XGRS was a

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

-based radio station broadcasting on both

shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (app ...

and

long wave In radio, longwave (also spelled long wave or long-wave and commonly abbreviated LW) is the part of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave (MW) broadcasting band. The term is historic, datin ...

which was owned and operated by the German government in Japanese-occupied China during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Originally established as a German-language station designed to provide news and information to German residents of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, in 1940 it began broadcasting a multilingual program schedule with alternating broadcasts in English, German, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

. It operated from the Kaiser Wilhelm School. Beginning in 1940 Erwin Wickert was the effective manager of the station, occupying the formal post of radio attaché at the German consulate in Shanghai. Peter Waldbauer, an English-speaking Austrian, hosted the program ''A Briton's Point of View'', during which he feigned to be a Briton and would editorialize an anti-Allied perspective. Other on-air staff included Americans Robert Fockler and Herbert May, and Australian John Holland (the latter would, after the war, be sentenced to five years imprisonment as a result of his work for XGRS and, later, a Japanese broadcaster). A typical prime-time, weekday lineup for XGRS included ''Commentary by David Lester'' at 6:15 p.m., ''Light Music'' at 6:25 p.m., ''Asia's Views on the News'' at 6:30 p.m., ''La demi-heure francaise'' at 6:45 p.m., ''Commentary in English'' at 7:15 p.m., ''Shanghai Walla-Walla'' at 7:30 p.m., ''News in English'' at 7:45 p.m., ''American Program'' at 8:00 p.m., ''Commentary by Herbert May'' at 8:30 p.m., ''News in Russian'' at 8:45 p.m., ''Ukrainian Program'' at 9:00 p.m., ''Classical Concert'' at 9:15 p.m., and ''News in English'' at 10:30 p.m. International news was provided by the Trans-Ocean News Service. On 25 May 1945, following the German surrender, XGRS was seized by Japan who operated it using the call letters XGOO. Following the Japanese surrender it, in turn, passed to Chinese control and was operated as XORA. American and British counterparts of XGRS were XMHA (″The Call of the Orient″, Carroll Alcott), XMHC and XCDN/XGDN (″The Voice of Democracy″). Other foreign stations in Shanghai included XIRS (Italian), FFZ (French), XRVN (Russian), XQHA and XOJB (Japanese). Alltogehter there were about 40 radio stations in Shanghai in 1941.Shanghai Radio Dial 1941
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References

Propaganda radio broadcasts Radio stations in China Germany in World War II Shanghai in World War II Nazi propaganda organizations Radio stations disestablished in 1945 China–Germany relations Second Sino-Japanese War Propaganda in China {{PRChina-radio-station-stub

See also

References