Deutscher Kurzwellensender Atlantik

The Deutscher Kurzwellensender Atlantik, was a British propaganda radio station operational during the Second World War. The station was the idea of the Political Warfare Executive's Sefton Delmer and broadcast from the Aspidistra in Sussex, England, between 1943 and 1945. The radio station's transmission signal was strong enough to be received in all the Atlantic Ocean, and thus reach its intended audience, German submariners. The station broadcast popular dance music sourced from Germany and the US, as well as detailed news from Germany. Atlantiksender focused primarily on aspects that would tend to reduce the morale of the submariners in the Kriegsmarine and to try and convince them that the Allies knew everything about their daily and overall military operations and strategies.

Establishment

Deutscher Kurzwellensender Atlantik was led by Sefton Delmer, the Daily Expresss former Berlin correspondent, for the British government's Political Warfare Executive (PWE). Delmer had conceived of a propaganda station broadcasting to German sailors in late 1942 and sought permission from Donald McLachlan, head of the Naval Intelligence Division's propaganda sub-section NID 17z, during an alcohol-heavy luncheon around Christmas. The idea was then championed by the PWE's head R. H. Bruce Lockhart. ==Operation ==

Operation

Delmer received permission to use Aspidistra, a large antenna array near Maresfield, Sussex, that had been built by the Radio Corporation of America. It broadcast between 6 pm and 8 am daily on a number of shortwave channels including 6210, 9545 and 9760. The station has been categorised as black propaganda, purporting to be a German radio station but broadcasting information intended to undermine German morale, and as grey propaganda, being of no stated affiliation. Its particular focus was on broadcasting to German U-boat crews. The German-born actress Agnes Bernelle provided an attractive female voice for the station under the name "Vicky". The German-born singer Marlene Dietrich sang some German songs for broadcast on what, she was told, was a US-run Voice of America station. == Impact ==

Impact

Most German listeners recognised that the station was of Allied origin but continued listening due to the quality of its broadcast material and preferred it to German propaganda stations. The level of detail reported was intended to demonstrate that British intelligence knew so much about German operations that it was pointless for captured Germans to withhold anything during interrogation. The station broadcast an appeal to the U-boats to "Schluß zu machen" (put an end to it) on 29 April 1945, in the final days of the war in Europe, but this was unsuccessful. == References ==

Source: Wikipedia ↗

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