| Popis: |
This article examines the history of the recorded sound collections created by the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG), their archiving and preservation. The first part gives an overview of the creation of the recordings between 1929 and 1945, the types of audio carriers used, their archiving and the accumulated holdings of the RRG. In the second part, the consequences of the war and the reconstruction of the archive holdings in today’s German Broadcasting Archive (Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv) is treated. Of particular interest are the places that the RRG sound recordings ended up after 1945, which included London, Prague, Moscow and Berlin (GDR). The last part discusses the challenges arising from the particularities of the audio carriers and their creation, as well as the complex history of the holdings and their dispersal. A case example is used to demonstrate the necessary source criticism and reconstruction work required to facilitate both archival documentation and scholarly source work. The article is based on the work of Friedrich Dethlefs at the German Broadcasting Archive, his preoccupation with the RRG’s archival records, and his ongoing exchange with colleagues and archive users about this topic. The results of historical-archival research by Carolyn Birdsall (University of Amsterdam), in particular materials from the Bundesarchiv in Berlin and supplementary literature, provided important sources to contextualise findings made on the basis of the recorded sound collections. |
