Decelith

Decelith was the brand name for a flexible plastic material and for record blanks made of this plastic, which was produced by the Deutsche Celluloid Fabrik and could be used for home-made recordings.

The term Decelith is derived from the partial acronym of the name of the company, the Deutsche Celluloid-Fabrik.

The Decelith self-cut film was presented at the Great German Radio Exhibition in Berlin in 1936. It consisted of a hardened, elastic carrier and was covered on both sides with a soft, dark recording layer. A patent was granted on 4 March 1939 for the process invented by Kurt Thinius for the production of recording discs.

The discs were used in the amateur sector (self-recording records), by the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG; e.g. for the production of archive recordings) and by the Wehrmacht (e.g. as ‘talking field post’).

The film and record production was dismantled at the end of the Second World War as part of reparations.

Decelith discs were still in use in radio broadcasting until the 1950s, when they were replaced by the cheaper magnetic sound tapes.