Aktuelle Kamera
Encyclopedia
Aktuelle Kamera was the state television
newscast of the former German Democratic Republic
' onMouseout='HidePop("41262")' href="/topics/Deutscher_Fernsehfunk">Fernsehen der DDR
" between February 11, 1972 and March 14, 1990). On air from December 21, 1952 (daily broadcasts didn't take place until October 11, 1957) to December 14, 1990, Aktuelle Kamera was one of the main propaganda
tools of the East German government.
in East Germany on 17 June 1953. The director was removed and news was then sourced from official outlets. The newsroom was directly linked to the Politbüro
of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
's Central Committee. The programme presented reports that promoted socialism
and portrayed the West
in a negative manner. The programme also had a pro-government bias and typically didn't report on news that could potentially fuel anti-government sentiment.
newscasts, ZDF
's Heute at 7pm and the ARD
's Tagesschau at 8pm, both of which were widely watched in East Germany. The broadcast
lasted 20 minutes until 1972 when it was expanded to a full half-hour.
Starting in the mid-1970s, another 30-minute edition was presented on DDR2 (launched in 1969) around 9:30pm. Prior to that, both channels aired Aktuelle Kamera simultaneously at 7:30pm, then repeated the next morning when DDR1
signed on around 9:30am (later 8:30am), before airing school-oriented programming, co-produced by the DDR-FS and the GDR Education Ministry.
News summaries were added as the transmissions increased during the day. There was a bulletin at the end of the morning programmes (i.e. between 12 noon and 1pm) and another, the afternoon news update, at 5pm on DDR1. DDR2's evening schedule always began with the news at 6:45pm (later 5:45pm and 6:55pm). Late newscasts didn't appear until the 1970s, when DDR1 screened a headline update following the magazine programmes, around 10pm. From the 1980s, Aktuelle Kamera's final round-up was the last scheduled programme at the end of the day.
colour standard SECAM
rather than the PAL
encoding used in the Federal Republic of Germany. This move didn't hinder reception of West German TV as such, as the basic television standard
remained the same. It did prevent reception in colour by native East German TV sets though the majority of them were monochrome
(black and white) anyway.
East Germans responded by buying PAL
decoders for their SECAM
TV sets. Eventually the government in East Berlin
stopped paying attention to so-called "Republikflucht via Fernsehen", or "defection
via television" and from 1977 onwards permitted the sale of dual standard (PAL/SECAM) sets.
Aktuelle Kamera served as an example for the Estonian newscast Aktuaalne Kaamera that was first aired in Eesti Televisioon
on March 11, 1956. Aktuaalne Kaamera, after several changes in format, still goes on air as daily newscast.
in 1989, Aktuelle Kamera loosened its fidelity to the party line and began presenting fair reports about the events transforming East Germany at the time. On October 16, 1989, it showed its first pictures of the massive opposition rallies taking place every Monday in Leipzig
.
, all editions of Aktuelle Kamera were rebranded according to the period of the day they aired. The 12:50pm newscast was from then known as AK am Mittag ("CC at Midday"), the main broadcast at 7:30pm became Aktuelle Kamera am Abend ("Current Camera Evening"), and the news on DDR2 was rebranded as AK-Zwo. News summaries received the generic name of AK-Nachrichten (simply "CC-News") or AK-Kurznachrichten.
The last newscast as Aktuelle Kamera was anchored by Petra Kusch-Lück on December 14, 1990 at 1am on DFF1 (the former DDR1). The following day, DFF's newscasts were re-titled Aktuell ("Current"). East German television was reduced to one channel, after DFF1 folded, its transmitters becoming part of the Das Erste
network.
On January 1, 1992, the former DDR2 was regionalised and incorporated into the ARD
as the regional channel ("Dritte Programme") for the "New Länder
" under the names of MDR
-Fernsehen (Saxony
, Saxony-Anhalt
, Thuringia
), ORB-Fernsehen (Brandenburg
, later merged with Sender Freies Berlin
to form Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg
) and N3 (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern).
, about a woman who falls into a coma before the Berlin Wall comes down and doesn't emerge until several months hence, features Aktuelle Kamera as a plot point. The film deals with how her children create a "DDR in her bedroom", doing such things as putting food in old jars, wearing old clothes--and showing AK tapes heavily. One of the first things protagonist Alex's friend Denis does is get tapes of old East German shows: "about 30 Aktuelle Kamera, 11 Der schwarze Kanal
, six of Ein Kessel Buntes
(shown in subtitles as "that variety show you mentioned"), and three or four of Everyday Life in the West." When Alex said that his mother would notice that the news was old, his friend replied that "they're all the same old crap, anyway." Denis, an amateur filmmaker, even goes as far to produce fake newscasts that say that West Germans were streaming into the DDR to avoid neo-Nazi groups and unemployment, not the other way round.
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
newscast of the former German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
' onMouseout='HidePop("41262")' href="/topics/Deutscher_Fernsehfunk">Fernsehen der DDR
Deutscher Fernsehfunk
Deutscher Fernsehfunk , known from 1972 to 1990 as Fernsehen der DDR , was the state television broadcaster in East Germany.-Foundation:...
" between February 11, 1972 and March 14, 1990). On air from December 21, 1952 (daily broadcasts didn't take place until October 11, 1957) to December 14, 1990, Aktuelle Kamera was one of the main propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
tools of the East German government.
Editorial line
In the very early days of East German television Aktuelle Kamera was uncensored, and even critical. This situation changed after the television service reported accurately on the uprisingUprising of 1953 in East Germany
The Uprising of 1953 in East Germany started with a strike by East Berlin construction workers on June 16. It turned into a widespread anti-Stalinist uprising against the German Democratic Republic government the next day....
in East Germany on 17 June 1953. The director was removed and news was then sourced from official outlets. The newsroom was directly linked to the Politbüro
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
's Central Committee. The programme presented reports that promoted socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and portrayed the West
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
in a negative manner. The programme also had a pro-government bias and typically didn't report on news that could potentially fuel anti-government sentiment.
Schedule
Aktuelle Kameras main edition was originally scheduled at 8pm before being moved to 7:30pm in the 1960s, so as not to coincide with the major West GermanWest Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
newscasts, ZDF
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
's Heute at 7pm and the ARD
ARD (broadcaster)
ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...
's Tagesschau at 8pm, both of which were widely watched in East Germany. The broadcast
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...
lasted 20 minutes until 1972 when it was expanded to a full half-hour.
Starting in the mid-1970s, another 30-minute edition was presented on DDR2 (launched in 1969) around 9:30pm. Prior to that, both channels aired Aktuelle Kamera simultaneously at 7:30pm, then repeated the next morning when DDR1
Deutscher Fernsehfunk
Deutscher Fernsehfunk , known from 1972 to 1990 as Fernsehen der DDR , was the state television broadcaster in East Germany.-Foundation:...
signed on around 9:30am (later 8:30am), before airing school-oriented programming, co-produced by the DDR-FS and the GDR Education Ministry.
News summaries were added as the transmissions increased during the day. There was a bulletin at the end of the morning programmes (i.e. between 12 noon and 1pm) and another, the afternoon news update, at 5pm on DDR1. DDR2's evening schedule always began with the news at 6:45pm (later 5:45pm and 6:55pm). Late newscasts didn't appear until the 1970s, when DDR1 screened a headline update following the magazine programmes, around 10pm. From the 1980s, Aktuelle Kamera's final round-up was the last scheduled programme at the end of the day.
Popularity
In fact, television audiences largely ignored Aktuelle Kamera, as West German television was preferred (accounting for 10-15% of actual viewing). The East German authorities were well-aware of this, and went as far as adopting the FrenchFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
colour standard SECAM
SECAM
SECAM, also written SÉCAM , is an analog color television system first used in France....
rather than the PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
encoding used in the Federal Republic of Germany. This move didn't hinder reception of West German TV as such, as the basic television standard
Broadcast television system
Broadcast television systems are encoding or formatting standards for the transmission and reception of terrestrial television signals. There are three main analog television systems in current use around the world: NTSC, PAL, and SECAM...
remained the same. It did prevent reception in colour by native East German TV sets though the majority of them were monochrome
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
(black and white) anyway.
East Germans responded by buying PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
decoders for their SECAM
SECAM
SECAM, also written SÉCAM , is an analog color television system first used in France....
TV sets. Eventually the government in East Berlin
East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
stopped paying attention to so-called "Republikflucht via Fernsehen", or "defection
Defection
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state or political entity in exchange for allegiance to another. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause or doctrine to whom or to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.This term is also applied,...
via television" and from 1977 onwards permitted the sale of dual standard (PAL/SECAM) sets.
Aktuelle Kamera served as an example for the Estonian newscast Aktuaalne Kaamera that was first aired in Eesti Televisioon
Eesti Televisioon
Eesti Televisioon is the national public television station of Estonia. It made its first broadcast on 19 July 1955.The bulk of ETV's funding comes from government grant-in-aid, around 15% of which is in turn funded by the fees paid by Estonian commercial broadcasters in return for their...
on March 11, 1956. Aktuaalne Kaamera, after several changes in format, still goes on air as daily newscast.
Coverage during the last days of GDR
Almost a month before the opening of the Berlin WallBerlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
in 1989, Aktuelle Kamera loosened its fidelity to the party line and began presenting fair reports about the events transforming East Germany at the time. On October 16, 1989, it showed its first pictures of the massive opposition rallies taking place every Monday in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
.
Program's fate after Reunification
Following ReunificationGerman reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
, all editions of Aktuelle Kamera were rebranded according to the period of the day they aired. The 12:50pm newscast was from then known as AK am Mittag ("CC at Midday"), the main broadcast at 7:30pm became Aktuelle Kamera am Abend ("Current Camera Evening"), and the news on DDR2 was rebranded as AK-Zwo. News summaries received the generic name of AK-Nachrichten (simply "CC-News") or AK-Kurznachrichten.
The last newscast as Aktuelle Kamera was anchored by Petra Kusch-Lück on December 14, 1990 at 1am on DFF1 (the former DDR1). The following day, DFF's newscasts were re-titled Aktuell ("Current"). East German television was reduced to one channel, after DFF1 folded, its transmitters becoming part of the Das Erste
Das Erste
Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen , marketed as Das Erste , is the principal publicly owned television channel in Germany...
network.
On January 1, 1992, the former DDR2 was regionalised and incorporated into the ARD
ARD (broadcaster)
ARD is a joint organization of Germany's regional public-service broadcasters...
as the regional channel ("Dritte Programme") for the "New Länder
States of Germany
Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...
" under the names of MDR
MDR
MDR or mdr may refer to:* "MDR" is abbreviation of Master Document Register.* "MDR" is abbreviation of "Mort de rire" in french .* Mammalian diving reflex* Mandar language* Marina del Rey, California...
-Fernsehen (Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
, Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...
, Thuringia
Thuringia
The Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
), ORB-Fernsehen (Brandenburg
Brandenburg
Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
, later merged with Sender Freies Berlin
Sender Freies Berlin
Sender Freies Berlin was the ARD public radio and television service for West Berlin from 1 June 1954 until 1990 and for Berlin as a whole from German reunification until 30 April 2003...
to form Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg
Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg
Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg is an institution under public law for the states of Berlin and Brandenburg, situated in Berlin and Potsdam...
) and N3 (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern).
In popular culture
The 2003 film Good Bye Lenin!Good Bye Lenin!
Good Bye, Lenin! is a 2003 German tragicomedy film, released internationally in 2003. Directed by Wolfgang Becker, the cast includes Daniel Brühl, Katrin Saß, Chulpan Khamatova, and Maria Simon...
, about a woman who falls into a coma before the Berlin Wall comes down and doesn't emerge until several months hence, features Aktuelle Kamera as a plot point. The film deals with how her children create a "DDR in her bedroom", doing such things as putting food in old jars, wearing old clothes--and showing AK tapes heavily. One of the first things protagonist Alex's friend Denis does is get tapes of old East German shows: "about 30 Aktuelle Kamera, 11 Der schwarze Kanal
Der schwarze Kanal
Der schwarze Kanal 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.The programme was hosted by...
, six of Ein Kessel Buntes
Ein Kessel Buntes
Ein Kessel Buntes was a television variety show in the former East Germany. It broadcast from 1972 to 1992. A total of 113 shows were made, six per year. As the name implies, it was broadcast in color, first from the Friedrichstadtpalast theater, and later from the Palast der Republik, as well as...
(shown in subtitles as "that variety show you mentioned"), and three or four of Everyday Life in the West." When Alex said that his mother would notice that the news was old, his friend replied that "they're all the same old crap, anyway." Denis, an amateur filmmaker, even goes as far to produce fake newscasts that say that West Germans were streaming into the DDR to avoid neo-Nazi groups and unemployment, not the other way round.
Hosts
Aktuelle Kamera's principal presenters, 1952-90:- Herbert Köfer
- Klaus Feldmann
- Elisabeth Süncksen
- Hans-Dieter Lange
- Angelika Unterlauf
- Wolfgang MeyerWolfgang MeyerWolfgang Meyer is a German clarinetist.Meyer studied clarinet at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart, and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover along with his sister Sabine Meyer. He has led masterclasses in Brazil, Italy, Japan, Canada and Finland. He is a member of Trio di...
- Wolfgang Lippe
- Matthias Schliesing
- Renate Krawielicki
- Anne-Rose Neumann
- Peter Kessel
- Christel Kern
- Klaus AckermannKlaus AckermannKlaus Ackermann is a retired German footballer. He spent ten seasons in the Bundesliga with Borussia Mönchengladbach, 1. FC Kaiserslautern and Borussia Dortmund.-External links:...
- Heidrun Schulz