Re: [ARSCLIST] Telefunken & DGG

[George Brock-Nannestad <pattac@xxxxxxxx>]

From: Patent Tactics, George Brock-Nannestad

Hello,

without checking my sources I can contribute the following general 
information on the German radio records:

- from Steve Smolian's earlier mail -
> 
> For years I thought Tele was the Nazi record label, making the official 
> discs for their radio station libraries.  Recently I got some white label
> Polydor (I think- could be Grammophon- can't check at the moment) which were
> also from radio, posibly for radio use. The latter was 3.5 Serious Songs of
> Brahms sung by Louise Willer, an alto whom I like.  Side 5, which I lack,
> finished the cycle, s. 6 probably being blank.
> 
> These records are among the great discographic mysteries. The German radio
> published catalogs of this stuff for their own internal use.  The disccs
> almost never turn up. 

----- the German radio co-operation in the so-called Reichs-Rundfunk-
Gesellschaft did record and press records for non-synchronous transmission. 
These records were white-label and marked RRG or fully written as above. 
There exist printed catalogues from the 1930s - they are rare but not 
impossible to find. The print run of the records was not large. It had 
nothing to do with Nazism as such, any more than other post 1933 life was 
permeated by it.

The German radio was not the only to have records pressed for such purposes: 
both BBC and e.g. the Swedish radio did the same. BBC was very special; in 
the beginning they used 60 rpm (a nice engineer's choice of one per second).

----- incidentally, the Swedish Telefunken subsidiary Telestar published dyed-
in-the-wool offensive 10" Nazi records, originally Telefunken, as late as 
1952, for the Swedish Nazi market. They are not spoken about. Some of this 
material is available to order from certain US websites. In Germany, such 
records can only be legally sold when the seller states that it is 
exclusively for informational purposes.

 I remeber seing listed a Beethoven 9 with Rehkemper
> singing the bass part. Apparently they made 12 copies of each selected
> broadcast for later use, distributing one to each of the 12 (I think) regional
> stations.  This goes back to 1928 or so, pre Hitler.  I have what I believe to
> be one of them, an "Un bel di" or the like with Reining, incomplete on one
> side,
> 
> Someone abroad with better German than mine might consider this as a 
> research project.

----- I am quite convinced that German colleague collectors have this 
completely covered.

Kind regards and happy new year,


George