Telefunken - Biography

Biography - Telefunken

Germany

Successor label of Ultraphon, active from August 1932 - 1943, and then again from 1945 to the 1950s. The prefixes A, B, E, F, M, SK, Sm indicate different price classes. In 1953, labels began to be marked 78N.
See also Telefunken / Capitol.

The Telefunken Gesellschaft für drahtlose Telegraphie m.b.H. (Telefunken Company for Wireless Telegraphy, Ltd), was a radio and TV producer founded in 1903 in Berlin as a joint venture of two companies producing electrical appliances, Siemens & Halske and the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG). The company focused on the production of radio and, from 1928, televison sets; in 1930, they introduced the first combined radio and record player set. In March 1932, the company took over the holdings of the bankrupt Ultraphon label. Reorganized as part of a new branch, Telefunkenplatte G.m.b.H (July 1932), the company quickly became the largest record producer in Germany. Under the new Telefunken label (from August 1932), it continued to reissue Ultraphon's record catalog, using the same catalog numbers, and started making its own recordings, continuing the Ultraphon matrix series. Under the Third Reich, the company became the largest record company in Germany, producing records till 1943. Production restarted right after the war in 1945; from 1950, Telefunken entered a close partnership with the British Decca company.

Recording dates for Telefunken matrix numbers:
16201 - 18830 = 1932
18831 - 19533 = 1933
19554 - 20383 = 1934
20384 - 21056 = 1935
21057 - 21740 = 1936
21741 - 22725 = 1937
22726 - 23772 = 1938
23773 - 24752 = 1939
24753 - 25465 = 1940
25466 - 26278 = 1941
26279 - 26780 = 1942
26781 - 27089 = 1943
27090 - 27180 = 1944

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