Index: Phonographische Zeitschrift (1900-1938)

The Phonographische Zeitschrift (PZ) was a weekly journal published by the engineer Georg Rothgiesser in Berlin from 1900 to 1938. It described itself as a “journal for the whole of the music and speaking-machine industry.” 

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, the journal was renamed Phonographische und Radio-Zeitschrift. From 1936 until its closure in 1938, it was called Phonographische, Radio- und Musikinstrumenten-Zeitschrift.

The Phonographische Zeitschrift is a valuable source of images and texts about the history of phonography in the first part of the twentieth century in Germany. It is one of the last surviving sources of its kind, as most company archives of the German audio media industry from that period have been destroyed. The Phonographische Zeitschrift itself is in a fragile condition, having been printed on low-quality paper during the wartime and inflation periods, and is not available for public access in libraries. 

In 2014, the Munich DigitiZation Center, part of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, cooperated with the two libraries that own an almost complete run of the Phonographische Zeitschrift—the Deutsches Museum in Munich and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—to digitize the journal as part of the Virtual Library of Musicology. Due to copyright restrictions, public access is currently limited to the first twenty-one volumes, 1900–1921.

Picture: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 1

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 2

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 3

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 4

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 5

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 6

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 7

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 8 (1)

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 8 (2)

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 9 (1)

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 9 (2)

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 10

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 11

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 12 (1)

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 12 (2)

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 13

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 14

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 15

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 16

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 17

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 18

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 19

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 20

Phonographische Zeitschrift, Vol. 21