ARD never used to close down with the (West) German national anthem until May 1985. Originally, they'd play the anthem with the words to it on screen, and by 1987, a vocal version was played with aerial shots of western German cities including Hamburg, Kiel and Hanover. They'd often change the images shown during closedown to static images of various sights.
In 1989, the anthem film showed various political figures in post-war German history like in this video.
Here's an example of a closedown from 1994 with a beautiful violin version of Deutschlandlied, originally used once on the 20th July 1979 to commemorate the anniversary of the 20th July plot attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler by Claus von Stauffenberg.
Here is the special 20th July plot version as well. The anthem starts at around the 5:39 mark
Last edited by Sh1ruba on 17 April 2019 3:57pm - 2 times in total