Recordings of South Asian Languages and Music in the Lautarchiv of the Humboldt­ Universität zu Berlin

This is the cor­re­spon­ding Eng­lish ver­si­on of the 2020 MIDA Archi­val Refle­xi­con ent­ry “Süd­asia­ti­sche Sprach- und Musik­auf­nah­men im Laut­ar­chiv der Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­tät zu Ber­lin”. The text was ori­gi­nal­ly published in „When the war began we heard of seve­ral kings“ South Asi­an Pri­soners in Worl War I Ger­ma­ny, edi­ted by Fran­zis­ka Roy, Hei­ke Liebau, and Ravi Ahu­ja. New Delhi: Social Sci­ence Press, 2011, pp. 187–206.

Table of Con­tents
Wil­helm Doe­gen and the Histo­ry of the Laut­ar­chiv | The Phon­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on  | Tech­ni­cal and Orga­ni­sa­tio­nal Rea­li­sa­ti­on of the Gra­mo­pho­ne Recor­dings in the POW Camps  | South Asi­an Recor­dings in the Laut­ar­chiv  | Con­clu­si­on  | End­no­tes | Biblio­gra­phy

This chap­ter gives an over­view of the sound recor­dings of South Asi­an sol­diers and civi­li­ans from the First World War stored in the Laut­ar­chiv of the Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­tät zu Ber­lin. Pri­soners of war beca­me ‘objects’ of lin­gu­i­stic rese­arch when, in 1915, a com­mis­si­on of rese­ar­chers recei­ved the offi­ci­al sanc­tion to record the num­e­rous lan­guages and dialects that were spo­ken by the cos­mo­po­li­tan assort­ment of ‘ene­my’ sol­diers and civi­li­ans in Germany’s pri­son camps. The recor­dings of voices, lan­guages, dialects and music of inter­ned sol­diers and civi­li­ans for rese­arch pur­po­ses account for a signi­fi­cant part of the coll­ec­tion, but the­re were also other are­as of focus.

In terms of scope and his­to­ri­cal signi­fi­can­ce the­re is no com­pa­ra­ble coll­ec­tion in any Ger­man uni­ver­si­ty. This coll­ec­tion is the ear­liest and most com­pre­hen­si­ve sys­te­ma­tic sound archi­ve crea­ted for docu­men­ta­ry and sci­en­ti­fic pur­po­ses by recor­ding onto shel­lac disc. It was estab­lished for sci­en­tists by sci­en­tists for the pur­po­ses of tea­ching and rese­arch. On the one hand, rese­arch into pho­ne­tics, dialects, com­pa­ra­ti­ve lin­gu­i­stics, and eth­no­lo­gy were to be fur­the­red; on the other, the recor­dings were to play a signi­fi­cant role in for­eign lan­guage tea­ching. The archi­ve, which was pre­ser­ved after the Second World War though wit­hout being mana­ged or exten­ded, has been deve­lo­ped and digi­ta­li­sed sin­ce 1999. A data­ba­se of the recor­dings made by the archi­ve on shel­lac disc bet­ween 1915–44 has been com­ple­ted and is available online.^[i]

The­se sound recor­dings can only be pro­per­ly app­re­cia­ted in their respec­ti­ve sci­en­ti­fic and his­to­ri­cal con­text, which, howe­ver, has not been inves­ti­ga­ted and recon­s­truc­ted in suf­fi­ci­ent depth as yet. The fol­lo­wing does not pre­su­me to offer a com­ple­te pic­tu­re, for this reason.

Wilhelm Doegen and the History of the Lautarchiv

The histo­ry of the Laut­ar­chiv is clo­se­ly lin­ked to its foun­der Wil­helm Doe­gen (17.3.1877–3.11.1967). Doe­gen was born in Ber­lin in the same year that Edi­son inven­ted the pho­no­graph. On finis­hing high school, he under­went an app­ren­ti­ce­ship in a bank and then stu­di­ed eco­no­mics and busi­ness law. Doe­gen also went unof­fi­ci­al­ly to Eng­lish lec­tures given by Alo­is Brandl (1855–1940) at the Fried­rich-Wil­helm­s­­Uni­ver­si­tät (today Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­tät zu Ber­lin). It was Brandl who encou­ra­ged Doe­gen to stu­dy Modern Lan­guages. In 1899–1900 Doe­gen spent one term at Oxford whe­re he stu­di­ed with Hen­ry Sweet (1845–1912). Sweet is regard­ed as one of the pio­neers of modern pho­ne­tics, and he play­ed a decisi­ve role in the deve­lo­p­ment of pho­ne­tic tran­scrip­ti­on with its num­e­rous spe­cial characters.

Doe­gen later descri­bed the mee­ting with Sweet and the latter’s sys­tem of pho­ne­tic tran­scrip­ti­on as a deter­mi­ning influence on his own work. In 1904, Doe­gen qua­li­fied as a tea­cher of Eng­lish, French and Ger­man. His dis­ser­ta­ti­on was on the use of pho­ne­tics in the tea­ching of Eng­lish to beg­in­ners (Die Ver­wen­dung der Pho­ne­tik im Eng­li­schen Anfangs­un­ter­richt). With gre­at enthu­si­asm he pur­sued the use of pho­ne­tic tran­scrip­ti­on in tea­ching mate­ri­als to be used in con­junc­tion with texts spo­ken onto records.

As a tea­cher at the Borsig High School from 1909, Doe­gen com­pi­led tea­ching mate­ri­als run­ning to seve­ral volu­mes in co­ ope­ra­ti­on with the Ode­on Recor­ding Com­pa­ny in Ber­lin. The shel­lac disc was to be used as a new medi­um of tea­ching. The­se mate­ri­als were cal­led “Doegen’s tea­ching book­lets for the inde­pen­dent lear­ning of for­eign lan­guages with the help of pho­ne­tic tran­scrip­ti­on and the speech machi­ne” (Doe­gens Unter­richts­hef­te für die selb­stän­di­ge Erler­nung frem­der Spra­chen mit Hil­fe der Laut­schrift und der Sprech­ma­schi­ne). In addi­ti­on to this he published mate­ri­al using nati­ve spea­k­ers to read from clas­si­cal Eng­lish and French literature.

Doe­gen con­tin­ued to work clo­se­ly with the Minis­try of Sci­ence, Art, and Natio­nal Edu­ca­ti­on and was sent by this depart­ment to the World Expo­si­ti­on in Brussels in 1910. The­re he recei­ved the sil­ver medal for intro­du­cing the record to tea­ching and rese­arch. A mere two years later, some 1,000 schools and uni­ver­si­ties could be seen using Doegen’s shel­lac discs for lan­guage tea­ching. Encou­ra­ged by the suc­cess of his sound recor­dings, Doe­gen deve­lo­ped ide­as for a voice muse­um (Stim­men­mu­se­um). In Febru­ary 1914, he sub­mit­ted an appli­ca­ti­on to the Prus­si­an Minis­try of Sci­ence, Art, and Natio­nal Edu­ca­ti­on to estab­lish a Roy­al Prus­si­an Pho­ne­tic Insti­tu­te (König­lich Preu­ßi­sches Pho­ne­ti­sches Institut).

In 1920, Doe­gen beca­me the direc­tor of the Sound Depart­ment of the Prus­si­an Sta­te Libra­ry (Laut­ab­tei­lung an der Preu­ßi­schen Staats­bi­blio­thek). Irre­gu­la­ri­ties in book-kee­ping led to Doe­gen step­ping down in July 1930. In Octo­ber 1931 he was, howe­ver, able to begin work again but the admi­nis­tra­ti­on of the Laut­ab­tei­lung beca­me the respon­si­bi­li­ty of the uni­ver­si­ty. In the end the Nazi law of 1933 on the estab­lish­ment of a loy­al and ‘Aryan’ ‘Berufs­be­am­ten­tum’ (The Law for the Res­to­ra­ti­on of the Pro­fes­sio­nal Civil Ser­vice) led to Doegen’s dismissal.

The Phongraphic Commission

Accor­ding to Doegen’s “Sug­ges­ti­ons for the estab­lish­ment of a Roy­al Prus­si­an Pho­ne­tic Insti­tu­te” from 1914, the fol­lo­wing were to be collected:

1. Lan­guages from around the world.
2. All Ger­man dialects.
3. Music and songs from around the world.
4. Voices of famous people.
5. Other are­as of inte­rest.^[ii]

The appli­ca­ti­on led to the appoint­ment of the Roy­al Prus­si­an Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on on 27 Octo­ber 1915. Carl Stumpf, psy­cho­lo­gist, acou­sti­ci­an, and foun­der of the Pho­no­gramm-Archiv was appoin­ted as chair­man of the Com­mis­si­on.^[iii] During the ear­ly pha­se of acou­stic rese­arch Carl Stumpf was regard­ed as an indis­pu­ta­ble aut­ho­ri­ty in the field and it is the­r­e­fo­re not sur­pri­sing that the minis­try ent­rus­ted him with the lea­der­ship of the new initiative.

In total, the com­mis­si­on com­pri­sed thir­ty aca­de­mics working in the fields of phi­lo­lo­gy, anthro­po­lo­gy and musi­co­lo­gy and included such pres­ti­gious scho­lars as Otto Demp­wolff (Medi­ci­ne, Afri­can Indo­ne­si­an and South Seas’ lan­guages), Felix von Luschan (Anthro­po­lo­gy), Fried­rich Carl Andre­as (Ira­ni­an lan­guages), Alo­is Brandl (Eng­lish dialects), Adolf Dirr (Cau­ca­si­an lan­guages), Hel­muth von Gla­sen­app (Pun­ja­bi, Hin­di), August Hei­sen­berg (Greek), Geor­ge Schü­ne­mann (Musi­co­lo­gy), Hein­rich Lüders (Ben­ga­li, Pasch­to, Gurung).

One of the pur­po­ses of the com­mis­si­on was to make audio recor­dings in Ger­man pri­soner of war camps. Bet­ween 29 Decem­ber 1915 and 19 Decem­ber 1918, the Roy­al Prus­si­an Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on recor­ded 2672 audio-media (gra­mo­pho­ne-discs and wax­ cylin­ders) of appro­xi­m­ate­ly 250 lan­guages, dialects, and tra­di­tio­nal music among the pri­soners of war of the Ger­man Empire. The mem­bers of the com­mis­si­on sel­ec­ted 31 of the exis­ting 175 pri­son camps for the coll­ec­tion of their samples.^[iv] Some of the­se camps were visi­ted on more than one occa­si­on and thus, all in all, the com­mis­si­on under­took 49 field trips to pri­son camps. With the excep­ti­on of Aus­tria, this form of gathe­ring eth­no­gra­phi­cal mate­ri­al was uni­que during World War I. In Ger­ma­ny, the acti­vi­ties of the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on were kept secret during the cour­se of the war.

Doe­gen hims­elf was respon­si­ble for the purely tech­ni­cal pro­duc­tion of the gra­mo­pho­ne recor­dings only. Tog­e­ther with the sub­ject experts and a tech­ni­ci­an he made 1650 recor­dings, of which two thirds were lan­guage recor­dings and a third music recor­dings. The last disc (PK 1650) was recor­ded short­ly befo­re Christ­mas 1918. 

The musi­co­lo­gist Georg Schü­ne­mann made musi­cal recor­dings exclu­si­ve­ly with the pho­no­graph. He work­ed most­ly on his own and did not make use of the stan­dar­di­sed data acqui­si­ti­on of the com­mis­si­on, which is descri­bed in the fol­lo­wing pas­sa­ge. His coll­ec­tion con­sists of 1022 wax cylin­ders which are today kept in the Pho­no­gramm-Archiv.^[v]

In the con­fu­si­on of the Novem­ber Revo­lu­ti­on of 1918, Doe­gen obtai­ned per­so­nal con­trol of the gra­mo­pho­ne recor­dings through the Minis­try of Edu­ca­ti­on and estab­lished this coll­ec­tion as the basis of the Sound Depart­ment of the Prus­si­an Sta­te Libra­ry (Laut­ab­tei­lung an der Preu­ßi­schen Staats­bi­blio­thek), foun­ded on 1 April 1920.^[vi]

The Chair­man of the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on, Carl Stumpf, was not infor­med of this deve­lo­p­ment and reac­ted angri­ly,^[vii] becau­se as far as he was con­cer­ned the coll­ec­tion was to be retai­ned by the Minis­try of Edu­ca­ti­on as a whole.

Ins­tead, with the estab­lish­ment of the Laut­ab­tei­lung (Sound Depart­ment) the coll­ec­tion of the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on was divi­ded accor­ding to the recor­ding medi­um (shel­lac in the Laut­ab­tei­lung, wax cylin­ders in the Pho­no­gramm-Archiv) and the­se have been kept at two dif­fe­rent loca­ti­ons ever since.

In addi­ti­on to the gra­mo­pho­ne recor­dings of the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on, the Laut­ab­tei­lung also kept recor­dings of famous indi­vi­du­als, a voice coll­ec­tion, which was begun by Doe­gen in 1917. The­se recor­dings were made with finan­cial sup­port given by the che­mis­try pro­fes­sor Dr Lud­wig Darm­staed­ter. Accor­ding to the con­tract of dona­ti­on, the pur­po­se of this coll­ec­tion was: “Stim­men von sol­chen Per­sön­lich­kei­ten auf­zu­be­wah­ren, an deren Erhal­tung für die Nach­welt ein his­to­ri­sches Inter­es­se vor­liegt” (To retain the voices of important per­so­na­li­ties that are of his­to­ri­cal inte­rest of future gene­ra­ti­ons).^[viii] “Per­so­na­li­ties”, here, rela­tes in par­ti­cu­lar to poli­ti­ci­ans, sci­en­tists and artists.

The­se recor­dings were inten­ded to sup­ple­ment the Lud­wig Darm­staed­ter coll­ec­tion of auto­graphs for the histo­ry of sci­ence, which Darm­staed­ter had dona­ted to the Roy­al Libra­ry (König­li­che Biblio­thek) ten years ear­lier.^[ix] As hono­ra­ry cura­tor of this coll­ec­tion Doe­gen had to accept the decis­i­ons made by a cura­tor­ship on new recor­dings. The records of this coll­ec­tion of voices car­ry the signa­tu­re “Aut” (Auto­phon). The first offi­ci­al recor­ding with the signa­tu­re “Aut 1” was the speech of the Ger­man Kai­ser Wil­helm II with the title “Auf­ruf an mein Volk” (Appeal to my Peo­p­le) recor­ded on 10 Janu­ary 1918 in the Schloß Bel­le­vue. This speech was ori­gi­nal­ly held in August 1914. A typi­cal sign of the “Aut” signa­to­ry series is that every recor­ding is made up of pas­sa­ges taken from famous spee­ches or lec­tures alre­a­dy given. The time lap­se bet­ween a speech being held and it being recor­ded ran­ged from only a few days to four years. A fur­ther cha­rac­te­ristic of this “Aut” signa­to­ry is that the spea­k­er signed the wax matrix after the suc­cessful recording.

Spe­cial sta­tus was given to the record “Aut 0” used only within the coll­ec­tion. This par­ti­cu­lar recor­ding which con­ta­ins the voices of both Doe­gen and Darm­staed­ter appears in none of the docu­ments in the archi­ve and was only dis­co­ver­ed among the 7500 records during a review of the con­tents of the coll­ec­tion. In this recor­ding Doe­gen and Darm­staed­ter set out their reasons for buil­ding the coll­ec­tion and also dis­cuss the finan­cial sup­port given. The “Aut” signa­to­ry was dis­con­tin­ued in 1924 becau­se Darm­staed­ter with­drew his finan­cial support.

When Doe­gen beca­me direc­tor of the Laut­ab­tei­lung in 1920 he remain­ed accoun­ta­ble to the Sound Com­mis­si­on (Laut­ko­mis­si­on) which, just like the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on, deci­ded on what recor­dings were to be made, and it was made up, in part, of the same group of peo­p­le. As direc­tor of the coll­ec­tion Doe­gen was respon­si­ble for the tech­ni­cal rea­li­sa­ti­on, con­ser­va­ti­on, and eva­lua­ti­on of the coll­ec­tion, as well as making it available to the public.

The recor­dings of the Laut­ab­tei­lung were given the signa­tu­re LA. The ran­ge of the­mes cover­ed in the coll­ec­tion was great­ly exten­ded. Apart from “Lan­guages and Music from around the World” (Spra­che und Musik sämt­li­cher Völ­ker) the docu­men­ta­ti­on of Ger­man dialects beca­me a mat­ter of inte­rest. Recor­dings of the 40 Wen­ker Sen­ten­ces (40 Wen­ker­sche Sät­ze) for the Ger­man lan­guage atlas were made with the help of Fer­di­nand Wre­de from Mar­burg. Along with the various recor­ding expe­di­ti­ons under­ta­ken within Ger­ma­ny the­re were also expe­di­ti­ons to Switz­er­land, to Ire­land and to Lat­via. The area of recor­ding, “Famous Peo­p­le”, of the “Aut” signa­tu­re was car­ri­ed on in the LA signa­tu­re after Darm­staed­ter ended his invol­vement but this time it was deve­lo­ped under the title “Peo­p­le of Public Inte­rest”. The voices of peo­p­le included in the coll­ec­tion ran­ged from tho­se invol­ved in tech­ni­cal inno­va­tions to pio­neers of aviation.

In 1925 ani­mal noi­ses were recor­ded in co-ope­ra­ti­on with the Kro­ne cir­cus. As well as the recor­dings of wild ani­mals such as ele­phants, sea lions and tigers, the North Ame­ri­can Indi­ans who were made to put on a show by the Kro­ne cir­cus in the same year were brought in front of the recor­ding trumpet. By recor­ding the chiefs of the Iowa and Che­yenne sound docu­ments of the Sioux and Algon­quin lan­guages were added to the collection.

When the Afri­ca­nist and pho­ne­ti­ci­an Died­rich Wes­ter­mann took over the run­ning of the Laut­ab­tei­lung after Doegen’s dis­mis­sal in 1933, it beca­me a tea­ching and rese­arch insti­tu­ti­on for pho­ne­tics and was inte­gra­ted into the uni­ver­si­ty^[x] as the Insti­tu­te for Sound Rese­arch (Insti­tut für Laut­for­schung). In 1935, it was divi­ded into depart­ments for lin­gu­i­stics, music, and a pho­ne­tic labo­ra­to­ry. An aca­de­mic spe­cia­list was respon­si­ble for each depart­ment.^[xi] The archi­ve remain­ed in this form until 1944.

During the Second World War sound recor­dings were made of pri­soners of war both in Ger­ma­ny and in camps in France bet­ween 1939 and 1941. In France the­re was par­ti­cu­lar empha­sis on recor­dings of Afri­can lan­guages. This work is not com­pa­ra­ble with that of Carl Stumpf during the First World War eit­her in terms of the ext­ent or its content.

After 1945 the Insti­tu­te for Sound Rese­arch was sub­ject to much res­truc­tu­ring until it lost its inde­pen­dence in the Second Hig­her Edu­ca­ti­on Reform of 1969, and was inte­gra­ted into the sec­tion Reha­bi­li­ta­ti­on Pedago­gy and Com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on Stu­dies (Reha­bi­li­ta­ti­ons­päd­ago­gik und Kom­mu­ni­ka­ti­ons­wis­sen­schaft) as the Depart­ment for Pho­ne­tics and Sci­ence of Lan­guage (Abtei­lung Phonetik/ Sprech­wis­sen­schaft). Here, the Laut­ar­chiv held a mar­gi­nal posi­ti­on at best while the coll­ec­tion of mate­ri­al had come to a standstill con­sider­a­b­ly ear­lier. In 1981 it was to be dis­po­sed of altog­e­ther. But the eth­no­mu­si­co­lo­gist Jür­gen Els­ner reco­g­nis­ed the gre­at value of the (for the most part negle­c­ted) coll­ec­tion and took steps to ensu­re that the coll­ec­tion was secu­red in locking rooms in the Depart­ment of Musi­co­lo­gy (Musik­wis­sen­schaft­li­ches Semi­nar). A first com­pre­hen­si­ve report on the coll­ec­tion was published in 1996 by Die­ter Meh­nert who loo­ked after the coll­ec­tion in the 1990s.^[xii] Today this coll­ec­tion is known as the Laut­ar­chiv and is still loca­ted at the Depart­ment of Musi­co­lo­gy and Media Stu­dies at the Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­tät in Berlin.

Technical and Organisational Realisation of the Gramophone Recordings in the POW Camps

The gra­mo­pho­ne recor­dings under the super­vi­si­on of Wil­helm Doe­gen were rea­li­sed in the fol­lo­wing man­ner: First the mem­bers of the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on took account of the lan­guages spo­ken by the pri­soners in each camp sin­ce the lists they obtai­ned from the camp com­man­ders before­hand were not always accu­ra­te. The Com­mis­si­on and/or the lan­guage expert then deci­ded who was to be recor­ded. Befo­re each recor­ding a so-cal­led per­so­nal ques­ti­on­n­aire (Per­so­nal­bo­gen) had to be completed.

Apart from docu­men­ting the recor­ding, the ques­ti­on­n­aire gave detail­ed infor­ma­ti­on about the pro­ven­an­ce of the spea­k­er as well as his lin­gu­i­stic heri­ta­ge and con­tai­ned ques­ti­ons regar­ding the social back­ground of the spea­k­er. Fur­ther­mo­re, no recor­ding could be made befo­re the text was writ­ten down in the hand­wri­ting style or type­face nor­mal­ly used for the speaker’s lan­guage. Sin­ce spea­k­ers and sin­gers did not always stick to the agreed text, new tran­scrip­ti­ons had at times to be made once the shel­lac discs had been pro­du­ced. Tran­scrip­ti­ons of music were only made after pres­sing the records.

The the­mes of the recor­dings are:

1. Word groups of rela­tively unknown lan­guages and con­tai­ning words which are easi­ly con­fu­sed were recor­ded for use in dictionaries.
2. Fairy tales, sto­ries and anecdotes.
3. Pri­soners of war, in par­ti­cu­lar from Gre­at Bri­tain and France, but also from other Euro­pean count­ries, read the Para­ble of the Pro­di­gal Son (Luke XV, 11 ff.) in their own dialects. In this way dialects of all Eng­lish coun­ties were docu­men­ted and could be com­pared with each other.
4. The majo­ri­ty of the music recor­dings are vocal, only a few recor­dings are purely instru­men­tal. About two thirds of the recor­dings are spo­ken and about one third is music.

The acti­vi­ties of the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on did not only extend to acou­stic recor­dings. Apart from sim­ply tran­scrib­ing the recor­ded texts, so-cal­led pala­to­grams were made by the den­tist Alfred Doe­gen, a brot­her of Wil­helm Doe­gen, in order to detail the exact ton­gue posi­ti­on, made more com­pli­ca­ted by varia­ti­on in accent. X­ray pho­to­graphs of the larynx were made to enable sci­en­ti­fic rese­arch into spe­ci­fic speech sounds.

The eth­no­lo­gist and cura­tor of the Ber­lin Eth­no­lo­gi­cal Muse­um, Felix von Luschan, under­took anthro­po­lo­gi­cal stu­dies and made mea­su­re­ments of the pri­soners.^[xiii] A pho­to­grapher took pic­tures of near­ly every spea­k­er and sin­ger. About 50 of the­se pho­tos sur­vi­ved in the archi­ve. Not all of them can be assi­gned defi­ni­tively to a recor­ding. The pho­tos show a per­son from the front and in pro­fi­le in kee­ping with the con­tem­po­ra­ry eth­no­lo­gi­cal practice.

The­re is a con­sidera­ble num­ber of Afri­can and Asi­an lan­guage and music recor­dings as well as samples of speech taken from East and West Euro­pean lan­guages. The­se are among the ear­liest sound recor­dings of this type. Becau­se of their ortho­gra­phic and pho­ne­tic tran­scrip­ti­ons, accom­pa­nied by Ger­man trans­la­ti­ons, the­se recor­dings were, by con­tem­po­ra­neous stan­dards, excel­lent­ly docu­men­ted and are the­r­e­fo­re inva­luable for cur­rent rese­arch pro­jects. So, for exam­p­le, accom­pany­ing one disc which runs for three and a half minu­tes the­re are 35 pages of writ­ten documentation.

South Asian Recordings in the Lautarchiv

Sound recor­dings from the fol­lo­wing pre­sent-day sta­tes can be found in the archi­ve: Afgha­ni­stan, Ban­gla­desh, India, Nepal and Paki­stan. Wit­hout excep­ti­on all recor­dings were made using pri­soners of war from the First World War as spea­k­ers and sin­gers from the for­mer ter­ri­to­ries of Bri­tish India and Nepal. Most of the­se pri­soners were held in the ‘Half­moon Camp’ in Wüns­dorf near Berlin.

With ele­ven trips, Wüns­dorf was the most fre­quent­ly visi­ted camp, also known as ‘Half­moon Camp’ (Halb­mond­la­ger) due to the lar­ge num­ber of Mus­lim pri­soners inter­ned here.^[xiv] Situa­ted mere­ly 40 kilo­me­t­res south of Ber­lin, Wüns­dorf was espe­ci­al­ly inte­res­t­ing for the rese­ar­chers due to its rich diver­si­ty of cul­tures, many of which were asso­cia­ted with the colo­ni­al powers of Eng­land and France. About 65 idi­oms were clas­si­fied by the mem­bers of the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on. South Asi­an Lan­guages spo­ken and recor­ded by the inter­ned sol­diers were:^[xv] Hindi/Hindustani/Urdu, Pun­ja­bi, Bengali/Sylheti, Garhwa­li, Old-Hin­di, Baluchi, Pash­to, Kha­si, Lim­bu, Nepa­li, Maga­ri, Gurung, Rai.Other lan­guages included Eng­lish (Nepal, Gre­at Bri­tain), Viet­na­me­se (Viet­nam), Bau­le (Ivo­ry Coast), Daho­meen, Bari­ba (Ben­in), Bobo, (Bur­ki­na Faso), Mosi, Samo­go (Buki­na Faso, Mali),Wolof, Pula­ar (Sene­gal), Ful (Mali, Sudan, Sene­gal, Gui­nea), Kas­on­ke (Mali), Zar­ma (Mali, Nige­ria), Kwa (Togo), Kru (Libe­ria), Malin­ka, Toma (Gui­nea), Soso (Sier­ra Leo­ne, Gui­nea), Ban­tu, Swa­hi­li, Mwa­li, Nga­zid­ja, Ndzwa­ni (Como­ros), Soma­li (Soma­lia), Bam­ba­ra (Sudan, Mali, Sene­gal), Man­dara, Kanuri (Sudan), Haus­sa (Sudan, Mali), Yoru­ba (Nige­ria), Any­in (Gha­na), Ara­bic, (Alge­ria, Tuni­sia, Moroc­co, Rus­si­an Fede­ra­ti­on), Ber­ber (Alge­ria, Moroc­co), Kabyle (Alge­ri­en), Bet­si­leo, Betsi­mi­sa­ra­ka, Beza­no­za­no, Meri­na, Sakala­ve, Syanaka,Taisaka, Tanosy (Mada­gas­car), Mal­te­se (Mal­ta), Tatar, Avar, Bash­kir, Udmurt (Rus­si­an Fede­ra­ti­on), Kirg­hiz (Kyr­gyz­stan), New Cale­do­ni­an (New Caledonia).

Adja­cent to the Half­moon Camp in Wüns­dorf was the Wein­berg Camp in Zos­sen. Here, Mus­lim sol­diers from Rus­sia (Tatars) were inter­ned. In the initi­al pha­se of the recor­ding work only seven discs were made of Tatar songs. Other­wi­se, all the recor­dings of Rus­si­an Mus­lims held in the Wein­berg camp were made in the Half­moon Camp. Both camps were set up to encou­ra­ge the inma­tes to defect to the Ger­man side using careful­ly tar­ge­ted pro­pa­gan­da.^[xvi] We can assu­me that the­re was con­stant exch­an­ge of pri­soners bet­ween the two camps for the recor­ding. For ins­tance, the Moham­me­dan Call to Pray­er (Gebets­ruf der Moham­me­da­ner) recor­ded in Ara­bic in the Wüns­dorf camp was that of a Tatar from Tobol­sk who was held pri­soner in the Wein­berg camp.^[xvii] In the Half­moon Camp the­re was also a mos­que with a mina­ret from which the muez­zin could have cal­led peo­p­le to prayer.

About half of the mem­bers of the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on visi­ted the Half­moon Camp to make sound recor­dings. They fil­led 482 discs with 765 indi­vi­du­al recor­dings, which accounts for appro­xi­m­ate­ly 30 per cent of all recor­dings in the archi­ve made under the auspi­ces of Doe­gen. Also rele­vant to the South Asi­an recor­dings is the work direc­ted by com­mis­si­on mem­bers Hein­rich Lüders, Fried­rich Carl Andre­as, Hel­muth von Gla­sen­app, Alo­is Brandl and Josef Horo­vitz. This part of the coll­ec­tion com­pri­ses 282 titles on 193 shel­lac discs. The­se recor­dings will be exami­ned in more detail in the fol­lo­wing para­graph. For the most part ortho­gra­phic tran­scrip­ti­ons are available in Deva­na­ga­ri for all titles.

Most recor­dings were made by the Indi­an and Ori­en­tal scho­lar Hein­rich Lüders (1869–1943)^[xviii] with 150 indi­vi­du­al recor­dings on 98 discs. Most of the­se (70 titles) are in Nepa­le­se. lt is note­wor­t­hy that along with many Nepa­le­se sto­ries, Lüders also recor­ded songs. In the other lan­guages, which he recorded—Gurung (23),^[xix] Kha­si (17), Ben­ga­li (13)—it is most­ly sto­ries which are docu­men­ted, but the­re also neu­tral exem­plars such as the alpha­bet and lan­guage samples. In the Gurung samples Lüders did not keep to the sequence of tran­scrib­ing the texts and recor­ding them for he wro­te in a note atta­ched to the trans­la­ti­on of discs PK 636 and 637:

The­se examp­les have been recor­ded in a Hin­di dialect, but it is not clear in which. Given the inac­cu­ra­te ortho­gra­phy and the pho­ne­tic tran­scrip­ti­on which puts down in wri­ting what is heard, it was no more pos­si­ble for two edu­ca­ted Indi­ans, whom I con­sul­ted, than it was for me to arri­ve at a com­ple­te trans­la­ti­on.^[xx]

With the excep­ti­on of mili­ta­ry com­mands (recor­ded by Brandl), the only recor­ding of a South Asi­an POW in Eng­lish camp can be found among the lan­guage recor­dings made by Lüders.^[xxi] Disc num­ber PK 271 is a voice recor­ding of Ganga Ram, a Pri­soner of War from Nepal. What is unu­su­al about this disc is that he does not speak in his mother ton­gue, Kha­si, but rela­tes the sto­ry of the Pro­di­gal Son which has not­hing to do with his own reli­gious back­ground as a Hindu.

Hel­muth von Gla­sen­app (1891–1963),^[xxii] a scho­lar of reli­gi­on and Indi­an stu­dies who work­ed for the pro­pa­gan­da wing of the over­se­as agen­cy Infor­ma­ti­on Bureau for the Ori­ent (Nach­rich­ten­stel­le für den Ori­ent), made 56 discs with 86 titles. He focus­sed on the lan­guages Pun­ja­bi (34), Hin­di (49), Old Hin­di (2) and Garhwa­li (1) and his work is domi­na­ted by songs more than sto­ries or poems. The Ori­en­ta­list Josef Horo­vitz (1874–1931)^[xxiii] was respon­si­ble for 22 discs com­pri­sing 26 recor­dings. His recor­dings of Hin­du­sta­ni (21) and Belut­schi (5) con­sist main­ly of stories—especially fairy tales and anec­do­tes. Nine of 16 recor­dings made by the Ori­en­ta­list and Iran scho­lar Fried­rich Carl Andre­as (1846–1930)^[xxiv] are recor­dings of Pash­to songs on shel­lac discs. Comic songs make up a signi­fi­cant part of his list of recor­dings. Alo­is Brandl,^[xxv] phi­lo­lo­gist and Pro­fes­sor for Eng­lish at Ber­lin Uni­ver­si­ty made only four recor­dings of Indi­an pri­soners of war on four discs. His other 260 titles made for the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on are of acou­stic signals with a bug­le and Eng­lish mili­ta­ry com­mands. At this point it is also neces­sa­ry to men­ti­on the recor­dings of Georg Schü­ne­mann. On his list of recor­dings from the pri­soner of war camps the fol­lo­wing can be found: 16 Ghurk­ha, four Sikh, seven Tha­lor and one Hin­du­sta­ni.^[xxvi]

The con­tent of even the stran­gest of the­se recor­dings is noted in neu­tral terms by the com­mis­si­on. One of the four Pun­ja­bi sto­ries recor­ded by Gla­sen­app is direct­ly rela­ted to a wish on the part of the pri­soners rela­ting to the camp and the reli­gious atti­tu­de of the Sikhs. Tue disc num­be­red PK 676 was made by Sun­dar Singh on 5 Janu­ary 1917 under the gene­ral title “Sto­ry” (Erzäh­lung). In order to cri­ti­cise the atti­tu­de of the camp aut­ho­ri­ties to the reli­gious sen­si­ti­vi­ties of the Sikhs, he prai­ses the living con­di­ti­ons in the camp in an exag­ge­ra­ted way:

Om, by the grace of the true guru (or: the Granth). The guru has loo­ked upon us with gre­at bene­vo­lence for he has reve­a­led hims­elf in this stran­ge land and in this cap­ti­vi­ty and in this very pri­son. We are so hap­py that we feel bles­sed. To us, the­re can be no bliss grea­ter than this, it is grea­ter even than the bliss of peace. Due to this the reli­gious assem­bla­ge has suc­cee­ded. We regard the Granth Sahib as the liken­ess of the tenth Guru and high­ly vene­ra­te it. If any­bo­dy should not vene­ra­te it or should not be wil­ling to vene­ra­te it then each and every Singh would be pre­pared to sacri­fice his life at this place or he would not suf­fer to have it [the Granth] dis­ho­no­u­red. So far our Guru Saheb [i.e. the Granth] has not recei­ved a blan­ket. If we had been in India and our Guru Sahib had gone wit­hout a blan­ket, we would not have taken any food. We have tried a lot but our Guru Sahib has not recei­ved a blan­ket yet. If we were not to take any food in this place we would peri­sh very quick­ly becau­se we have no strength left in our bodies for you know that the­se (peo­p­le) do not recei­ve food like they do in India. The­r­e­fo­re, we can­not give up taking food. That the Eng­lish have sent us our Guru Granth Sahib—of what avail is that? Think about this yours­elf and swift­ly fur­nish us with a reply.

When we see the deni­zens of Ger­ma­ny we feel very hap­py, but we belie­ve that the Ger­mans do not think of us as we do of them. If the Ger­mans thought of us like this, they would honour the house [i.e. the temp­le] of our guru [i.e. the Granth].

PS: Refers to the desi­re of the pri­soners to obtain a blan­ket for their holy book, the ‘Granth’.^[xxvii]

Cri­ti­cism on the situa­ti­on in the camp was not always pas­sed so open­ly. The dif­fi­cult life of the pri­soner also finds expres­si­on in the form of fables, fairy tales or anec­do­tes. The fol­lo­wing exam­p­le, also recor­ded by Gla­sen­app can be inter­pre­ted in this way:

A peasant was fri­ends with a tiger. The fri­end­ship bet­ween them was very gre­at. One day the tiger came to the house of the peasant. The wife of the peasant said: ‘You have made fri­ends with jack­als, wol­ves and tigers, don’t you have any shame? Sin­ce the tiger has been coming to our house, the­re is a stench in the house.’ When the tiger heard this, he was enra­ged and left the house. The peasant left with him. The tiger said to the peasant: ‘You are only my fri­end if you strike at my head with an axe.’ On hea­ring this, the peasant com­pli­ed with his wish and struck with the axe, then the tiger aban­do­ned him. When, after one year, the tiger met the peasant again, the tiger said: ‘Now look at the wound of the axe with which you have struck at my head.’ When the peasant loo­ked for the wound, no wound was the­re. The tiger said: ‘The wound cau­sed by the axe has vanis­hed, but what your wife has said that is a wound I will car­ry for the rest of my life. Now the fri­end­ship bet­ween us is at an end.’ Take a good look, my fri­end, this address even an ani­mal has not for­got­ten, how could a man for­get the like?^[xxviii]

Regard­less of whe­ther the recor­ding is of a tra­di­tio­nal sto­ry or one which has its ori­gin in the camp, the real issue is that the con­text always remains that of a pri­soner of war camp. If we accept this as a basis for our inter­pre­ta­ti­on, Ish­mer Singh, her­ein the role of the tiger, can be seen to give expres­si­on to wounds he recei­ved in the war and as a pri­soner which are not visi­ble on the surface.

The pala­to­gram and X‑ray images men­tio­ned ear­lier were not the only pie­ces of rese­arch in the area of phy­si­cal anthro­po­lo­gy. The pri­soners of the Half­moon Camp were often the sub­jects of anthro­po­lo­gi­cal exami­na­ti­ons. On the invi­ta­ti­on of Felix von Luschan (Roy­al Eth­no­lo­gi­cal Muse­um in Ber­lin and Pro­fes­sor of Anthro­po­lo­gy at Ber­lin Uni­ver­si­ty) the Aus­tri­an Rudolf Pöch and his assistant Josef Wenin­ger car­ri­ed out exami­na­ti­ons of West Afri­can pri­soners which were only published in 1927 in Vien­na.^[xxix] Pöch also car­ri­ed out much wider rese­arch on Aus­tri­an and Hun­ga­ri­an pri­soners of war which should be con­side­red in con­junc­tion with the data from the Half­moon Camp. Egon von Eick­stedt, a pupil of Luschan, made head mea­su­re­ments of Sikhs and tried to estab­lish a topo­lo­gy, but his expe­ri­ment fai­led.^[xxx]

lt is note­wor­t­hy that the docu­men­ta­ti­on pro­vi­ded by the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on in no way attempt­ed to con­vey any­thing of the indi­vi­dua­li­ty of each per­son. The per­so­nal record cards tell us not­hing about the fami­ly back­ground of the pri­soner, nor the cir­cum­s­tances in which he came to be invol­ved in the war. The per­so­na­li­ty of each pri­soner was only used to place them in a socio cul­tu­ral matrix. The pur­po­se of the per­so­nal details was to allow the pri­soner to be grou­ped accor­ding to eth­ni­ci­ty and lan­guage. Any infor­ma­ti­on bey­ond this was of no inte­rest to the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on. It was not seen as an omis­si­on that the recor­dings were made wit­hout a cul­tu­ral con­text. This weak­ne­ss in the stra­tegy used for coll­ec­ting data can be lin­ked to the poli­ti­cal situa­ti­on at that time. By way of their docu­men­ting of lan­guages and styl­es of music, the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on sought to meet the demands made on them by a colo­ni­al power. In this way the glo­bal cul­tu­ral inte­rests of Ger­ma­ny and their claims as a colo­ni­al power could be rein­forced. Doe­gen was not only pur­suing a per­so­nal inte­rest in crea­ting a sound recor­ding archi­ve; he was also kee­ping an eye on other more com­mer­cial pur­po­ses. For exam­p­le, the recor­dings were to be used for trai­ning colo­ni­al offi­ci­als in the lan­guages of the colo­nies envi­sio­ned as of stra­te­gic importance after a suc­cessful con­clu­si­on of the First World War from the point of view of the Ger­man Empire.

As a gene­ral rule, the note­books accom­pany­ing the shel­lac discs of the sound recor­ding archi­ve in which the pho­ne­tic and ortho­gra­phic tran­scrip­ti­on of the con­tents of each disc held in prin­ted form give no details about the per­so­nal life of the pri­soner becau­se of the natu­re of the per­so­nal infor­ma­ti­on given. The­se books do not give the rea­der any sen­se that the recor­dings were made in pri­soner of war camps.^[xxxi] Nor is the­re a note­book accom­pany­ing the South Asi­an recor­dings for only a small num­ber of the­se discs must have been sold. The rese­ar­chers did not use the South Asi­an mate­ri­al for their publications.

The­se examp­les should demons­tra­te the type of absence of infor­ma­ti­on in the archi­ve. On the other hand, the­re is no other his­to­ri­cal sound archi­ve of that sta­tus. And even if the infor­ma­ti­on is not com­ple­te at least the Laut­ar­chiv pro­vi­des a base that allows us to con­ti­nue sear­ching for des­cen­dants and fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on. The­r­e­fo­re rese­arch in this archi­ve can help in shif­ting the focus away from see­ing the war through the lens of inter­ac­tions among sta­tes and towards indi­vi­du­al trajectories.

In 1925 Alo­is Brandl wri­tes about the qua­li­ty of the recor­dings of Bri­tish dialects made by him in the pri­soner of war camps:

Revie­w­ing the mate­ri­al I coll­ec­ted in 15 camps, from a sum­ma­ry stu­dy of some 1000 spea­k­ers of dialects and from a clo­se sound­ing out of 75, under­neath all the varie­ga­ti­on the­re is a uni­fy­ing cha­rac­te­ristic: it is not taken from books or news­pa­pers but from real life.[…] Here resounds a choir of par­ti­ci­pan­ts in the war, who­se voices other­wi­se would have faded away; a hundred years from now they shall still speak as that por­ti­on of England’s soul which, in cri­ti­cal times, had to act and endu­re but did not have a say in public. Good lads, how unflag­gin­gly have you repea­ted your cou­ple of lines until they were incor­po­ra­ted into the muse­um of lin­gu­i­stics! […] One day the bet­ter Eng­land[…] will awa­ken once more and honour this cul­tu­ral work amidst the inces­sant cla­mour of wea­pons in world histo­ry; until then let it stand in the shadow as mere ‘dialec­to­lo­gy’, as bizar­re phi­lo­lo­gism, as Ger­man reve­rie.^[xxxii]

Of all the scho­lars named abo­ve who made recor­dings of sol­diers from sou­thern Asia in the Half­moon Camp, Alo­is Brandl, along with Hein­rich Lüders,^[xxxiii] is the only per­son to make refe­rence to the rese­arch and recor­dings in the pri­soner of war camps in his artic­le in Doegen’s book “Among­st For­eign Peo­p­les” (Unter frem­den Völ­kern) published in 1925. The three essays writ­ten by Hel­muth von Gla­sen­app, which are published in this book, refer neither to the cir­cum­s­tances of the recor­dings nor to his own recor­dings.^[xxxiv] Josef Horo­vitz refers to his work in the camps only in the last para­graph of his artic­le entit­led “On Indi­an Mus­lims”.^[xxxv] The essay by Fried­rich Carl Andre­as makes no men­ti­on of his visits to the pri­son camps.^[xxxvi]

Conclusion

An unu­su­al source is available to tho­se who wish to inves­ti­ga­te the situa­ti­on of South Asi­ans who were detai­ned in Ger­man intern­ment camps during the First World War. An acou­stic docu­ment, the shel­lac disc, offers infor­ma­ti­on of a very par­ti­cu­lar type. Despi­te the crack­ling the­se recor­dings give a sen­se of imme­dia­cy crea­ted not least by the recor­ding tech­ni­ques used from the begin­ning of sound recor­ding. In this way sound docu­ments of many peo­p­les have been pre­ser­ved and are today stored in the Laut­ar­chiv of the Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­tät zu Ber­lin. The sound docu­ments are part of a world heri­ta­ge and offer lin­gu­ists, his­to­ri­ans as well as scho­lars of cul­tu­ral and lite­ra­ry stu­dies from all parts of the glo­be an inva­luable cor­pus of rese­arch material.

It is now more than 90 years sin­ce the begin­ning of the First World War. This distance should allow for this coll­ec­ted mate­ri­al, which is not only a mul­ti­l­in­gu­al repo­si­to­ry of recor­ded lan­guage samples but an important part of world cul­tu­ral heri­ta­ge, to be eva­lua­ted and ana­ly­sed more com­pre­hen­si­ve­ly and from various aca­de­mic angles. This rese­arch should be car­ri­ed out by aca­de­mics from the respec­ti­ve lin­gu­i­stic regi­ons for they are best pla­ced to unra­vel the various pho­ne­tic, seman­tic, and prag­ma­tic levels of the acou­stic mate­ri­al and set them in their appro­pria­te cul­tu­ral and his­to­ric context.

In recent years the docu­ments of the sound recor­ding archi­ve have been the basis of exhi­bi­ti­ons and docu­men­ta­ry films. In terms of the South Asi­an recor­dings Phil­ip Scheffner’s film and exhi­bi­ti­on pro­ject “The Half­moon Files” is worth men­tio­ning. The basis of his rese­arch is the voice recor­dings of Bri­tish-Indi­an sol­diers kept in the archi­ve.^[xxxvii]

The re-recor­ding of the main part of the shel­lac disc coll­ec­tion from the years 1915–44 was con­cluded with the crea­ti­on of the data base in 2005. The digi­tal files of the 3825 discs are now available in WAV for­mat and as MP3 files. As the­re was often more than one recor­ding on each side of a disc, a total of 6806 files were crea­ted. Becau­se of the level to which indi­vi­du­al recor­dings have been deve­lo­ped the sound recor­ding archi­ve has set inter­na­tio­nal stan­dards for simi­lar sound collections.

Endnotes

^[i] http://www.sammlungen.hu-berlin.de, Rev. 2011-02-14. At the moment the web­page can be acces­sed in Ger­man only. Sin­ce the data­ba­se com­pri­ses a varie­ty of other coll­ec­tions rese­ar­chers are advi­sed, in order to exclu­si­ve­ly search the sound archi­ve, to choo­se under the opti­on “The­sau­rus” “Spra­chen” (lan­guages) or “Sprach­fa­mi­li­en” (fami­lies of lan­guages). Due to copy­right issues the online ver­si­on of the data­ba­se does not include the opti­on of lis­tening to the actu­al sound files. Titles and various infor­ma­ti­on about each recor­ding is available however.

^[ii] Doegen,Wilhelm (Hg.), Unter frem­den Völ­kern. Eine neue Völ­ker­kun­de, Ber­lin: Otto Stoll­berg, 1925, S. 9. The modern coll­ec­tion cor­re­sponds to Doegen’s clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on, yet the start­ing dates of the dif­fe­rent bran­ches vary: from 1915 Lan­guages, Music and Songs of the Peo­p­les of the World (Spra­chen, Musik und Gesang der Völ­ker der Erde), from 1917 Vocal Potraits of lmportant Public Figu­res (Stimm­por­traits bekann­ter Per­sön­lich­kei­ten) and from 1922 Ger­man dialects (deut­sche Mund­ar­ten) as well as “Mis­cel­la­neous” inclu­ding ani­mal voices.

^[iii] Carl Stumpf foun­ded the Pho­no­gramm-Archiv at the Fried­rich Wil­helm Uni­ver­si­ty in 1905 with audio recor­dings that he had been pro­du­cing sin­ce 1900 on Edi­son wax cylin­ders. The Pho­no­gramm-Archiv now is part of the Eth­no­lo­gi­cal Muse­um in Ber­lin. Simon, Arthur (ed.) Das Ber­li­ner Pho­no­gramm-Archiv 1900–2000—Sammlungen der tra­di­tio­nel­len Musik der Welt, Ber­lin: Ver­lag für Wis­sen­schaft und Bil­dung, 2000, S. 25–46.

^[iv] All the figu­res quo­ted are based on the docu­men­ta­ti­on of 1650 shel­lac recor­dings of the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on, today held by the Laut­ar­chiv of the Humboldt­ Uni­ver­si­ty of Berlin.

^[v] Simon, Ibid., S. 237. The shel­lac discs of the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on car­ry the signa­tu­re “PK”, whe­re­as that the Edi­son wax cylin­ders have the signa­tu­re “Phon. Komm.” The shel­lac disc, which in com­pa­ri­son to wax cylin­ders (or pho­no­graph cylin­ders) is mark­ed by a bet­ter play­back qua­li­ty, repro­du­ci­bi­li­ty, and dura­bi­li­ty, was to be used as a new medi­um of tea­ching. The con­tent of the wax cylin­ders is not part of this article.

^[vi] This was based on Doegen’s “memo­ran­dum on the estab­lish­ment of a sound depart­ment in the Prus­si­an sta­te libra­ry” (Denk­schrift über die Errich­tung einer Laut­ab­tei­lung in der Preu­ßi­schen Staatsbibliothek).

^[vii] Gehei­mes Staatsarchiv—Preußischer Kul­tur­be­sitz [GStAPK), num­ber 250,Vol. I, docu­ments 78 and 79. Fol­lo­wing a mee­ting of the Pho­no­gra­phic Com­mis­si­on on 3.2.1919, Carl Stumpf wro­te to the Minis­try for Edu­ca­ti­on on 12.04.1920 as fol­lows: “Sie [die Kom­mis­si­on] kann daher ein star­kes Befrem­den dar­über nicht ver­heh­len, dass im Staats­haus­halts­plan von 1920 zu die­sem Zwe­cke die Errich­tung einer Laut­samm­lung als beson­de­rer Abtei­lung der Staats­bi­blio­thek vor­ge­se­hen ist, ohne dass die Mei­nung der Pho­no­gra­pi­schen Kom­mis­si­on irgend­wie gehört wor­den wäre.”

(“We [the Com­mis­si­on] can­not with­hold our reser­va­tions about the natio­nal bud­get plan of 1920 envi­sa­ging the estab­lish­ment of a sound coll­ec­tion as a spe­cial depart­ment of the sta­te libra­ry, wit­hout in any way hea­ring the opi­ni­on of the Pho­no­gra­phic Commission.”)

^[viii] GStAPK, num­ber 250, Vol. I, docu­ments 3 and 4. Con­tract dated 17.03.1917.

^[ix] Ibid.

^[x] The Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­tät zu Ber­lin has been ren­a­med seve­ral times. To avo­id con­fu­si­on here are the names in chro­no­lo­gi­cal order:

1810–1827 Ber­li­ner Uni­ver­si­tät, 1828–1945 Fried­rich-Wil­helms-Uni­ver­si­tät, 1945–1947 Uni­ver­si­tät Ber­lin, 1948-today Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­tät zu Berlin.

^[xi] D. Wes­ter­mann took over the run­ning of the depart­ment of lin­gu­i­stics, F. Bose that of music and F. Weth­lo the pho­ne­tic laboratory.

^[xii] Meh­nert, Die­ter, „His­to­ri­sche Schallaufnahmen—Das Laut­ar­chiv an der Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­tät zu Ber­lin“, Stu­di­en­tex­te zur Sprach­kom­mu­ni­ka­ti­on 13 (1996): S. 28–45.

^[xiii] Lan­ge, Brit­ta, “South Asi­an Sol­diers and Ger­man Aca­de­mics: Anthro­po­lo­gi­cal, Lin­gu­i­stic and Musi­co­lo­gi­cal Field Stu­dies in Pri­son Camps”. In: Fran­zis­ka Roy, Hei­ke Liebau and Ravi Ahu­ja (eds), ‘When The War Began We Heard of Seve­ral Kings’ South Asi­an Pri­soners in World War I Ger­ma­ny, New Delhi: Social Sci­ence Press, 2011, pp. 149–185.

^[xiv] In a mos­que spe­ci­al­ly built for the pri­soners they could con­gre­ga­te for pray­ers. The call of the muez­zin has been pre­ser­ved on the shel­lac discs. Apart from the shel­lac discs seve­ral pho­to­graphs depic­ting the camp life have been pre­ser­ved (Cf. Kah­leyss, Mar­got, Mus­li­me in Brandenburg—Kriegsgefangene im 1. Welt­krieg: Ansich­ten und Absich­ten, Ber­lin: Staat­li­che Muse­en Preu­ßi­scher Kul­tur­be­sitz, 2000), see also Kah­leyss, Mar­got, “Indi­an Pri­soners of War in World War I: Pho­to­graphs as Source Mate­ri­al”. In: Fran­zis­ka Roy, Hei­ke Liebau and Ravi Ahu­ja (eds), Ibid., pp. 187–206. Even a short film docu­men­ta­ti­on from the camp exists (kept in the Bun­des­film­ar­chiv). Mad­hus­ree Dut­ta and Phil­ip Scheff­ner used this mate­ri­al as well as recor­dings from the Laut­ar­chiv in their docu­men­ta­ry “From Here to Here” deal­ing with Indo-Ger­man rela­ti­ons (lndia, 2005, 58 min.). The film sce­ne from the camp can also be found in Scheffner’s latest docu­men­ta­ry: “The Half­moon Files”.

^[xv] Insi­de the bra­ckets are the names of pre­sent states.

^[xvi] Liebau, Hei­ke, “The Ger­man For­eign Office, Indi­an Emi­grants and Pro­pa­gan­da Efforts Among the ‘Sepoys’”. In: Fran­zis­ka Roy, Hei­ke Liebau and Ravi Ahu­ja (eds), Ibid., pp. 96–129 and Liebau, Hei­ke, 2011, “Hin­d­o­stan: A Camp News­pa­per for South-Asi­an Pri­soners of World War One in Ger­ma­ny”. In: Ibid., pp. 231–249.

^[xvii] The disc’s signa­tu­re is LA, PK 626.

^[xviii] Hein­rich Lüders was an Ori­en­ta­list and Indo­lo­gist. From 1909 he was the chair of lan­guages and lite­ra­tu­re of Anci­ent lndia at the Fried­rich-Wil­helms-Uni­ver­si­tät as well as being, also from 1909, mem­ber of the Prus­si­an Aca­de­my of Sci­en­ces. 1931–1932 he acted as prin­ci­pal of the Fried­rich-Wil­helms-Uni­ver­si­tät in Ber­lin. For fur­ther details on Lüders, cf. Lan­ge, Ibid.

^[xix] The num­bers in the bra­ckets gives the amount of indi­vi­du­al titles in the respec­ti­ve language.

^[xx] Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­tät zu Ber­lin, Laut­ar­chiv, fol­der No. 9. “Die Stü­cke sind in einem Hin­di-Dia­lekt abge­faßt, doch ließ sich nicht fest­stel­len in wel­chem. Bei der feh­ler­haf­ten Ortho­gra­phie und der nach dem Gehör­ten wie­der­ge­ge­be­nen pho­ne­ti­schen Umschrift war es zwei von mir her­an­ge­zo­ge­nen gebil­de­ten Indern eben­so wenig als mir selbst mög­lich, eine voll­stän­di­ge Über­set­zung herzustellen.”

^[xxi] Other lan­guages docu­men­ted by Lüders: Lim­bu (6), Hin­di (5), Pash­tu (4), Hin­du­sta­ni (3), Magar (3), Urdu (2), Rai (1), Gurmuk[h]i (1), Maga­ri (1).

^[xxii] Gla­sen­app was Pro­fes­sor of lndo­lo­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty Königs­berg (East Prus­sia, 1928–44), Pro­fes­sor of Com­pa­ra­ti­ve Reli­gious Stu­dies at the Uni­ver­si­ty Tübin­gen (1946–59). During the First World War Gla­sen­app was a mem­ber of the NfO.

^[xxiii] Horo­vitz was from 1902 lec­tu­rer at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ber­lin, bet­ween 1907–14 lec­tu­rer in Ara­bic at the Muham­me­dan Ang­lo-Ori­en­tal Col­lege in Ali­g­argh, lndia. From 1915 to 1931 he held the chair in Semi­tic lan­guages at the Ori­en­tal Semi­nar of the Uni­ver­si­ty Frank­furt am Main.

^[xxiv] Andre­as was from 1883 to 1903 Lec­tu­rer of Per­si­an and Tur­ki­sh at the Ori­en­tal Semi­nar of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ber­lin. Sin­ce 1903 he held the chair in West Asi­an Lan­guages at the Uni­ver­si­ty Göttingen.

^[xxv] Sub­se­quent to hol­ding chairs at Pra­gue, Göt­tin­gen and Stras­bourg, Brandl, in 1895, beca­me pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish Phi­lo­lo­gy in Berlin.

^[xxvi] List “Samm­lung aus den Kriegs­ge­fan­ge­nen-Lagern” (Coll­ec­tions from the pri­son camps) in: Staat­li­che Muse­en zu Berlin—Preussischer Kul­tur­be­sitz, Eth­no­lo­gi­sches Muse­um. No inven­to­ry number.

^[xxvii] “Om, durch die Gna­de des wah­ren Guru. Der Guru (oder: der Granth) hat mit gro­ßer Güte auf uns geblickt, denn er hat sich uns im frem­den Lan­de und in die­ser Gefan­gen­schaft und uns die­sem Gefäng­nis gezeigt. Wir sind so glück­lich, daß wir selig sind. Es kann kein grö­ße­res Glück für uns geben, als die­ses; es ist grö­ßer als selbst das Glück des Frie­dens. Die reli­giö­se Ver­samm­lung ist dadurch glück­lich. Wir betrach­ten den Granth Sahib als das Eben­bild des 10. Gurus und ver­eh­ren ihn sehr. Wenn irgend­ei­ner ihn nicht ehrt, oder ihn nicht ehren will, so wird jeder Singh bereit sein ent­we­der an die­sem Ort sein Leben zu geben, oder wird es nicht dul­den ihn [den Granth] ent­ehrt zu las­sen. Bis jetzt hat unser Guru Saheb [d.h. der Granth] kei­ne Decke erhal­ten. Wären wir in Indi­en und hät­te unser Guru Sahib kei­ne Decke, so wür­den wir kei­ne Spei­se zu uns genom­men haben. Wir haben viel ver­sucht, aber unser Guru Sahib hat bis jetzt noch kei­ne Decke erhal­ten. Wenn wir an die­sem Ort kei­ne Spei­se essen wür­den, so wür­den wir sehr schnell ster­ben, weil in unseren 

Kör­pern kei­ne Kraft ist, denn Sie wis­sen, dass die­se (Leu­te) kein Essen wie in Indi­en erhal­ten. Des­halb kön­nen wir das Essen nicht auf­ge­ben. Daß die Eng­län­der uns unse­ren Guru Granth Sahib gesandt haben, was hat das für einen Zweck? Den­ken Sie sel­ber über die­se Sache nach und geben Sie uns schnell Ant­wort. Wenn wir die Bewoh­ner Deutsch­lands sehen, sind wir sehr glück­lich, aber wir glau­ben, dass die Deut­schen von uns nicht so den­ken, wie wir von ihnen. Wenn die Deut­schen so däch­ten, so wür­den sie das Haus [d.h. den Tem­pel] unse­res Gurus [d.h. des Granth] ehren. P.S. Bezieht sich auf den Wunsch der Gefan­ge­nen, für ihr hei­li­ges Buch, den ‚Granth‘ eine Decke zu erhal­ten.” Cf. Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­tät zu Ber­lin, LA, fol­der No. 9. All the notes in bra­ckets are in accordance with the original.

^[xxviii] Recor­ding of Isher Singh on the 11 Decem­ber 1916. The trans­la­ti­on of PK615 exists in the form of a type­script. Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­si­tät zu Ber­lin, LA fol­der No 9.

^[xxix] Lan­ge, Brit­ta, “Aca­de­mic Rese­arch on (Colou­red) Pri­soners of War in Ger­ma­ny, 1915–1918”. In: Domi­niek Den­dooven and Piet Chie­lens (eds), World War 1. Five Con­ti­nents in Fland­ers, Tielt: Lanoo, 2008, pp. 153–159.

^[xxx] Eick­stedt, Egon von, „Ras­sen­ele­men­te der Sikhs“, Zeit­schrift für Eth­no­lo­gie 52 (1920–21): S. 317–394.

^[xxxi] Laut­bi­blio­thek-Pho­ne­ti­sche Plat­ten und Umschrif­ten (published by Laut­ab­tei­lung der Preus­si­chen Staats­bi­blio­thek), 1926–1930.

^[xxxii] Brandl, Alo­is, „Der Anglist bei den Eng­län­dern“. In: Wil­helm Doe­gen (Hg.), Ibid., S. 362–376, see S. 375f.

^[xxxiii] Lüders, Hein­rich, „Die Gurk­has“. In: Wil­helm Doe­gen (Hg.), Ibid., S. 126–139.

^[xxxiv] Gla­sen­app, Hel­muth von, „Der Hin­du­is­mus“. In: Wil­helm Doe­gen (Hg.), Ibid., S. 116–125; Idem, „Die Rad­seh­pu­ten“. In: Ibid., S. 140–150; Idem, „Die Sikhs“. In: Ibid., S. 151–160.

^[xxxv] Horo­vitz, Josef, „Die indi­schen Moham­me­da­ner“. In: Wil­helm Doe­gen (Hg.), Ibid., S. 161–166.

^[xxxvi] Andre­as, Fried­rich Karl, „Ira­ni­er“. In: Wil­helm Doe­gen (Hg.), Ibid., S. 376–383.

^[xxxvii] The film had its world pre­mie­re at the 57th Ber­li­na­le film fes­ti­val during The Inter­na­tio­nal Forum of New Cine­ma on 16 Febru­ary 2007. Seve­ral inter­na­tio­nal awards fol­lo­wed. http://www.halfmoonfiles.de, acces­sed on 25.05.2023.

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——–, “South Asi­an Sol­diers and Ger­man Aca­de­mics: Anthro­po­lo­gi­cal, Lin­gu­i­stic and Musi­co­lo­gi­cal Field Stu­dies in Pri­son Camps”. In: Fran­zis­ka Roy, Hei­ke Liebau and Ravi Ahu­ja (eds), ‘When The War Began We Heard of Seve­ral Kings’ South Asi­an Pri­soners in World War I Ger­ma­ny, New Delhi: Social Sci­ence Press, 2011, pp. 149–185.

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