Norag and the Culture of the 1920’s in Hamburg

Under the umbrella of the interdisciplinary research association on the cultural history of Hamburg (www.fkghh.uni-hamburg.de), from 1 October 2008 to 30 September 2009 academics from various subject areas comprehensively investigated the Hamburg cultural scene during the Weimar Republic and passed on their results to a wider public in 2010. Within the context of this project, the “Research Centre for the History of Broadcasting in Northern Germany” was responsible for working on the area of radio.

In the 1920’s, a new mass medium appeared in the shape of radio and rapidly developed into an decisive cultural factor. As an important metropolitan centre in northern Germany, Hamburg became the seat of one of the large regional broadcasters. On 2 May 1924, the regular broadcasts of Norag, the “Nordischer Rundfunk Aktiengesellschaft” [Nordic Broadcasting Company] began broadcasting. As an institution comprising staff as well as varied programme offerings, Norag in a few years became a definitive actor in the areas of literature, of musical life and of entertainment, as well as a decisive force in terms of the regional culture and the Low German language.