Just as the Volkswagen (the People's car) was intended to be for the common person, the Volksempfänger's purpose was to make radio reception technology affordable to the general public as well. Of course we all can guess why that was important to a dictatorship!
The two smaller radios are known as the Deutscher Kleinempfänger (German small receiver) or the DKE38. 38 stood for the year it was released (1938). These were affectionately known as “Goebbels' Snout”!
The VE301 and DKE38 were designed to be produced as cheaply as possible, and they are remarkable simple, but well made.
Sensitivity to receive weak signals was limited, to reduce production costs further; so long as the set could receive German stations, it was considered sensitive enough. However, foreign stations could be received after dark with an external antenna, particularly as stations such as the BBC European service increased their transmission power over the course of the war. Listening to foreign stations became a criminal offence in Nazi Germany after the war began.