Magnetic recording was improved in Germany after World War I. Kurt Stille had bought a Telegraphone in 1903 for his experiments, and by 1924 began sales of an improved wire recorder with an electronic amplifier to be used as a dictation machine. In 1928 he formed the Echophone Company with Karl Bauer and contracted with Ferdinand Schuchard AG and its talented engineer Semi Begun to manufacture the Dailygraph, the first cassette magnetic recorder. In 1932 International Telephone and Telegraph bought Stille's companies and merged them into C. Lorenz AG. Begun developed the Textophone dictation machine in 1933 and the Lorenz company sold thousands to Hitler's Nazi government. Begun also developed the Stahltone-Bandmaschine steel tape recorder in 1935 for mobile radio broadcasting. The RRG state radio service used Begun's machines at the 1936 winter Olympic games, but by that time the young Jewish engineer had decided to immigrate to the U.S.
