Whatever happed to ...?

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Whatever happed to ...?

by StimmeDerDDR @ 2008-02-14 – 12:37:08

A few RBI names I recall.

Jean Jones, Robin Parker, Marjorie Milner, Robin Mitchel, Irma Schmergel and Bob Hamilton.

Wolfram Hess who presented the radio DX programme was one of the few who was employed by Deutche Welle. He died in February 2007.

Hardy Graupner went on to work for Deutche Welle.

The great John Peet, editor of Democratic German Report, died in 1988.

Arnold Selby, who worked on the Africa service, and was a member of the South African Communist Party, died in 2002.

Mvula ya Nangolo was a SWAPO exile who presented a youth programme on RBI, is now a poet and journalist in Namibia.

Anyone know where they are now? Any memories to share? Any more names to add?
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17 Comments on Whatever happed to ...?

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- Chris Dennison (Visitor)
- 2008-02-29 @ 00:23:38
I still have recordings of RBI staff reading out my letters on air - Jean Jones included!
- - StimmeDerDDR
  - 2008-02-29 @ 07:11:10
  Great Chris. :-) Any chance of uploading some of your recordings?
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- - Roger Tidy (Visitor)
  - 2008-02-29 @ 20:17:12
  I think Jean Jones joined RBI in the late seventies or early 1980s. The name Bob Hamilton is also familiar to me. I remember hearing him speaking about owning a Trabant (which maybe wasn't something worth boasting about!) But my main memory from that era (mid to late 80s) is of a programme called "Give Peace a Chance" which campaigned against the basing of Cruise missiles in Western Europe and which opened, appropriately enough, with part of the Lennon song of the same name.
  
  I thought RBI in the 80s was especially good for young listeners, who it seemed to target. However, my fondest memories of RBI remain those from the mid to late 1960s when I often got a name-check on Thank You for Writing.
  
  Oh, another name I remember (again from the 60s) is a woman who often read the news whose name sounded like Ursula Ryder).
  - - Pastor Klemm (Visitor)
    - 2009-05-21 @ 16:51:10
    This page brings back memories. As an idealistic young man with both a amateur radio license and an FCC engineering license, who worked in full-power, big city radio as a teenager (a rarity), I was impressed enough with some of the ideals and propaganda expressed on RBI, Radio Moscow and some of the other communist era stations that I actually went to an Embassy during a school trip to D.C. and discussed defection. Even though I was young, the staff explained the process and asked me to go home and think about it long and hard. If I was still interested, I was told with my education and skills, I could be accepted, but there would be no turning back even for a young age. They warned me not to make or request such a decision for the wrong reasons -- anger at parents, peers, etc. -- or to make it quickly because I was over legal age and such an act could not be undone.
    
    I am so glad, as a grew older and wiser, that I never took that jump. Oddly enough, my life took a different path. I eventually studied antiquities and psychology and earned advanced degrees in Divinity. I'm an ordained minister and have served in my denomination for a number of years now, both as a pastor and as an academic -- a path that I would not have traveled had I made other choices. Of course, I recognize propaganda for what it is, but still have fond memories of those bygone days.
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- Ian Morrison (Visitor)
- 2008-03-07 @ 13:29:40
Roger, you're so right in saying that RBI was an interesting station for younger listeners. I was in my teens at the time and listened to RBI almost every day. The first broadcast of the day came on at 4:15pm, so I could tune in just after coming home frmo school. It was fascinating to hear about what was really going in the GDR, a country that was presented in such a two-dimensional way by the Western media. Every day I tuned in was a learning experience in so many ways. I too remember the "Give Peace a Chance" programme. Anyone else remember "Panorama", which I think was about developments in other socialist countries. Then there was "Did You Know?", with interesting and sometimes offbeat snippets about life in the GDR. "Stamp Album", which was presented by Robin Parker, was a weekly must for me, as an avid stamp collector. I amassed a wonderful collection of late 1980s GDR first-day covers courtesy of "Stamp Album", all you had to do was write in an request the FDC in question and it was sent to you. RBI was also very generous in terms of the publications it sent to listeners, which were highly informative and very well produced. On the whole, RBI broadcasts were the best from the socialist countries and certainly were the most professional, though I do have to admit to having a soft spot for Radio Tirana and its constant battle with revisionism of all hues.
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- StimmeDerDDR
- 2008-03-07 @ 18:13:01
I listened to RBI after school from the age of 12 or 13. By the time I was 15 I determined to go visit the GDR. Amazingly my parents said I could go provided I paid for the trip myself - which I did by working holidays and weekends in a local factory. Within a couple of months I had joined the YCL and was harrassing my local Tory MP to suport GDR recognision.

I too had lots of FDCs, QSL cards, magazines, books, pennants, etc.

I also listened to loads of other SW stations including Tirana which only seemed to have two announcers. I guess my other favourate station was Radio Nederland. I once met Tom Meyer from the Happy Station programme who gave me a tour of their studio in Hilversum., and loved listening to Jerry & Dody Cohen.

Even so .... Radio Berlin International was definately the most interesting of all of them.
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- Ian Morrison (Visitor)
- 2008-03-07 @ 18:25:35
I forgot to mention that I listened almost religiously to "Thank You For Writing" on Sundays and also enjoyed Wolfram Hess' DX programme (I particularly enjoyed the rather odd theme tune, would love to hear it again). I have cassettes of lots of RBI broadcasts, but the one slight snag is that they are in Scotland and I am in China. I hope to get my parents to bring some of them the next time they visit, then I could upload some. Also I hope to get some of my old RBI stuff (I kept everything - the QSLs, FDCs, pennant, badge, stickers, "Kontakt" magazine, booklets, copies of Neues Deutschland and other GDR national papers, calendars etc) and scan it to put it on this website.
- - Ian Morrison (Visitor)
  - 2008-03-07 @ 18:28:09
  I forgot to mention the RBI t-shirt, tie and hat. I miss that wonderful radio station and will always remember it. If anyone of the old RBI staff are reading this, I would like to say thank you for all of the wonderful times and thanks for the memories.
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- - StimmeDerDDR
  - 2008-03-07 @ 20:09:43
  It would be great if you can up scan and upload some stuff from RBI Ian. Any cassettes converted to MP3 format would be fantastic! I dont have a scanner, so I will make a point to take the things I have to a friends house to scan.
  
  Lucky you .. living in China. I spent a few days in Beijing 6 years ago and would love to see it again.
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- StimmeDerDDR
- 2008-03-07 @ 20:14:27
I hope some of the former RBI staff read this too. A few of them have jobs on German local radio stations these days I noticed from various online bios.
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- AFT (Visitor)
- 2008-04-07 @ 17:49:17
As to what has happened to Robin Mitchell, perhaps the answer is here:

http://www.robin-mitchell.de/
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- StimmeDerDDR
- 2008-04-07 @ 21:02:07
Thank you AFT. Sometimes we dont think of the most obvious places to look. I'll write and ask him.

This quote from "Sweden Calling DXers" of October 16th 1990:

"The final broadcast in English from RBI was bittersweet. The head of the service, Robin Mitchell, spoke of annexation of East Germany rather than unification and added : "That's what happened between Deutsche Welle and Radio Berlin International. After much sweet talk about a fusion and merger on an equal footing, what is happening is that RBI will disappear tonight and that Deutsche Welle will have taken over our frequencies and our transmitters tomorrow. Out of a total staff of 250 RBI employees a mere handful might get a new job with Deutsche Welle. Thus, like for so many in this country, unification day spells unemployment for many of my colleagues. The champagne of jubilation has a very bitter taste to it."
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- RadioFan
- 2008-04-11 @ 07:34:55
I have just got my hands on some of my old cassettes with recording of RBI broadcasts. I will upload them, and some other recordings, to the following website:

http://www.tudou.com/home/oldradio

I have already uploaded the final RBI broadcast of October 2, 1990.
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- StimmeDerDDR
- 2008-04-17 @ 20:07:11
Jimmy Mullin has kindly answered a few questions about some of the RBI staff mentioned in this blog.

"Re: Irma. She came to RBI English Department in 1962, if I remember correctly. Previously she had been responsible for the re-education of young girls who had, before the Wall, worked as prostitutes in West Berlin. Irma was a very wise, grand lady highly respected by all of us at RBI. Another name I saw on your Blog was Ursula Ryder. That is Ursula Rieder, a very wonderful person who lived in Koepenick with her mother. We spent a great number of evenings together at the studio writing and recording evening news casts. Often, on snowy winter nights we would trudge through the snow the five-miles or so to her house, tossing snowballs at each other and just enjoying life itself. I had a flat very close to her mother's house. Wolfram Bielenstein is, as I remember, an old friend of whom one can only say good things. The late Wolfram Hess, our DX Guru, graduate Philologist and Amateur Radio Operator was a very dear friend. I, too, am a licensed amateur radio operator so we had hours of discussion on common interests. I tried several times to arrange permanent employment for him at the station to no avail. He had a debilitating mental issue which in those days was looked down upon in the GDR.
Marjorie Milner, deceased, was Marjorie Lindner, wife of Paul Lindner, deceased, whom I replaced for a short period as head of the North American Department at RBI."
- - Ian Morrison (Visitor)
  - http://www.tudou.com/home/oldradio
  - 2008-04-18 @ 13:12:54
  Very interesting information. When did Jimmy Mullin work for RBI? I don't recall the name from my time listening in the late 1980s.
  - - StimmeDerDDR
    - 2008-04-18 @ 16:30:00
    Jimmy worked for RBI from 1961 to 1977 in the North America department. He is happy to pass on more about his time at RBI, and I plan to post it eventually in interview form.
    
    Hopefully other former RBI staffers will wish to do the same.
    
    More from RBI listeners would be great too.
    
    This blog got some positive responces on Glen Hauser's popular DX reports, so hopefully a few more DXers will make a contribution too.
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- klassenfeind (Visitor)
- 2008-09-23 @ 20:51:31
Wow! This page really does bring back some memories! Some of my earliest memories in life are of Berlin (East and West) as my father was stationed there from the time I was 3 until I was 7.
During my teenage years I used to listen to RBI on AM at night and then after sign-off tune into Radio Luxemburg. Ooh how time flies! I was never allowed to write to them because of my father's military status although I did try to send for a QSL card of their last program but got a letter back from Deutschewelle instead. I still have it tucked away someplace.
One of my favorite memories of RBI is sitting on a military train someplace between West Berlin and Frankfurt/Helmstedt listening to RBI on a boombox becuase for some reason it was the only station we could recieve!
I have a BA in German language in Literature. I did my graduation project on Literature and Every Day Life in the DDR. From 2003-2004 I worked in Halle/Saale and Leipzig. For some reason the DDR still fascinates me. There is still a big difference between East and West. I collect stamps and postcards and militaria from the DDR. Somewhere I have a few QSL cards from RBI which I traded with someone.
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