The German Freedom Station : The Secret Anti-Nazi Radio That Eluded the Gestapo

At the beginning of 1937, a new radio station appeared on the shortwave bands. Operated by the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), the station broadcast for one hour every evening at 10 p.m. on the 29.8-metre band (10,067 kHz). A few months later, the clandestine broadcaster became known as the German Freedom Station (Deutscher Freiheitssender), as reported by the communist newspaper L’Humanité on April 18, 1937, while covering a congress of German communists in Paris: “The assembly enthusiastically welcomed a communication made on behalf of the German Communist Party by Comrade Walter Ulbricht, according to which the secret KPD transmitter on the 29.8-meter wavelength would henceforth be placed at the disposal of the emerging German Popular Front under the name German Freedom Station“. Walter Ulbricht would later become the leader of East Germany (the GDR), while Gerhart Eisler, who directed the station, would go on to oversee East German broadcasting.

Thanks to recordings preserved by the Imperial War Museum, it is possible to get a sense of what listeners heard on the Deutscher Freiheitssender.

The Nazis React

The station’s popularity and wide reception across Europe infuriated Joseph Goebbels, the chief architect of Nazi propaganda. According to the communist magazine Regards, he responded with four measures: 1. To operate a jamming station against the secret transmitter; 2. To take all possible measures to discover the transmitter s location; 3. To mobilize fascist organizations against both the station and its listeners; 4. To carry out surprise police searches in suspected homes and impose severe penalties on anyone caught listening. The newspaper later reported that a jamming transmitter was installed in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) in East Prussia. A Regards article vividly described the ensuing battle of the airwaves after monitoring the clandestine broadcasts.

The Airwaves War

“Hardly had he begun speaking when the racket started again louder than ever: Rrrr, tactactac, sss! The broadcast became completely unintelligible. Then the duel began the chase, the pursuit through the ether! We remained faithful to our transmitter as it changed wavelengths. We carefully adjusted the dial and heard it again. It was now broadcasting on 30.8 meters. Its revelations about the shipment of troops and weapons to Spain for Hitler s intervention came through loud and clear. It was the clandestine station that exposed these facts, which the swastika dictatorship wanted at all costs to hide from the people !” “

“Meanwhile, the jamming station howled wildly on 29.8 meters. Its own noise was so overwhelming that it failed to realize how useless its efforts were. An observation post must have informed it the pursuer moved ever closer, panting, trying to catch us. We could clearly follow its manoeuvres; the clandestine announcer noticed as well, and his calm voice informed us: Attention! We are slipping away! The broadcast continued unhindered on another wavelength. After a while, when the pursuer drew near again, the announcer declared: We are returning to our original wavelength ! “

A Game of Cat and Mouse for Listeners

The reporter whose article was unsigned continued : “But there, too, the uproar immediately resumed. The Hitlerite jamming station was operating on several wavelengths in an effort to neutralize its hated enemy. The chase then took on a fantastic rhythm, giving no respite to the listener trying to follow: now on 30.8, then on 30.5, back to 30.6, then down to 30.1. Struggle, pursuit, evasions and so it was every evening. Victory remained with the clandestine station. Even when it became unintelligible for a few moments, the experienced listener followed it through all its manoeuvres; indeed, he did so with pleasure, like an athlete breaking a record, because every word received and understood was a small victory over fascism.“

But Where Was 29.8 ?

Goebbels tasked the Gestapo with finding the transmitter. Where was 29.8 really located? On air, the station s announcers deliberately sowed confusion by claiming to broadcast from different parts of Germany. One day they were supposedly in Hamburg, the next somewhere on the other side of the Reich. Was the transmitter mounted on a truck? Hidden aboard a barge? The French communist press delighted in the mystery.

As L’Humanité reported: “Thirty experts were assigned to locate the station, which announced itself at different times as broadcasting from Berlin, Hamburg, Wuppertal, southern Germany, and finally Breslau. Even the Hitlerite press displayed great confusion. At one point it claimed to have located the station in the Soviet Union near the Polish border; a few days later it reported that it was in Valencia. A week afterward, the Nationalzeitung of Essen, a newspaper aligned with Goering, asserted that the station had been discovered in Luxembourg.“

So where was the German Freedom Station really? The answer lies in a date: 28 March 1939. That was the day Madrid fell to Franco s forces. For several days beforehand, the station had fallen silent. The reason was simple: the German communist broadcasts had been transmitted using the powerful radio facilities of the Spanish Republic.

Back on the Air This Time from Paris

The station remained silent for only a few months. German communists reorganised, and in early October 1939 the broadcaster returned to the airwaves under the same name and on the same frequency. This time, however, it was carried by French broadcasting services, and its studio was located in Paris. This was despite the fact that the communist press had been banned in France since late August following the Nazi Soviet Pact. Yet war had broken out, and French authorities viewed the station as a useful thorn in Hitler s side. Nevertheless, the station never regained its former influence.

An Irony of History

The story soon took an ironic turn for France. In December 1939, the Germans established a fake communist radio station, Radio Humanité, in an attempt to influence and destabilise French public opinion. In a striking irony, a clandestine Nazi radio station posing as a communist broadcaster adopted the name L Humanité itself.