Listen to history

April 7, 2006 1:44 PM

Old Time Radio. I was doing some research on the events leading up to the declaration of war in 1939, and found this page, which contains files of news reports (in English) on the Anchluss, as well as a chilling recording of live reportage on shortwave radio of Hitler's appearance at the Heldenplatz in Vienna (in English and German-- link goes direct to the .rm file). Other news pages on the site include the bulletin announcing the bombing of Pearl Harbour (which breaks into a football game), as well as Chamberlain's declaration of war, among others. Files play in Real or mp3. Previously mentioned on Metafilter is Radiolovers which offers downloads of various shows and which is free, unlike RUSC.com, which charges for a monthly subscription. Old Time Radio was also the subject of this thread from 2002, but the post was concerned the drama and comedy shows rather than the news pages from the site.
posted by jokeefe (11 comments total)

See also Earth Station 1 for lots of WWII-related radio audio.
posted by dithered at 1:55 PM on April 7, 2006

Interesting. I might have missed it in the links - but how were these recorded? At the broadcast station?
posted by PurplePorpoise at 2:03 PM on April 7, 2006

Listening to Burns and Allen (real audio) right now. Awesome.
posted by jrb223 at 2:11 PM on April 7, 2006

The voice is amazing
posted by Smedleyman at 2:37 PM on April 7, 2006

Kickass.
posted by rollbiz at 3:18 PM on April 7, 2006

Der Führer ist hier!!

Jesus, that is chilling. When I visited Vienna I stood in the Heldenplatz and tried to imagine this scene, but the audio with the ecstatic crowd and announcer makes it much more real. Thanks for the post.
posted by languagehat at 3:41 PM on April 7, 2006

I listened to the the broadcast of Hilter's arrival at the Heldenplatz. Thanks for the great link.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." ~ Santayana
posted by bim at 5:42 PM on April 7, 2006

Thanks for the post.
posted by hoskala at 6:19 PM on April 7, 2006

A 360 panorama of the Heldenplatz can be found here.
posted by jokeefe at 1:05 PM on April 8, 2006

For those who can't get enough Anschluss-related material (it seems to be my obsession this week), here is also a brief video file (.mpg, 2 mb).
posted by jokeefe at 1:14 PM on April 8, 2006

i'm shivering from all that cheering in the Vienna thing--God...

thanks for this, jokeefe -- it's good to see more old stuff online--we have tons of stuff that should be digitized and made available--it brings history alive (and how great for schools, too)
posted by amberglow at 1:24 PM on April 8, 2006