About ERF Radio

ERF Radio

ERF Radio — today broadcast as ERF Plus — is Germany's pioneering evangelical Christian radio station, on air since 5 February 1961 and based in Wetzlar, Hesse. Founded on 19 October 1959 as the Evangeliums-Rundfunk e.V., it began when private broadcasting was still illegal in Germany, transmitting its first programmes via shortwave from Trans World Radio's Monte Carlo transmitter on Mount Agel. Today ERF Plus is a national private radio programme on DAB+, satellite, cable and streaming, offering devotions, biblical teaching, talk and Christian music — the radio arm of ERF Medien, one of Germany's largest Christian media organizations, which also produces television (since 1979), books and digital media. For over six decades it has been the German-speaking voice of evangelical broadcasting — older than private radio itself in Germany — the station that proved there was an audience for faith on the airwaves before the law allowed it to broadcast from home.

Overview

ERF Radio (ERF Plus since 1 September 2011) is the radio programme of ERF Medien e.V. in Wetzlar — the German-speaking branch of the international Christian radio mission Trans World Radio (TWR), though organized entirely differently: ERF is essentially a programme provider, while TWR operates transmitters and brokers airtime to Christian organizations. The programme is a classic Christian full-service format: devotions, biblical exposition, talk, counselling, church and choral music and classical music in the music strand — aimed at listeners seeking faith content the public broadcasters were felt not to provide. The audience is Germany's evangelical community and beyond: the listener fellowship that formed around the shortwave broadcasts in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and that has stayed loyal through every technological migration since.

The station broadcasts nationally as a private radio programme: DAB+ (since 2011), satellite, cable, IPTV, streaming and podcasting — no FM, no medium wave anymore. The founding motive still defines the programme: the founders missed devotions, biblical themes and music with spiritual content on the public stations, and ERF has supplied them for over six decades. ERF Medien also maintains close partnerships with the ProChrist mission campaign and the SCM evangelical media foundation, and operates sister associations in Switzerland, Austria and South Tyrol — the German-language evangelical media family.

History

The ERF's story begins in Tangier, Morocco, where the German missionary Helmut Gärtner encountered American radio missionaries and agreed to build a German department; from 1956 German broadcasts went out from Tangier, then still under international administration. When Morocco moved to nationalize the Tangier stations, TWR contracted with Radio Monte Carlo in September 1959 — and the German work moved to Wetzlar. On 20 September 1959 German radio work began in Wetzlar in the rooms of Hermann Schulte's publishing house (today Gerth Medien) — Schulte himself had been doing Christian radio via Radio Luxemburg since 1957 — the publisher as broadcaster, a full decade before the ERF's founding made it official. — and on 19 October 1959 the support association "Evangeliums-Rundfunk" was founded: eight founders including TWR's Paul E. Freed, Gertrud Wasserzug of the Beatenberg Bible school, publisher Hermann Schulte and evangelist Anton Schulte. The motive, recorded at the founding: too little Christian programming on the public stations — devotions, biblical themes and spiritual music were missing, and the founders set out to supply them.

With no private broadcasting licensed in Germany, ERF cooperated with Trans World Radio, renting transmitter time by the hour. The first broadcast was originally planned for summer 1960, but technical difficulties forced repeated postponements; finally, on 5 February 1961, the first programmes went out via TWR's shortwave transmitter in Monte Carlo — from facilities on Mount Agel originally built under the Nazis. Medium-wave broadcasts from Monte Carlo followed from 1966 (a transmitter added in 1964), plus outlets in Bonaire (Dutch Antilles) and Swaziland for German speakers in South Africa, and later transmitters in Russia. Key builders were theologian Walter Quiring and journalist Horst Marquardt, who headed the ERF until the end of 1993 and then served as an international director of TWR until 1997. From April 1960 Marquardt was already at work; very soon the listenership in Germany, Switzerland and Austria had grown into a fellowship of friends of the station — the "Hörerfamilie" that would sustain the ERF through every technological and financial challenge of the decades to come.

Milestones: participation in the Rhineland-Palatinate cable pilot project (the birth of private radio in Germany); a 24-hour programme via the Astra satellite's first analogue transponder in 1994; the first Hessian private-broadcast licence in 1995, allowing nationwide medium-wave broadcasting; medium wave from Mainflingen on 1539 kHz from 1 April 1996 (the transmitter that once served the Deutschlandfunk's GDR coverage) until the end of 2011, when the medium-wave broadcasts were discontinued for cost reasons; the launch of the pop-oriented second programme ERF 2, merged back in 2003 when the pop concept was dropped; the youth project Cross Channel (2004 to January 2014), extending the earlier "e.r.f. Junge Welle" onto the internet; and the move to DAB+ in 2011, when "ERF Radio" became "ERF Plus". Television production began in 1979; the ERF Foundation was established in 2001 to support the work financially.

Programming

ERF Plus is a Christian full-service programme: morning devotions, biblical teaching series, talk and interview formats, counselling programmes, and music spanning church music, choral works and classical pieces alongside contemporary Christian music. The programme speaks to a loyal listener community across Germany, Switzerland and Austria that grew up around the shortwave and medium-wave broadcasts — listeners who found the station on a crackling shortwave band in the 1960s and never left. The daily rhythm of devotions gives the programme its backbone: faith as a daily practice, on the radio, at fixed times — the electronic equivalent of the church bell, marking the hours for the faithful across the German-speaking world. Podcasts extend the linear programme on demand, and the media library makes the archive accessible.

Organization and Ownership

ERF Medien e.V., based in Wetzlar, operates the programme as a registered association — the German-speaking branch of Trans World Radio in programme terms, but an independent German organization with its own studios, staff and governance. The ERF Foundation (founded 2001) supports the work financially, giving the organization a funding base beyond day-to-day donations. ERF maintains media partnerships with ProChrist and the SCM foundation. Sister organizations exist as independent associations: ERF Medien Schweiz (with roots going back to a Swiss branch office in May 1968), ERF Österreich and ERF Südtirol — the German-language evangelical media family, each nationally organized, each sharing the mission — from Wetzlar to Zurich to Vienna to Bolzano. Detailed staffing and financial figures are not publicly confirmed in the sources consulted.

Digital Presence

ERF's digital home is erf.de, with livestreams of ERF Plus, a media library and podcasts. The programme is distributed via DAB+ nationwide, satellite, cable, IPTV and streaming — the digital successors of the Monte Carlo shortwave that carried the first broadcasts in 1961. The organization is among Germany's most digitally developed Christian media houses, with apps, on-demand video and social channels complementing the linear radio. The trajectory from rented shortwave hours to a multi-platform media house mirrors the history of German private broadcasting itself — and ERF was there before private broadcasting existed — the pioneer that outlasted every transmitter it ever rented — from Mount Agel to Mainflingen to the DAB+ multiplex, the mission unchanged.