ABSTRACT
This chapter unearths the important role played by radio fairs for the construction of television’s national identity. Its core is articulated around three case studies: television at the Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago in 1933–1934, at the Funkausstellung in 1935 that followed the opening of the public service in Berlin, and at Radiolympia in 1936, which preceded the launch of the BBC’s television service in November that year. An understanding of the dynamics between national and transnational spaces is especially important for a discussion of television under National Socialism. Without neglecting the medium’s particularities, the chapter embeds German television’s national history in a transnational framework that highlights the intertwined histories of the medium across the three countries and across democratic and totalitarian regimes. The chapter closes with an ‘intermission’; a short intermediate conclusion, which emphasizes the benefits of a transnational approach to interwar television.
