Beethoven against Hitler
Leningrad Radio during the Blockade
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Ol’ga Berggol’ts gave words to what many survivors felt in their hearts: “Nowhere has radio meant so much as in our city during the war.” For the besieged, radio was the sole source of information and the only link to the outside world; at the same time, it brought encouragement and comfort. It belonged to everyday life in the besieged city just like air to breath. Despite censorship, fear, and terror, journalists and poets succeeded in telling the people the truth. Later, only a few recorded broadcasts escaped destruction by Stalin’s thugs. Journalist Lev S. Marchasev came to the radio station for the first time as a schoolboy at the end of 1942.
(Osteuropa 8-9/2011, pp. 215–230)