About Radio Lotte

Radio Lotte

Radio Lotte (stylised Radio LOTTE Weimar) is the citizen radio station of Weimar, Thuringia, Germany, broadcasting since 1999. Its name is a double allusion: to Thomas Mann's novel Lotte in Weimar and to the Lottenbach, the small stream that flows channelled beneath Weimar's old town. Owned and licensed by the association Radio Lotte in Weimar e. V., the station transmits on FM 106.6 MHz, on cable, and via livestream from its studios in the former Lesemuseum — the 1859/60 classical "reading temple" on Goetheplatz that the city handed over to the station. Since 1 June 2015 it has broadcast 24 hours a day as a full citizen broadcaster under Thuringia's citizen media statute.

Overview

Radio Lotte is Thuringia's citizen radio for the city of Goethe, Schiller, and the Bauhaus. Under the Thuringian Bürgermediensatzung (citizen media statute), the station is obliged to broadcast without advertising and is financed by its more than 500 members in the "Lotte-Club" together with funding from the Thuringian media authority (TLM). The schedule combines a professionally produced daytime magazine programme with open-access windows in which any citizen can make radio under the supervision of a media professional — the classic citizen-broadcaster model, modernised for a 24-hour operation.

The station gained national attention beyond Weimar in connection with the NSU trial: when press accreditation for the trial of the far-right terrorist National Socialist Underground was allocated, Radio Lotte covered the proceedings until their conclusion in July 2018, earning the small citizen station a reputation for serious, sustained court reporting.

History

Radio Lotte went on air in 1999 as one of Thuringia's non-commercial local radios (NKL), sharing its frequencies with the open channel Radio Funkwerk — in Weimar on 106.6 MHz, just as Radio F.R.E.I. shared 96.2 MHz with Funkwerk in Erfurt. The Thuringian model allowed two NKL stations to exist where an open channel was present, with the open channel providing the access-open complement to the editorially responsible citizen stations.

For its first decade the station was led continuously by the architect and artist Mathias Buß, who shaped its programme as programme director until stepping down in August 2009 during the station's tenth-anniversary celebrations. He was succeeded by communications consultant Christian Stadali, who led the station until the end of June 2011, followed by actress and cultural manager Sonja Hartmann, and then by journalist Grit Hasselmann — active at the station since its founding — who became programme director in September 2012 and left in 2017. After various restructurings, journalist Markus Pettelkau took over programme and management leadership in March 2018, with Andreas Menzel chairing the supporting association.

A milestone in the station's institutional history was the move to the Lesemuseum: the classical building at Goetheplatz 12, erected in 1859/60 as the clubhouse of the Weimar Reading Society founded in 1831 by Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, was handed over to Radio Lotte by the city in 2006 and converted into a broadcast centre by the architect and radio-maker Dirk Böttcher between 2006 and 2009, with the station taking up residence in 2008. The listed building — designed by Carl Heinrich Ferdinand Streichhan as a podium temple in the classical style, connected by a colonnade to the neighbouring Haus der Erholung — gave the citizen station one of the most distinguished broadcast addresses in Germany.

The Thuringian media law reform of 2015 transformed the station's role: with Radio Funkwerk ceasing operations on 31 May 2015, Radio Lotte and Radio F.R.E.I. took over as full citizen broadcasters, each providing two daily access-open hours for interested citizens alongside their editorial programmes. Since 1 June 2015, Radio Lotte has broadcast 24 hours a day.

Programming

Since June 2015 the station has run a structured daytime programme. Mornings (6:00–12:00) belong to "Stadtzeit am Morgen", a magazine on regional topics and world news airing Monday to Friday; the "Weimar-Nachrichten" start at 7:45 with hourly repeats until 11:45, focussing on Weimar and Thuringian news. Midday brings the entertainment music hour "Lunch-Time" (12:00–13:00), and the early evening (18:00–19:00) carries the day's current affairs.

The citizen-broadcaster element lives in the "Okay-Fenster" (okay windows): slots in which anyone may produce radio under the guidance of a media specialist. Evenings and nights carry special formats — Monday from 23:00 to 01:00, Tuesday to Friday from 21:00 to 01:00, and at weekends — a colourful range of discussion programmes, thematic strands, and professional music shows. The Bauhaus University's student radio Bauhaus FM is heard on Radio Lotte on Mondays from 19:00 to 23:00, connecting the station to Weimar's famous art and design school.

For special occasions, Radio Lotte takes to the streets with a rickshaw converted into a mobile studio, broadcasting from public spaces — a literal embodiment of the citizen-radio idea. The station's most demanding journalistic assignment was its coverage of the NSU trial: following the controversy over press accreditation, Radio Lotte reported on the Munich proceedings against the far-right terrorist cell until the verdict in July 2018, a commitment that brought the Weimar citizen station attention far beyond Thuringia. The trial — one of the most significant in post-war German history, concerning a neo-Nazi group's decade-long series of murders — was covered by only a limited number of accredited media, and the presence of a small Weimar citizen station among them was widely noted as a demonstration of what community broadcasting can achieve journalistically.

Coverage and Audience

Radio Lotte is receivable in Weimar and surroundings terrestrially on FM 106.6 MHz and on cable at 107.9 MHz, and worldwide via internet livestream. The schedule runs Monday to Friday from 06:00 to 01:00 and around the clock on Saturdays and Sundays, with the "Okay-Fenster" open-access slots ensuring that any interested citizen can get behind the microphone under professional guidance. As a non-commercial citizen broadcaster it takes part in no commercial audience measurement; its public is Weimar's culturally engaged citizenry — appropriate for a city whose identity is built on literature, classical music, and the Bauhaus — plus the students of the Bauhaus University and listeners who followed its NSU trial coverage from across Germany and beyond.

Ownership and Funding

The station is owned and licensed by the association Radio Lotte in Weimar e. V. The Thuringian citizen media statute obliges the station to broadcast without advertising; it is financed through the Lotte-Club — the association's circle of more than 500 supporting members — and through funding from the Thüringer Landesmedienanstalt (TLM). This dual financing from civil society and the media authority secures the station's independence from commercial interests.

Digital Presence

Radio Lotte's online home is radiolotte.de, carrying the livestream, the programme schedule, and information on the access-open "Okay-Fenster" for prospective programme-makers. The website documents the station's history from its 1999 founding through the Lesemuseum move to the 24-hour citizen broadcaster of today. The station's NSU trial coverage remains a reference point in its public profile, and its productions circulate through the free-radio exchange networks. Named for Thomas Mann's Lotte and Weimar's buried stream, broadcasting from a 19th-century reading temple, Radio Lotte has grown from a shared-frequency NKL station into a round-the-clock citizen broadcaster — Weimar's own radio, made by its citizens, for its citizens, and a model of what community media can achieve. The rickshaw mobile studio, the Okay-Fenster open slots, and the 500-strong Lotte-Club carry the founding idea into the station's third decade.