"Reading you loud and clear..."

 For the next quarter of a century, on a program called Letters Without Signature, the BBC broadcast these letters, read aloud.

The show, which ran until 1974, was very popular: Thousands of GDR citizens wrote to the BBC, using a series of cover addresses in West Berlin. But the program had been all but forgotten until German writer Susanne Schädlich came across it in a BBC archive a few years ago. 
 

This documentary tells the story of Cold War propaganda, and its effects on real lives both in the East and West. Where the BBC saw themselves as giving voice to the voiceless, the Stasi considered the British radio broadcast a smear campaign.
As a result of the broadcast, a cat-and-mouse game developed between the BBC and the Stasi over cover addresses and code words. Postal checks conducted throughout the GDR led to the discovery and persecution of letter writers, who were threatened with drastic prison sentences. Still, people kept writing. 

 

 

When the BBC program’s host, Austin Harrison, made trips to the GDR, he was shadowed around the clock. Unique surveillance footage of Harrison at the Leipzig Spring Fair provides insight into the Stasi’s methods. Previously unpublished documents, photos and tape recordings, as well as archival material from British and German sources, bring to life the high-stakes propaganda clash that took place between East and West, via the radio.

Broadcasting Hours: 

DW English

FRI 14.05.2021 – 01:15 UTC
FRI 14.05.2021 – 05:15 UTC
SAT 15.05.2021 – 15:15 UTC
SUN 16.05.2021 – 19:15 UTC
MON 17.05.2021 – 09:15 UTC

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MON 17.05.2021 – 09:15 UTC

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