[Milsurplus] DKE38 People's Radio

[Hubert Miller]

I copied this from a European militaria dealer's website. It's a concise explanation of this 2-valve Reich propaganda LW and MW radio and why the
apparently common myth that the radio "was designed to be unable to receive foreign broadcasts" is so untrue.
Not so O.T. as you might think; you see often photos of military men in their quarters and camps listening to such radios.
-Hue

quoted:
GERMAN WWII RADIO KLEINEMPFÄNGER GERMAN PEOPLE RECEIVER
The Volksempfängerwas a range of radio receivers developed by engineer Otto Griessing at the request of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.
The purpose of the Volksempfänger-program was to make radio reception technology affordable to the general public. Joseph Goebbels realized the great propaganda potential of this relatively new medium and thus considered widespread availability of receivers highly important.
The Volksempfänger was designed to be produced as cheaply as possible, as a consequence they generally lacked shortwave bands and did not follow the practice, common at the time, of marking the approximate dial positions of major European stations on its tuning scale. Only German and Austrian stations were marked and cheaper models only listed arbitrary numbers. Sensitivity was limited to reduce production costs further, so long as the set could receive Deutschlandsender and the local Reichssender it was considered sensitive enough, although foreign stations could be received after dark with an external antenna, particularly as stations such as the BBC European service increased transmission power during the course of the war.
Listening to foreign stations became a criminal offense in Nazi Germany when the war began, while in some occupied territories,
such as Poland, all radio listening by non-German citizens was outlawed (later in the war this prohibition was extended to a few other occupied countries coupled with mass seizures of radio sets). Penalties ranged from fines and confiscation of radios to, particularly later in the war, sentencing to a concentration camp or capital punishment. Nevertheless, such clandestine listening was widespread in many Nazi-occupied countries and (particularly later in the war) in Germany itself. The Germans also attempted radio jamming of some enemy stations with limited success.
This Deutscher Kleinempfaenger (more properly spelled Kleinempfänger) DKE 38 radio was manufactured in 1938 in Germany.
The name means "German small radio." The DKE in the model designation stands for the words Deutscher Kleinempfänger and the 38 signifies the year of manufacture.
Using only two tubes, it's one of the simplest tube radios that you will ever come across. The Kleinempfänger was designed to be simple, and therefore cheap, so that as many Germans as possible could buy one. It cost only 35 Reichsmarks, roughly one week's wages for an average worker of that day.
This was a propaganda radio, in short.

http://www.ffmilitaria.com/viewphoto.php?shoph=66433&phqu=10


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