Soldatensender Calais
Soldatensender Calais (G.9) (German:
Soldatensender Calais operated on the mediumwave band on 833 kHz (360 metres), 714 kHz (420 metres), and 612 kHz (490 metres), with an associated shortwave station Kurzwellensender Atlantik (Shortwave Station Atlantic) created to broadcast to U-boat crews. The station used a 500 kilowatt transmitter originally built for American broadcaster WJZ, in Newark, New Jersey. This transmitter had lain unused at the factory after the United States Federal Communications Commission imposed a 50 kW power limit on all U.S. stations, and so RCA was glad to sell it overseas and the British Secret Service bought it for £165,000. Codenamed Aspidistra, it was installed in a huge, underground bunker near Crowborough in Sussex, England, where it was briefly the world's largest medium wave station, perfect for deceptive "black" operation.[2][page needed]
Soldatensender Calais operated from 6 p.m. local time to dawn. Unlike its predecessor Gustav Siegfried Eins, the programmes were live from the purposely-built broadcast studio at Milton Bryan in Bedfordshire[3] and presented by Agnes Bernelle using the codename "Vicky".
The method of
During the
Soldatensender's broadcast was repeated in print the next day in the PWE/OSS Nachrichten für die Truppe air-dropped newspaper for German troops.
The station closed on 30 April 1945 without any official announcement.
Other clandestine radio stations operated by the Political Warfare Executive and its forerunners during the war included Das wahre Deutschland (G.1), Sender der Europäischen Revolution (G.2), Gustav Siegfried Eins (G.3), Wehrmachtssender Nord (G.5) and the German Priest (G.7) station.
The Soviet-based German People's Radio also known as Deutscher Volkssender was inspired, in part, by Soldatensender Calais.[4]
See also
References
- ^ The Black Game, Ellic Howe, Michael Joseph, 1982, 0-7181-1718-2
- ^ Churchill's Wizards The British Genius for Deception 1914–1945 [page needed]
- ISBN 1-903747-35-X
- ISBN 0814332498.
Bibliography
- Black Boomerang—An Autobiography, Volume Two, (Secker & Warburg, 1962), D Sefton Delmer.
- The Black Game—British Subversive Operations Against the Germans During the Second World War, (Michael Joseph, 1982), Ellic Howe. ISBN 0-7181-1718-2
- The Secret History of PWE—Political Warfare Executive 1939–1945, (St Ermin's Press, 2002), David Garnett. ISBN 1-903608-08-2
External links
- G.9 Kurzwellensender Atlantik / Soldatensender Calais Daily Transcripts
- The controversy between the British Broadcasting Corporation and Political Warfare Executive over Soldatensender Calais
- Black Boomerang Sefton Delmer's out-of-print book.
- Gray and Black Radio Propaganda against Nazi Germany Extensively illustrated paper describing the Allied effort in World War II to undermine Germany through unidentified or misidentified radio broadcasts.
- Policy and Methods of Black Propaganda against Germany Official Memorandum signed by Brigadier-General Robert A. McClure, Chief of PWD/SHAEF, regarding policy and methods of black propaganda against Germany. Although signed by McClure the author of the memo is almost certainly Sefton Delmer.