Old Photos: beautiful cruelty

[user237428934]

Those Photos look beautiful when you don't know what it is. Could be a new years firework, but isn't

They were taken by my grandfather in 1944 during a bombing of Wilhelmshaven through the Royal Air Force. Wilhelmshaven in northern Germany was a major marine base and therefore a frequently visited target. My mother, aunt and grandmother spent a lot of time in the bunker in the last war years. Can't find the negatives of these two while I have all the other negatives. These photos have a 4:3 aspect ratio so I think he took a different camera because the negatives I have, were taken with a voigtländer bessa 6x9 camera.

Just wanted to share them.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Tom,

A lot of Nazi-era propaganda photography is beautiful too: the gleaming cars, the uniforms, the clean-cut young Aryans. Until (as with your grandfather's pics) you start thinking about the meaning of the content.

Thanks for the pictures: 'a terrible beauty is born'. Down in Fontpedrosa in the Pyrenees there's a phrase on the village war memorial (in both Catalan and French) that should be on every war memorial, everywhere: ACCURSED BE WAR.

(Both of my grandfathers were killed at sea, one off Crete and the other on the Russian convoys. One won the George Medal for bravery a few months before he was killed. And a good friend has a beautiful portrait of a handsome young man, a fighter pilot, who was reported missing and never found: her great uncle. He is in uniform. Luftwaffe uniform. The European Union is not perfect but it's better than the alternative.)

Tashi deleg,

R.

 

[oftheherd]

fascinating photos. Imagine what the air crews were thinking going trough that. War isn't fun for those who are sent to engage in it. Thanks for sharing those. Worthy of being kept. I hope all your family survived.

 

[dave lackey]

Those Photos look beautiful when you don't know what it is. Could be a new years firework, but isn't

They were taken by my grandfather in 1944 during a bombing of Wilhelmshaven through the Royal Air Force. Wilhelmshaven in northern Germany was a major marine base and therefore a frequently visited target. My mother, aunt and grandmother spent a lot of time in the bunker in the last war years. Can't find the negatives of these two while I have all the other negatives. These photos have a 4:3 aspect ratio so I think he took a different camera because the negatives I have, were taken with a voigtländer bessa 6x9 camera.

Just wanted to share them.

Tom, those are amazing. Thank you.🙂

Now, I am wondering if others would share their own wartime photos. Not because I like war...I detest and abhor it. However, from a purely historical point, and now beauty of all things, I wonder what else is out there?😕

 

[lynnb]

thank you for sharing these Tom, as Roger said there is a terrible beauty in war. Amazing photos.

 

[paulfish4570]

a sea of 88mm ack-ack: so beautiful and so terrifying at once.

"It is well that war is so terrible. Otherwise we would grow too fond of it." - Robert E. Lee.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

My Father's pictures are of his B-29's, used in the Pacific Theater. The Germans supplied the Japanese with 88mm Anti-Aircraft guns, so Dad was on the receiving end of them. One of Dad's B-29's had three engines shot out by Flak, but the pilot was able to fly out to sea. During the descent, Dad was able to contact a US Submarine on Search and Rescue. Lucky for me.

 

[paulfish4570]

heck of a story, Brian ...

 

[greyelm]

A beautiful record of a terrible time for the world.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana


"To jaw-jaw- is always better than to war-war” Sir Winston Churchill

 

[kbg32]

Sorry Roger, as one whose family did not survive pogroms and the Nazis, I do not find Nazi propaganda photography beautiful. Especially when you start thinking about the meaning and direction of the content.

Shalom.

 

[gdmcclintock]

My uncle, an ace fighter pilot during WWII, never spoke of his experiences, and if asked, silently left the room. My father, a gunnery officer on a Navy destroyer, also never spoke of his experiences.

 

[Thardy]

At first glance I thought it was some sort of "shock and awe" scene.

 

[kbg32]

My uncle, an ace fighter pilot during WWII, never spoke of his experiences, and if asked, silently left the room. My father, a gunnery officer on a Navy destroyer, also never spoke of his experiences.

My father was in the Naval Airforce, a machine gunner. Till this day he has never spoken of his experiences either. I don't even know what ship he served on. I once ask my mother why and she replied that my father saw a lot of action, his best friend killed, and returned somewhat of a changed man. I guess it wouldn't be too hard to get his service records. I just respect his silence.

 

[gdmcclintock]

My grandmother told me that my uncle, and pilots like him, experienced so much painful stress that they had to be lifted out of their fighter planes after the missions, their fingers pried off the controls. She spoke of the pilots' requirement to kill the enemy pilot as he was parachuting to the ground after losing his plane in battle. Apparently my uncle, on his last mission, shot down a German plane, saw the enemy pilot in his parachute, turned off his machine gun, and filmed his enemy. So the story goes, he kept the film and was changed by the vision of his enemy, a young man like himself, terrified as my uncle's plane approached him. As for my father, he was always taciturn thus I do not know what is reflected by his silence about his WWII experiences.

 

[user237428934]

I hope all your family survived.

My grandfather who took the photos had a uniform but never was really engaged in the war because he suffered from epilepsy. Directly after the war he opened his color and wallpaper shop again. In 1948 he experienced first hand that smoking kills. He visited as usual a small cigarette shop when a bombed out building next to it collapsed. All people in the shop were killed instantly.

 

[paulfish4570]

mercy, tom, mercy ...

 

[John Lawrence]

My late father never really spoke of his war experiences, and never collected his medals.

I once asked why he didn't collect his medals, and he replied "I don't want medals for killing people". Only after his death did I find citations for gallantry etc from Montgomery amongst his papers.

I still have (tucked away somewhere) the Nazi flag he cut down from a concentration camp he entered first.

John

 

[Roger Hicks]

Sorry Roger, as one whose family did not survive pogroms and the Nazis, I do not find Nazi propaganda photography beautiful. Especially when you start thinking about the meaning and direction of the content.

Shalom.

Dear Keith,

That was the POINT.

It's often beautiful (composition, tonality, technique, etc) until you realize what it is. Re-read what I wrote. And bear in mind that my grandmothers were left to bring up 5 children between them, without husbands.

Shalom,

R.

 

[M4cr0s]

Striking images when you know the context.

I must think of my dads two uncles that fought at the battle of Narvik, in Northern Norway. They where actually involved in what some say was the first defeat of German forces in the war. A question of definitions I think. We quickly lost the country anyway and as for my uncles, I don't think they ever fired their weapons in action. They where vaguely involved in resistance work and another relative got sent to Sachsenhausen, but made it out alive.

None however, speak of the black sheep of the family, an adventurous kid who joined the Waffen SS and fought in Russia for two years. I doubt he even knew what "national socialism" was and I'll never know why he choose to reenlist and stay long beyond his initial contract. He was a surviver of the battle Narva but as far as I've been able to find recently, he was killed in late '44 or early '45, maybe in Eastern Prussia. It's difficult to tell because at that point the division was shot to pieces and some records are lost. What horrors he must have witnessed before he died at the old age of 19. He never wrote home.

Such insanity we humans willingly and knowingly create and bestow upon one another.

Mac

 

[Livesteamer]

Since these were taken at night, anyone have any idea on the length of exposure or what the film was. Remember also that no one goes thru combat and comes back the same. Most cannot speak of it and if they can it would only be to other veterans. My father in law carried a rifle in Europe in wwII and could never speak of it but had nightmares for years. Joe