Geppert, Pressekriege, 222–7.

33. On this system, see Nalbach, “Poisoned at the Source?”; Rantanen, “Foreign Dependence and Domestic Monopoly”; and Silberstein-Loeb, The International Distribution of News, Chap. 7.

34. BArch R1001/2692, 102.

35. BArch R1001/2693, 75–6 and BArch R1001/2696, 9.

36. Letter from Schnee to Colonial Office, 23 November 1911, BArch R1001/2695, 197.

37. BArch R1001/2696, 9. Wolff’s bill to the Colonial Office in October 1913 was 3917 Marks, for example. BArch R1001/2696, 252.

38. On the military use of wireless, see Nebeker, Dawn of the Electronic Age, Chap. 1.

39. Cited in Bönker, “Global Politics and Germany’s Destiny ‘from an East Asian Perspective’,” 95.

40. Wu, “The Search for Coal in the Age of Empires.”

41. Rieger, Technology and the Culture of Modernity.

42. Friedewald, “The Beginnings of Radio Communication,” 459.

43. Letter from von Moltke to War Ministry, 23 January 1908, BArch R1001/7184, 7–8.

44. 28 June 1906. Reichsgesetzblatt Nr. 37, 843. Located in BArch R1001/7200, 4.

45. BArch R4702/122, 82. On the spark gap system, see Friedewald, Die ‘tönenden Funken’.

46. See letters in BArch R1001/7199.

47. Report from chief of the army general staff to Colonial Office, July 1911, BArch R1001/7198, 26.

48. Report from German Consulate in Sydney, 26 July 1911, and report from German Foreign Office, 31 October 1911, BArch R1001/7198, 37–8, 50–1.

49. Letter from Telefunken to German Colonial Office, 18 November 1911, BArch R1001/7198, 61–2.

50. The National Archives, London (henceforth TNA), ADM 116/1409.

51. TNA T 1/11971/25592 and CO 323/716.

52. For a critical investigation of the ‘spirit of 1914,’ see Verhey, The Spirit of 1914.

53. Reed Winkler, “Information Warfare in World War I.”

54. Ibid., 858.

55. Evans, “The Path to Freedom?” 219.

56. Letter from von Kühlmann to Bethmann-Hollweg, 27 March 1917, BArch R1001/7193, 35–42.

57. For a collection of suggestions, see Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin (henceforth PA AA) R120995 and R120996 and Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin (henceforth GStA) PK I. HA Rep. 77 tit. 949 11a.

58. Evans, “The Path to Freedom?”; and Tworek, “Political and Economic News in the Age of Multinationals.”

59. Reinhard Koch to State Secretary of the Foreign Office, 15 June 1916, BArch R1001/7192a, 68.

60. Strictly confidential letter from Lieutenant Karl von Lösch to Zimmermann, 27 January 1917, PA AA R120996.

61. Hauptmann Schlee from German Embassy in Istanbul, 26 February 1917, BArch R1001/7193, 42.

62. Bönker, “Global Politics and Germany’s Destiny ‘from an East Asian Perspective’,” 95.

63. Confidential letter from War Ministry von Stein to Chancellor and Foreign Office, 16 January 1917, BArch R1001/7192a, 183.

64. Meeting on the creation of a world wireless network for the German empire, 23 November 1916, BArch R1001/7192a, 148–53.

65. Telefunken plan to erect wireless receiver stations, 7 December 1916, BArch R1001/7192a, 174–7.

66. 30 November 1915, article in New York Times, forwarded by Telefunken to Imperial Post Office on 5 January 1916, BArch R1001/7192a, 24.

67. Telefunken report to Colonial Office, 12 January 1917, BArch R1001/7192a, 188.

68. Meetings and plans from Telefunken, December 1916, BArch R1001/7192a, 167–79.

69. Confidential letter from War Ministry von Stein to Chancellor and Foreign Office, 16 January 1917, BArch R1001/7192A, 184.

70. Strachan, The First World War, 205–7.

71. Meeting in Imperial Post Office, 25 October 1918, BArch R1001/7195, 39.

72. Secret letter from Telefunken to Imperial Post Office, 7 April 1917, BArch R1001/7193, 19–22.

73. Monthly reports in BArch R1001/7194 and 7195.

74. Strachan, The First World War, 73–5.

75. Letter from Telefunken to Imperial Post Office, 29 August 1916, BArch R1001/7192a, 122–3.

76. Letter to Telefunken from Colonial Office, 15 November 1916, BArch R1001/7192a, 142.

77. Secret meeting in Imperial Post Office on plans to erect wireless stations in China, 17 March 1917, BArch R1001/7193, 3–8.

78. Ibid.

79. Letters from Telefunken to Imperial Post Office, April 1917, BArch R1001/7193, 13–6, 45–8.

80. BArch R1001/7193, 30.

81. Letter from Telefunken to Imperial Post Office and Colonial Office, 15 May 1917, BArch R1001/7193, 69.

82. Larsen described his censorship evasion strategies in a letter to his sister (18 June 1917) and brother (25 July 1917), BArch R1001/7193, 172, 182.

83. Letter from BArch R1001/7193, 176–7.

84. Monthly report from Telefunken to Colonial Office, 9 January 1918, BArch R1001/7193, 270.

85. Article cited in letter from Telefunken to Colonial Office, 22 December 1917, BArch R1001/7193, 254.

86. Monthly report from Telefunken, 9 January 1918, BArch R1001/7193, 277.

87. Meeting in Imperial Post Office, 8 February 1918, BArch R1001/7193, 327.

88. Telefunken also transferred the operation of Nauen to the new subsidiary. Secret letter from Telefunken to Imperial Post Office, 3 December 1917, BArch R1001/7193, 241. The company had 10 million Marks of share capital. BArch R1001/7193, 404.

89. Letter from Telefunken to Imperial Post Office, 28 March 1918, 388–90.

90. Monthly report from Drahtloser Überseeverkehr (Telefunken’s subsidiary), BArch R1001/7194, 18–9.

91. Letter from Drahtloser Überseeverkehr, 3 May 1918, BArch R1001/7194, 27.

92. TNA FO 233/255.

93. E.g. TNA MT10/1314/11 and T1/11971/25592.

94. TNA T1/12269/988.

95. BArch R1001/7194, 253.

96. Drahtloser Übersee-Verkehr to Post Office, 31 October 1918, BArch R1001/7195, 11–26.

97. Contract between Federal Postal Ministry and Telefunken, April–May 1919, BArch R1001/7195, 160–5.

98. Bethmann Hollweg, Betrachtungen zum Weltkriege, 181–2.

99. E.g. Huber, Die französische Propaganda im Weltkrieg, 14.

100. Eltzbacher, Die Presse als Werkzeug der auswärtigen Politik, 57–8.

101. The Foreign Office interpreted the clause literally, allowing broadcasts from Norddeich, which Article 197 had omitted.

102. Gabriel, “Die offene Gesellschaft und ihre digitalen Feinde.”

103. Stelzenmüller, “We Have Good Cause to Abhor the Surveillance State.”

104. Ellsberg, “Edward Snowden: Saving us from the United Stasi of America.”