Der Unheimliche Mr. Heimlich

"We will now play a request for Frauelein Griselda Schmidtloser of District Wilmersdorf," said the disc jockey. But what the frauelein heard was not Buttons & Bows; like most Germans, she preferred Liszt and Brahms.

With such slight Teutonic flavorings, some well-known U.S. radio techniques (disc jockeys, quiz shows, children's programs, folksy announcers) are being used by Berlin's station RIAS (Rundfunk im Amerikanischen Sektor). The blend has proved so palatable that in a recent poll 80% of Berlin's radio listeners voted for RIAS over the six competing Soviet-controlled stations.

Headlines in Rhyme. This week RIAS, powered by a 20,000-watt transmitter that reaches as far as the Czech border, begins its fourth year of broadcasting, under the direction of rangy young William F. Heimlich, 37, of Columbus, Ohio. As a lieutenant colonel, Heimlich arrived in Berlin in 1945 with the first American units. A former announcer, producer and writer at station WOSU in Columbus, Heimlich became director of RIAS a year ago, pepped it up with special events in addition to regular Voice of America programs. "After Goebbels," he says, "the Germans are fed up with long propaganda tirades over the air. While the Russians continue in this way, we have borrowed heavily from U.S. broadcasting methods to put real zing in our programs."

Much of the zing is supplied by pretty, blonde Christina Ohlsen, 25, who graduated to a RIAS microphone by way of dancing school, a Nazi concentration camp and postwar German cabarets. Christina comes on the air pretending to be a newsboy, hawking the day's headlines in rhymes which frequently poke fun at the Communists. Her most popular tagline, delivered in a knowing, childish singsong, comes at the end of her report of any pompous Communist proclamation: "Das versteh' ich nicht," she says wonderingly, "das versteh' ich wirklich nicht! [That I don't understand, that I really don't understand!]." Throughout the Soviet zone, her phrase appears morning after morning scribbled below some grandiose Communist poster.

RIAS consistently stays on top of the news. By monitoring Soviet stations 24 hours a day, RIAS picked up the first flash of Jan Masaryk's plunge from a Prague window. That night, Heimlich's staff rounded up politicians and union leaders to join in a Masaryk memorial. Communists, uncertain of the party line, refused to appear, so RIAS broadcast a few moments of silence, explained that the time was reserved for the Reds.

In December, when Christmas carols were banned by the Russian military government, RIAS's Uncle Tobias (the RIAS equivalent of Uncle Don) invited children to sing carols in the huge Titania Palast. More than 5,000 showed up. Two repeat programs had to be held and RIAS beamed the show "especially for the benefit of those Kinder not fortunate enough to sing carols this Christmas."

Fans in Leipzig. At a cost of $300,000 per month (furnished by the U.S. military government), Heimlich runs RIAS with the help of a big staff that includes three other Americans and over 600 full and part-time German employees. There are a few spot commercials. "If it weren't for the blockade," says Heimlich, "we could get enough advertising to make this a paying proposition."

The best measure of RIAS's effect is the reaction of the Communists, who have made a sneering pun on Heimlich's name; they call him "Der unheimliche Mr. Heimlich [the uncanny Mr. Canny]." Periodically the Russians try to jam RIAS: habitually the Soviet press screams against it. But every week, more than 1,000 letters pour into RIAS from the Soviet zone. From Jena and Leipzig, Dresden and Potsdam, as well as Berlin, the letters urge RIAS "to keep up the fight."

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