Thanks very much for posting this recording to RU-vid. Very moving to consider that the previous audience of this actual record went to sea to kill or be killed, and that scenario was played out by hundreds of other U-Boats and tens of thousands of sailors, plus so many others who were on opposing sides trying their best to defeat their aims. Really appreciate your work, from a retired US Navy officer, now allied with Germany :-)!
Thanks so much for the insightful comment there Linda! You got me thinking about the scale of things and I did some maths... If we assume that every boat lost in action had the average of about 50-80 discs aboard, that means there's probably around 30,000-50,000 of these shellac records on the seabed. In some ways that hits home as hard as any statistic I've read.
Lovely to see another video from you , I wonder who last listened to those records all those years ago, carry on the good work lads we cant wait to come and visit one day 🤩.
Thanks Keith! One of the guys from U-534, apparently talked about what they listened to onboard. Our sources suggest Mr Ritze is still alive so hopefully we'll get a chance to ask!
Absolutely fascinating how resistant shellac is in the end, although these records like to break like glass even under normal conditions. :) After decades in salt water, I would have expected absolutely no sound information to be preserved. Thank you for this unique audio document. This record - buried in 1916 - was unearthed after 99 years underground in 2015: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gs4KyyicK1E.html It didn't play through as well as yours from the wreck.
We do have plenty that have shattered like glass, to be fair! Some of which I suspect were recovered intact but just one day decided they were bored of being a perfect circle😆 That's an absolutely EXTRAORDINARY find, and the sound quality is way better than I was expecting. 1916 recording and cutting technology was far less advanced than late 30s/40s but that sounds fantastic. I love that since we posted about the uboat records we're hearing more miraculous musical survival stories.
@@howtofixauboat The record from Samogneux was recorded in Berlin even 10 years (!) before its burrial...a purely acoustic recording process with gigantic funnels on the cutting head. Fortunately, for technical reasons (hand pressing), these pre-WW1 records are still about twice as thick as those from the 20's to 40's. The fact that your records crack over time is (unfortunately) understandable and normal - shellac records swell up slightly when they come into contact with water due to the added proportion of abrasives (stone powder, asbestos, etc.). Tension builds up during drying and temperature fluctuations. Even normal shellac records from the attic sometimes crack after wet cleaning - after decades in the sea it is rather a miracle that even one of the records still has its original shape.😅😂
I'm sorry for asking but are any of U-534s other surviving records in a playable state? If so are they going to be recorded and uploaded to this channel in a similar manner at some point? Also, If it helps this record sounds almost identical to this composure by Herbert von Karajan on *Feb, 1st 1940* (According to Presto) could it possibly be the same recording? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KUfTWpKzxlo.html
They are all dead. Those who sent U534. The crew of u534. The ones they were after. And those who wanted to sink U534. In the end, all that is left are memories.
Right now U-534 is still in living memory, but sadly not for much longer. Last year we met a gunner from one of the bombers that watched her sink, but he passed away not long afterwards. It's possible (but unlikely) one or two members of the crew are still alive - Volkmar Aussum only died in 2019, and he was one of the higher-ranking officers.
