Nachrichten

Der schwarze Kanal ("The Black Channel") was a series of political propaganda programmes broadcast weekly between 1960 and 1989 by East German television. Each edition was made up of recorded extracts from recent West German television programmes re-edited to include a Communist commentary.[1]


Penetration of West German TV reception (grey) in East Germany for ARD channels.
The programme was hosted by Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler and began on 21 March 1960. The name "Black channel" is a play on words: in the German language "black channel" is a euphemism by plumbers for a sewer (compare English soil pipe). The name and the concept of the programme were originally a reaction to a West German programme named Die rote Optik ("The red viewpoint") authored by journalist Thilo Koch, which ran between 1958 and 1960 and analysed East German television clips.[2] Although the programme was primarily intended for domestic (East German) consumption, the programme makers (at least in the early days) hoped that those in the West who could receive DFF would also watch.[2]

Early life[edit]
Schnitzler was born in Berlin the son of German vice consul Julius Eduard von Schnitzler, scion of a Cologne banking dynasty, who had been ennobled by the state of Prussia in 1913. Karl-Eduard attended a boarding school at Bad Godesberg and joined the Sozialistische Arbeiter-Jugend youth organisation of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1932. After receiving his school-leaving qualification in 1937 he began studying medicine at the University of Freiburg.

Career[edit]
Abandoning his medical studies, Schnitzler trained for a business career in Cologne and became a merchant.

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Schnitzler was drafted into the Wehrmacht, but was taken prisoner by British forces in 1944, following the Battle of Normandy. After his capture, he began to work for the British Ministry of Information and for the German-language service of the BBC, where his talents as a broadcaster were soon recognised. After his release in 1945, he returned to the British Zone of Allied occupied Germany and became an employee of the British controlled radio station Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR) in Hamburg. He was transferred to their Cologne studios on 1 January 1946, where he was assigned to the post of Associate Director and Head of the Politics Department. His political bias soon became apparent to his superiors and he was removed from his position in Cologne and returned to the NWDR's Hamburg offices until his eventual dismissal in 1947, after being accused of spreading communist propaganda.

Schnitzler moved to the Soviet occupation zone...