Hans Weber, the Soviet Fake Underground Radio That Infuriated the SS

Among the many radio propaganda operations conducted during the Second World War, some deliberately played on ambiguity regarding their origin. Hans Weber is a characteristic example: presented as a clandestine radio station broadcasting from within the Reich and run by Nazi dissidents, it was in reality transmitted from the Soviet Union. Its effectiveness rested on a carefully constructed staging, exploiting both the marginalization of the SA and the political credibility of certain German communist exiles.

SA frustration, fertile ground for disinformation

The SA (Sturmabteilung, assault section), the Nazi Party’s militia, had played a central role in Hitler’s rise during the 1920s and early 1930s. A mass organization recruiting largely among the unemployed and the lower classes, it portrayed itself as the “revolutionary” force of National Socialism.

However, their political elimination during the Night of the Long Knives in June 1934, when their leader Ernst Röhm was assassinated, reduced the SA to a subordinate organization. Deprived of real power, eclipsed by the SS and increasingly confined to secondary or military roles, they harbored deep-seated resentment.

It is precisely this situation that the Hans Weber station exploited. By staging a supposed internal SA rebellion, embodied by the character of Hans Weber, the radio addressed a real, numerous, frustrated, and ideologically ambiguous group. Weber’s discourse emphasized the regime’s betrayal of the SA. Hitler, he claimed, had promised jobs and social recognition, but had delivered only war, destruction, and danger to families.

Walter Ulbricht and Fritz Erpenbeck, the political architects of the operation

The station was an initiative of Walter Ulbricht and Fritz Erpenbeck, two major figures of German communism in exile in Moscow.

Walter Ulbricht was one of the leading figures of the German Communist Party (KPD). Having taken refuge in the Soviet Union after 1933, he became a central actor in Moscow’s German-language propaganda during the war. Pragmatic, disciplined, and closely tied to the Soviet apparatus, Ulbricht grasped very early the importance of media in psychological warfare. After 1945, he would play a decisive role in establishing the East German regime, becoming the GDR’s principal leader until the early 1970s.

Fritz Erpenbeck, a writer, playwright, and communist intellectual, complemented this apparatus with his cultural and media expertise. Also exiled in Moscow, he actively contributed to the design of the broadcasts—their tone, style, and narrative credibility. Erpenbeck paid particular attention to constructing plausible characters and to the use of political rumors, internal conflicts, and pseudo-confidential details.

Both explicitly drew inspiration from British “black radio” methods—stations posing as authentic German voices in order to undermine confidence in the Nazi regime.

Hans Weber, a fictional dissident in the service of subversion

Hans Weber, presented as an SA cadre or activist turned dissident, became the station’s central voice. On 25 August 1941, the British press reported that he addressed the SA directly: “Some of you say that the Führer gave you work. But your work was to prepare for war. Now your work has been destroyed, and you and your families are in danger.”

The station claimed to be actively sought by the Gestapo. On 29 August 1941, after several days of silence, Weber stated on air that the secret police had tried unsuccessfully to locate it. He also mentioned supposed quarrels at the top of the state, notably between Goebbels and Ribbentrop, allegedly unable to tolerate one another even in Hitler’s presence. The political message was explicit: “Hitler is the enemy of Germany. If he is gotten rid of, the war will end.”

A daily chronicle of rumors and false information

Each evening, for about twenty minutes on shortwave, SA-man Hans Weber broadcast information, rumors, and denunciations. Even the British press fell for it, relaying the black radio’s false information. On 1 September 1941, it claimed to reveal details of a violent argument between Hitler and Mussolini, with Hitler demanding Italian troops for the Eastern Front.

On 19 September, Hans Weber repeated a rumor originating in Moscow according to which Göring had fallen from favor. The radio also attacked officers such as Commander Kuemmel, accused of living a life of luxury and partying while SA men fought at the front.

In May 1942, the station asserted that the Italian royal family had contacted the Allies to negotiate a separate peace. On 27 August 1942, it finally announced that “95 collaborators had been executed by mistake by the Nazis in France,” the authorities having confused them with hostages when they were in fact a delegation traveling to Germany.

In 1942, the Hans Weber program was merged with another Soviet fake clandestine radio station. Its concrete impact on the SA remains difficult to measure, but it is known that the SS actively sought to jam the station.