Electrola Gesellschaft m.b.H.

Please note: this is a company, not a label. Please only use this as a second label pursuant to the guidelines. Please use the branded label as the primary label.
The company acted as a manufacturer/distributor/marketer for

Electrola, as well as
Harvest and other EMI (EMI Columbia or Odeon etc.) owned labels or
Tamla Motown
in Germany until 1972.

It is the predecessor of the EMI Electrola GmbH and its trademark EMI Electrola.

The Electrola Gesellschaft m.b.H. (Electrola GmbH) was founded on May 8th, 1925 in the outskirts of Berlin as the German subsidiary of The Gramophone Company Ltd. as a Holding Company for the Electrola label, the German equivalent to His Master's Voice. Due to the merger of the Grammophone Company Ltd. and the Columbia Graphophone Company Ltd. into the Electrical and Musical Industries Ltd. (EMI), the Electrola Gesellschaft m.b.H. became a daughter of EMI in 1931.

After the destruction of their studios and pressing plants during WW II the Electrola Gesellschaft m.b.H. and her sister company Carl-Lindström-GmbH moved to Cologne in 1953 (their former estate was in the Russian zone) and opened a modern recording studio complex with adjacent pressing plant in 1956. After establishing an MC production in 1966, the Carl-Lindström-GmbH and the Electrola Gesellschaft m.b.H. were eventually fused to the EMI Electrola GmbH on November 30, 1972.

EMI Electrola GmbH immediately set up an own trademark for her products:
EMI Electrola.