BERLIN RADIO AND TV EXHIBITION OF 1930: DIVINE CURIOSITY PREVAILS

On August 22, 1930, shortly after 10AM, a pale-faced, long-haired and moustachioed university professor gingerly climbed several steps leading to a windswept rostrum at the foot of Berlin’s Funkturm. The first speaker that day, Dr. Hans Bredow, retired Rundfunkkommissar des Reichpostministeriums as well as German radio advocate and pioneer, had just opened the 7^th German Radio and TV Exhibition - the Funkausstellung. Now cheerful and excited Albert Einstein took over the microphones and ignoring both the wind tearing at the text in his hands as well as the screeching of street-trams in Masurenallee – with Lines 53, 72, 93 hurrying between Reichskanzler-Platz (now Theodor-Heuss-Platz) and Zoologischer Garten - he smiled and addressed the gathering, opening with “Dear present AND absent guests”.