Radio Vorarlberg : Broadcasting in French-Occupied Austria

At the end of the war, Austria, like Germany, was divided into four Allied occupation zones (Soviet, American, British, and French). The French Army was assigned the western part of the country, namely the regions of Vorarlberg and Tyrol, as well as part of the capital, Vienna. Austria s radio facilities were also divided into four networks. The Soviets controlled Radio Wien (Radio Vienna), which broadcast using two medium-wave transmitters of 7 and 2.5 kW, as well as four shortwave transmitters ranging from 250 to 500 watts in power.

The Americans established Radio Rot-Weiß-Rot (Red-White-Red, the colors of the Austrian flag) using three medium-wave transmitters: Vienna (20 kW 1420 kc), Linz (15 kW 1294 kc), and Salzburg (5 kW 1267 kc). The British operated the Alpenland network with a powerful 100 kW medium-wave transmitter (886 kc) and two smaller transmitters, one of 15 kW in Graz and another of 5 kW in Klagenfurt. The French controlled the Sendergruppe West, the western radio network, based in Innsbruck (Radio Innsbruck) and Dornbirn (Radio Vorarlberg).

Radio Vorarlberg Above: the Austrian presenter of the station. Her face was blurred in the press because she had received threats.

Radio Vorarlberg, The first free Austrian radio station

In May 1945, it became the first free Austrian radio station to go on the air. A radio engineer, Otto Schubert, managed to persuade an SS officer to remove the explosives attached to the Dornbirn antenna, which was still linked to the Reich broadcasting network (RRG) via Innsbruck. A few hours before the arrival of the first armored units of the French First Army, the engineer who had cut the transmission link with Innsbruck earlier that afternoon was able to broadcast, on May 2, 1945, at 9:28 p.m., an announcement from the Austrian Radio of Vorarlberg.

At first, the station s equipment was extremely basic, and the improvised studio was installed in the air-raid shelter beneath Dornbirn City Hall. Once the situation stabilized, the studio moved to the second floor of the building (pictured above). Equipment was gathered locally or transported by the French authorities.

At the time, Radio Vorarlberg was the only European radio station equipped with a tape recorder, shown in the photograph below.

In July 1945, the French Army deployed to Tyrol in accordance with the occupation-zone agreement and took control of the Aldrans transmitter, which broadcast Radio Innsbruck. The programs of Radio Vorarlberg (578 m 519 kc) were produced by Austrians, with French censorship limited to news broadcasts. In the photograph, Lieutenant Séguy, the French announcer, can be seen on air alongside Miss Pfrogner, the Austrian announcer.

Miss de Saint-Martin was in charge of the station s record library.

Radio Vorarlberg Returns to Austrian Control

During 1946, the French Army gradually handed over full management of the station to the local authorities after an agreement was reached, since much of the equipment had originally come from French broadcasting services. French-language broadcasts, directed by André Blanc, remained on air, although they declined sharply after the summer of 1949 as French troop numbers in Austria decreased.

The occupation of Austria by the four Allied powers ended on October 26, 1955.

Radio Vorarlberg and Radio Innsbruck became part of the new Austrian public broadcasting service, Österreichisches Rundspruchwesen, now known as ORF. The antennas of Radio Innsbruck.