Exploring the entanglements of the recording industry in Germany, 1930-1950
José Gálvez
The years between 1930 and 1950 still represent an obscure episode in the history of recorded popular music in Austria and Germany. While important contributions from historical musicology and music business research have dealt with the recording industry in this period, the production of popular music records before, during and after the Nazi dictatorship has hardly been tackled in depth.
There are historical and methodological reasons for this situation: The German recording industry was hit especially hard by the depression and shrank considerably in the first half of the 1930s. Compared with the radio industry its relevance can and has been relativized. Moreover, due to confiscations, prohibitions and restructuration, there is few reliable data available on the recording, pressing, distribution or sales of popular music records during the Nazi dictatorship. However weakened and difficult to reconstruct the recording industry remained in place and interlocked with the music publishing, film and radio industries.
The subproject ›Making records with/for the enemy‹ put forward the claim that dealing with popular music records opens up avenues to gain an more comprehensive understanding not only of the internal frictions in the cultural policy of the Nazi regime, but also—and specially—of the transnational dimensions of the music industry with regard to materials, technical skills and technology. Drawing on archival sources, vast material compiled by private collectors and date not yet systematically analyzed this project explore an key dimension in the production of popular music in Germany of the 1930s and 1940s.