🎙️ Reichssender Frankfurt

& the Feldberg Race – Media Power in Motorsport in the 1930s

The Reichssender Frankfurt, one of the most important regional broadcasting companies in the German Reich, played a central role in the media coverage and dissemination of motorsport events in the 1930s – including the legendary Feldberg race in the Taunus region.

As a technical and propaganda mouthpiece of its time, the station played a key role in promoting racing culture in the greater Rhine-Main area. Reports from the Grosser Feldberg, live reports on winners and accidents, and driver profiles were broadcast via medium wave to a broad audience throughout the Reich.

Especially in the era of the great hill climbs (1934–1936), the Reichssender Frankfurt took on the role of a modern sports reporter: with race reporters directly at the track, technical expertise and political charge.

The victories of Hans Stuck, Bernd Rosemeyer and Paul Pietsch on the winding roads of the Taunus were not only presented as sporting successes, but also as a “triumph of German technology” – in keeping with the spirit of the time.

The intensive radio coverage contributed to making the Feldberg race nationally known and made motorsport a live experience for many for the first time – even away from the track. The Reichssender thus became an important driving force for the popularization of motor racing in the Third Reich and cemented the Feldbergring's reputation as the "small Nürburgring of the West."