The Drum Dial: The Forgotten Telephone Luminary of the Federal German Foundation Years

Von Christoph T. M Krause

A journey back to a new beginning for Germany after Hour Zero. Siemens is trying to break new ground in design and technology with its telephone the "Drum Dial", which heralded a new future for telecommunications. But times were changing...

• Sprache: Deutsch
• Herausgeber: tredition
• Erscheinungsdatum: 23. Okt. 2020
• ISBN: 9783347161504

Buchvorschau

~ I. A Personal Prehistory ~

At the age of 18, my father was drafted into the 20th century’s second catastrophic war and had to waste his youth in France and then on the Eastern Front.

It was only with a lot of luck he managed to escaped the fate of many other young men who lost their lives there. He always told us that he was spared because he had worked as a radio operator behind the front. Only later did I learn that radio operators were active further forward, ahead of the front, or at least near it.

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I have never found out which version was true, but I do, at least, owe my existence to this truth.

My father lived to the age of 89 and his memories of that terrible time faded into the depths of many years of severe dementia that made him forget the horrors. Maybe it was the grace of old age that was bestowed upon him.

Back at home, he became a Siemens employee, responsible for the development of the phone designs.

Shortly before my birth, he brought home a device that the German Federal Post (Deutsche Bundespost) hadn’t officially released for end-use. It was only used for the PBX telephone systems of large companies or authorities.

Being born in the 1950s, the fact that our household had a telephone landline connection already and owned a telephone was unique because no one else had one, or even knew about such things.

Our phone, the Drum Dial, looked different. It had a strange drum that you could use with the help of indentations on its surface by drawing it downwards. As a toddler, I observed my mother turning this downwards – which from a child's point of view, looked like a wheel – and then starting to talk to invisible people.

My childlike imagination always thought that the people she was conversing with were standing somewhere close by or hiding around.

Phones always looked like this to me and when I met my parents’ friends, or other grown-ups, I later saw telephone devices with strange round turning discs and I thought they also had a special phone at home.

Later, I realized that my parents' phone was yellowish. Much later I learned the correct name of this colour: Ivory. In addition, I would much later become aware of the fact that only the well-heeled (an expression that my mother used; sometimes, she said higher earners) had ivory items like that because these devices used to be much more expensive than normal black ones.

The Drum Dial, which was never called that at home, accompanied me for many years. It was the centre of our apartment and was treated that way. Mostly, the house’s whole daily routine was focused around it. Whenever it made its unmistakably loud, shrill gong sound, people would leave everything to rush over to this centre of the house.

With the help of this apparatus, my mother would give news about her disappointments, anger towards my father or any other important news to the outside world.

To me, it looked like a consultant, suggestion and confessional box (if I only had known those terms back then!).

This phone was never broken, it always worked reliably for many years, or more like decades.

While making my first attempts to dial, I had to practice for a long time. My little child’s finger tended to slide off the smooth indentations and then a loud beep would indicate that the intended connection had not been established. I loved the many numbers on the drum that seemed to be sending signals of an alien adult world and seemed to call out,