75 years ago, on 1 January 1948, the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR, forerunner of NDR and WDR) became Germany's first "public service" broadcaster. A few days earlier, Hans Bredow had explained to the Germans what that meant and why broadcasting should be organised federally. SWR2 Archivradio has put Hans Bredow's speech on the new legal form of organisation of broadcasting
online (in German).
More about the history of the NWDR
Since the end of the war, the Northwest German Broadcasting Corporation was the joint broadcasting organisation for the entire British occupation zone, with its headquarters in Hamburg and a broadcasting centre in Cologne. It emerged from the Nordische Rundfunk AG (NORAG) and was a founding member of the ARD in 1950.
In the project "History of Northwest German Broadcasting", a team led by
Dr. Hans-Ulrich Wagner at the HBI, in cooperation with the NDR, WDR and the University of Hamburg, dealt in the early 2000s with the transformation process of NWDR after the end of the Second World War in terms of media history. The NWDR had started as a station of the British military government in May 1945.
- von Rüden, Peter; Wagner, Hans-Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.) (2005): Die Geschichte des Nordwestdeutschen Rundfunk. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe
- Wagner, Hans-Ulrich (Hrsg.) (2008): Die Geschichte des Nordwestdeutschen Rundfunk; Bd. 2. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe
