Aktuelle Kamera

Infobox Television
show_name = Aktuelle Kamera


caption = "Aktuelle Kamera" logo from the late-1980s
format = News program
runtime = 0:30 minutes (per episode)
starring = "See Hosts below"
country = flagicon|East Germany East Germany
network = Fernsehen der DDR
first_aired = December 21, 1952
last_aired = December 14, 1990
num_episodes = over 12,000
imdb_id = 0434657
tv_com_id =

Aktuelle Kamera (in English roughly translated as "Current Camera") was the state television newscast of the former German Democratic Republic (German: Deutscher Fernsehfunk, known as "Fernsehen der DDR" between February 11, 1972 and March 14, 1990). On air from December 21, 1952 (daily broadcasts weren't until October 11, 1957, however) to December 14, 1990, "Aktuelle Kamera" was one of the main propaganda 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 uprising 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 be seen as fuelling anti-government sentiment.

chedule

"Aktuelle Kamera"'s 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 German 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.

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 at 5PM on the first channel. 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 programs, around 10PM. From the 1980s, Aktuelle Kamera's final round-up was the last scheduled program 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).Fact|date=March 2007 The East German authorities were well-aware of this, and went as far as adopting the French color 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 however prevent reception "in colour" by native East German TV sets. However, the majority of East German sets were monochrome (black and white) anyway.

However, 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".

Coverage during the last days of GDR

Almost a month before the opening of the Berlin Wall 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.

Program's fate after Reunification

Following Reunification, 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).

In popular culture

The 2003 film "Good Bye Lenin!", 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 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 Meyer
*Wolfgang Lippe
*Matthias Schliesing
*Renate Krawielicki
*Anne-Rose Neumann
*Peter Kessel
*Christel Kern
*Klaus Ackermann
*Heidrun Schulz

References

*http://www.mdr.de/damals-in-der-ddr/lexikon/1516374-hintergrund-1601149.html