Radio and television in the capital: What is missing: Museum for radio and television

There are a good dozen posters, nothing more. But they operate as an exhibition: “On the air!”. The posters hang in the Theater Ost, which has established itself in the remains of the former television center in Berlin-Adlershof. The makers Claudia Opitz and Sebastian Köpcke want to commemorate 70 years of local and television history. The starting point is December 21, 1952, shortly after Stalin’s last birthday, the first German television went on the air, four days before the start of Northwest German television in Hamburg. It is reminiscent of ideologically colored programs such as the “Aktuelle Kamera” or the “Schwarzen Kanal”, but also of what stood for artistic quality, educational standards and successful entertainment: “Outsiders – Frontrunners” for example and of course the “Sandman”. Exhibition organizer Köpcke has started to record eyewitness interviews and publish them on his YouTube channel.

TV salon in the cinematheque

Jump from Moriz-Seeler-Straße to Potsdamer Straße, to the Deutsche Kinemathek, which sees itself as a museum for film and television. The television department is manageable, manager Klaudia Wick came up with the brilliant idea of ​​generating attention with the “television salon” in presence and online. ARD talker Sandra Maischberger was just a guest.

In the overall landscape of Berlin’s museums and exhibitions, both projects are small in size – and that in a city where electronic media began. On October 28, 1923 it was said “Attention, attention, this is the Berlin Vox-Haus transmission station on wave 400 meters”, with the “German Hour” the first official radio program in Germany was broadcast. We’ve already talked about the beginning of television. Doesn’t it come as a surprise that there isn’t a single place of remembrance, preservation or reflection dedicated to these mass media in the capital?

Will someone say: Another museum, just don’t! First of all: there can never be enough museums if people want to know where they come from and where they want to go. No past, no present, no future. Radio and television are powerful companions, essential sources of meaning and nonsense, a life without radio and TV is, you know.

And anyone who ever doubts that at least television cannot be exhibited in an attractive way should remember the famous exhibition “The Dream of the Seer” in the Gasometer in Oberhausen. That was in 1997, nothing comparable has happened since. All attempts to establish a television museum have come to nothing, these media are media without memory. Strange but true. Radio and television are made by people for people.

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