In 1920 the "Lautarchiv" was founded by Doegen; the archive became annexed to the sound department of the Prussian State Library. Africanist and phonetician Diedrich Westermann became director of this department. Dr. Wilhelm Doegen (While he was a teacher he developed a series of books and records produced by the record company Odeon with the title: "Doegens Unterrichtshefte für die selbständige Erlernung fremder Sprachen mit Hilfe der Lautschrift und der Sprechmaschine" (= Doegen's teaching booklets for the self-instruction in foreign languages by means of phonetic transcription and the speaking machine (= vulgo: record player) recorded the voice of Rabindranath on 4th June,1921, at Berlin. This was the first time , probably, that the voice of Rabindranath being recorded. Two records were taken, one-the lecture on "The Message of the Forest", second- a song sung by Rabindranath " Mor bina othe kon sure baji". Santosh Kumar De wrote on these two records" 4.6.1921 the lecture of the poet was recorded. which took 2 min 30 seconds and the song took 3 min 15 sec secs time to play.
The Servant reported on 11 Aug "... the University of Berlin took records of the poet's voice ( both speech and song) in copperplates for preservation in underground cellars for thousand of years along with his portrait and autograph."Probably these records are still present in underground undamaged. But the copies kept in the library were damaged in the WWII. The German scientist re-discovered it and the Prime Minister of German was pleased
to send copies to the Chancellor Acharya Jawaharlal Nehru of Viswa Bharati in 1959.
Santosh De wrote that the German Consulate in Calcutta informed that there was another record of the voice of Tagore containing recitation of a sanskrit slokas. That was also taken by Prof Wilhelm Doegen and probably that was with him.. All the records were taken by Dr. Wilhelm Doegen.
