Museum of History

Exhibition on 100 years of radio in Styria

In 1949, radio fascinated not only adults but also children.

(Bild: Foto Blaschka/Multimediale Sammlungen)

"Listen! Listen!": A new exhibition at the Graz Museum of History focuses on the 100-year history of radio in Styria. To be seen and heard until January 2025.

Styrian radio history begins with the "Dachsteinlied" - actually 120 years ago: The year was 1904 and physicist Otto Nußbaumer succeeded in transmitting the human voice wirelessly for the first time at Graz University of Technology: he himself warbled the song into the microphone and it came out of the loudspeaker 30 meters away (reasonably audible).

First "radio transmission" at the Graz University of Technology, 1904

(Bild: UMJ/Multimediale Sammlung)

At first, however, nobody really knew how to capitalize on this pioneering achievement. It was not until after the First World War that radio took off: in 1924, the first radio broadcast was aired in Austria: "In Styria, there were just 467 radio subscribers at the time. Just a few years later, radio had become a mass phenomenon," explain Thomas Felfer and Maria Froihofer, who curated the exhibition at the Museum of History.

60 historic radio sets
In it, they not only recount exciting moments in local radio history (in pictures and sound), but also show a total of 60 historical radio sets from the collection of Heinz M. Fischer, which he has handed over to the Universalmuseum Joanneum in several installments since 2019. From the early furniture radios, which were at the center of family life, to the Volksempfänger, with which Nazi propaganda had a direct line to the people, to the portable mini-devices with which Eumig celebrated success as a domestic producer from the 1950s onwards.

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Fotos

"There were also manufacturers in Styria, for example Kristallwerk in Graz," explains Fischer. He spent a long time looking for a "Kristalette" made in Graz. "I am proud that I have found one and can now hand it over to the Joanneum," he says at the opening of the exhibition.

Exhibition as a nostalgic journey
"Hear! Hört!" is a nostalgic journey through 100 years of radio history: you see devices and hear voices that were once omnipresent on our airwaves and have long since disappeared, but whose echoes can still be heard today.