One of the first audio clips is a scratchy recording of the voice of Austrian Kaiser Franz Joseph I. According to the Stimmen narration, he was the first world leader to have his voice recorded, and on the first CD of the series you can hear the actual words he uttered on the occasion of the historic electrical lighting of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Exposition of 1889. A little later on the same CD we hear the voice of another Kaiser, the German Wilhelm II, recorded in 1904, ten years before he dragged the globe into its first world war.

Other historic voices that can be heard in this audio chronicle of the last century: Albert Einstein, Karl Valentin, Thomas Mann, Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler, Bertolt Brecht, Konrad Adenauer, Rudi Dutschke, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Erich Honecker, Christ Wolf, Angela Merkel, Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder. In addition to the spoken word, the CDs also include the music of the times. Musical excerpts range from Elvis Presley's "Muss i denn" ("I Don't Have a Wooden Heart") to Brecht/Weill's "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" ("The Ballad of Mack the Knife" - "Der Haifisch, der hat Zähne..." - "The shark, he has teeth...") from the "Three Penny Opera," sung by Bertolt Brecht himself. Other songs include "Ich bin die fesche Lola" (Marlene Dietrich) and Peter Maffay's "Wenn ich geh'."

This three-hour audio survey of German history is a unique combination of authentic sound bites, narration, historic photographs, and an annotated transcript with German-English glosses. From the producers of the Schau ins Land audio magazine, the three Stimmen der Zeit CDs and accompanying book offer an audio and visual tour through German and world history. If you are a true history buff, Stimmen der Zeit is an interesting and unique opportunity to connect the many dots of German and European history. But history buffs may also be as disappointed as I was to discover that there is no index of any kind. You'll look in vain for either a Personregister (Index of Names) or an audio index in the softbound book that accompanies the CDs.

There are audio code numbers in the transcript, but they only roughly match the numbers that display on your CD player. Readers can scan the text by year to locate a segment by its code, but there is no accurate or quick way to locate an audio segment by either date or name. I was unable to locate specific audio segments using the numbers indicated on my CD player. But the lack of a name index is an even more serious problem that I hope will be remedied in a future edition. Here is a package that advertises itself as an "audio history," yet offers no index of any kind to help locate the sounds of the historical people and events it presents. Although Stimmen der Zeit does not advertise itself as a scholarly resource, I think for the price, the publisher should have provided an index. The included three-page year-by-year chronology is skimpy and offers no help as an index.

As I listened to one of the three CDs and followed the printed transcript, I discovered one more minor problem. Why is a book that was first published in 2000 still using the old German spelling? I am aware that many Germans object to the new reforms, but why confuse German-learners with the old spelling in a modern publication?

So, is Stimmen der Zeit worth the price? Despite my complaints about the spelling and no index, I have to say that this "voices of time" audio set is a unique resource that anyone who enjoys history and German will want to have. It would be difficult or impossible to find anything quite like Stimmen der Zeit. Each set of facing pages in the transcript has German-English glosses on the left side facing the audio transcript on the right. You can read and listen to the material straight through from start to finish, or—because the audio is on CD—jump to, or repeat a selection you want to hear/read. (This is where that missing index could help.) The first CD covers the years 1900-1940, the second 1941-1970, and the third has the sounds of the years from 1970 through 1999.

I also like the way the professional narration is divided among three people with different voices (two male and one female). This helps avoid getting tired of the same voice for three hours, even if you break it up into many segments over time, as most people will do.

The price of the Stimmen der Zeit package depends on how you order it. It can be ordered by itself for $59.00. That price includes the three CDs and the transcript book with its glossary. If you order it with the monthly German audio magazine Schau ins Land (see my review of SIL), the price drops to $39.00. You can order Stimmen der Zeit directly from Champs-Elysées/Schau ins Land using the links shown below.

Stimmen der Zeit: Deutschland im 20. Jahrhundert
An Audio History of Germany in the 20th Century
Narrated by Axel Fitzke, Rainer Holbe and Ruth Fürsatz
Axel Fitzke & Champs-Elysées, Inc., 2000
Paperback, 220 pages, 3 CDs
$US59.00 or $US39.00 (with Schau ins Land)

M O R E > Stimmen der Zeit - Audio Excerpts from Champs-Elysées

M O R E > Purchase Stimmen der Zeit from Champs-Elysées

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