Connected Enemies?

This article examines GDR television from a media-historical perspective with special focus on the inter- and transnational communication between Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War until the dissolution of the separate spheres of power in 1990. It focuses on the development and function of the “Organisation Internationale de diffusion et de Télévision Radio” (OIRT), which was founded in 1946, and their network “Intervision”, founded in 1960, both centred in Prague. The OIRT, as an umbrella organization, coordinated cooperation between the TV-stations in the socialist community and represented their interests to the “European Broadcasting Union” (UER/EBU) and the “Eurovision” system. While “Intervision” handled the direct program traffic between the stations, exchange of movies and occasionally TV series was an autonomous field. A central conclusion is that the program transfer had a hand in a partial rapprochement and dialogue between East and West. In addition, these permanent relations triggered an early synchronization process with a tendency to cross-culture productions – even if the partial opening in Eastern Europe before 1990 brought only limited pluralism and could not contribute to genuine participation.