As part of their policy for cultural development for the German civilian population, the American military government had started constructing a radio station in Frankfurt relatively soon after the end of the war. It started out as Radio Frankfurt, and then became Hessischer Rundfunk. They had released confiscated villas in the Bockenheim district to house the station.

The radio station offered us actors new opportunities in broadcasts for schools, in the review and culture spots, and in radio plays. If you were in the building for one or another speaking role, other possibilities and dates would always come your way. The Hessischer Rundfunk canteen became the hangout and employment office for all actors and directors. Unlike in later years, in those days the administrative departments of broadcasting houses were small. You arrived at the studio at the agreed time, read your lines, got your fee voucher signed by the head of production or filming, went to the cash desk, handed over your voucher and got your money. It was that simple in those days. On average we received 50 Marks for a part; the fee was very rarely more than 100 Marks.

If I wasn't in the canteen, I would be in the Amerika-Haus. I read and read whatever I could and whatever interested me, in English too. One of the things I did was to finish reading An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy by Gunnar Myrdal, which I had started in Giessen. Myrdal was teaching in the USA and trying to account for the situation of the African population in American society. He wrote openly about injustice, hatred, prejudice and legal and judicial discrimination. Above all he wrote about the radicalization of the African Americans that was bound to come. But he also considered possible changes in American society. I devoured the book. There were a lot of things that I didn't understand at first, because my English wasn't yet good enough to read scholarly texts, but it was the most comprehensive thing that I had ever read about black people in a white world.