Listen to Thomas Edison's recording of Otto von Bismarck in 1889

Telegraph ^ | 1-31-12

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

A 122-year-old recording of Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany, has been discovered in Thomas Edison's laboratory.

Bismarck's voice was captured by Adelbert Theodor Edward Wangemann, a German who was working as an assistant to Edison on a project to make phonographs marketable to the ordinary public.

The complete transcript has now been released for the first time since the recording in October 1889.

In the scratchy recitals on wax cylinder phonograph records the prince can be heard reciting the first strophes of the songs In Good Old Colony Times and Gaudeamus igitur, as well as the beginning of the poem Als Kaiser Rotbart lobesam. More controversially, he also read the first lines of the Marseillaise, the national anthem of France.

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

Listen to the scratchy recording at the link.

[DarthVader]

bookmark

[CatherineofAragon]

Very interesting! Thank you for posting.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Isn’t there a quote by Bismarck to the effect that children educated by the State make for much more compliant citizens?

[gorush]

Thanks for posting this...I love history.

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

You're welcome

I love history.

Me too. Yum Yum. History.

[babble-on]

bookmarck

[cameraeye]

Hoping to see an historian in the White House! n/s

[Charles Henrickson]

Little-known fact: Edison was experimenting with motion pictures at the same time, and he tried to get this sound recording to match up with the picture. But unfortunately he was not able to . . . synch the Bismarck.

[Billthedrill]

Little-known fact: Edison was experimenting with motion pictures at the same time, and he tried to get this sound recording to match up with the picture. But unfortunately he was not able to . . . synch the Bismarck.

Charles Henrickson, banned until the heat death of the universe...

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

But unfortunately he was not able to . . . synch the Bismarck.

ROFLOL! Good one! he he he....

[Suz in AZ]

My husband used to work with a guy whose grandfather was a personal friend of Otto von Bismark and had numerous letters from him. After his passing, they tossed them!!! He mentioned it to my husband, who told him of the fortune that they would have been worth. He turned green... Small treasure trove of history lost there.

[x]

In English, no less!

Bismarck was college friends with John Lothrop Motley, an American writer and diplomat. Motley made Bismarck the hero of a novel he wrote before Bismarck became famous. Young Otto was quite the cut-up.

[Sprite518]

Interesting... thanks!

[TexasRepublic]

Okay, let’s see if anyone can top my story, which is absolutely true. In the early 1970’s I was staying in the home of some new German friends in Darmstadt Germany. We were eating dinner one night from some obviously old but fine white china with faded gold rims. My host asked me if I knew who Bismark was. I said, “of course”. He said, “Well, these dishes belonged to him. My relative was one of his trusted generals and so Bismark gave him these plates as a gift”. Considering that the house had been destroyed in 1944, their survival was all the more remarkable.

[RedMDer]

All contributions are for the Current Quarter Expenses.

[BfloGuy]

Isn’t there a quote by Bismarck to the effect that children educated by the State make for much more compliant citizens?

We usually blame the Marxists but Bismarck invented the modern welfare state.

[martin_fierro]

Little-known fact: Edison was experimenting with motion pictures at the same time, and he tried to get this sound recording to match up with the picture. But unfortunately he was not able to . . . synch the Bismarck.

[Cheburashka]

More controversially, he also read the first lines of the Marseillaise, the national anthem of France.

---

To hear Bismark singing Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles, now that would be something.

[MinuteGal]

"Ich bin ein Bismark".
(JFK Speech, June 26, 1963, Berlin, Germany)

Leni