Unknown German WW II pilot's photos

Who's the phographer?

Who's the phographer?

Picture 28 shows a 'fliegender knipser', ein soldat der keine Fliegmonteur trägt.

A soldier/phographer with no flight harness.
 
Bad teeth

Bad teeth

Significant is also the German text to picture no. 7. "Aufallende" (to be noted) are the bad teeth of the pilot... When I did my military service training with the British No.2 Para in Finmark, Norway, some 20 years ago, not many of the British guys had that much teeth even.
 
Mr_Flibble said:
I think I've got a shot of an FW-189 flying over Holland in early 1940 in one of my books somewhere. Don't recall if it was from just before or after the invasion of the low countries.
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Are you sure that it wasn't a Fokker G.1? The G.1 has a superficial resemblance to the Fw-189, they are both twin engined, twin boom aircraft with a central nacelle for the crew. The G.1 is much more streamlined and has a solid nose, it was a fighter after all, not an observation plane. This is a picture of a G.1 replica in the Militairy aviation museum in Soesterberg, the Netherlands.

3613150985_e2fcaa367d_o.jpg
 
"An Bord der Maschine langt ein Besatzungsmitglied zu seiner Leica und fotografiert aus dem Cockpit die zusammengepferchten Männer inmitten des großen, weiten Nichts: gefangene Rotarmisten vor dem Abtransport in deutsche Kriegsgefangenschaft..."

How can they know it was a Leica? That the Red Army Soldiers were marched to prison is also an exaggeration. Most were marched off to death.
 
Olsen said:
Picture 28 shows a 'fliegender knipser', ein soldat der keine Fliegmonteur trägt.

A soldier/phographer with no flight harness.
Click to expand...

That man might have been a war correspondent, a 'kriegsberichter'.

He is also the one in this shot, I think:
attachment.php


Early Kriegsberichters often were journalists before the war, many of them were lured into service before the campaign on Poland with stories on excitement, private cars and drivers and photo journalists to accompany them.

Once the war progressed, their priviledges were revoked more and more and pretty soon they were given weapons to 'defend themselves' when reporting from the front. Later Kriegsberichters more often were convinced party or SS-members.

The camera is a Leica, with a finder on top. Seems there's a rigid lens with a round hood on it. Also, the snout on the case is quite deep. Might be a Wartime Sonnar or a Xenon lens, which were quite rare lenses in military service.
 

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Olsen said:
Also a rare version of German WWII planes are pictured at no. 27. Most likely the version of the Ju 88 that had pressurized cockpit. The Germans had a large fleet of these at (the now international Airport of Oslo) Gardermoen. They were originally long range/high altitude reconnaisance planes. They were also used to evacuate troops from the Kurland Pocket to Berlin in the last days of the war. The crews of these flights had to scare off refugees with arms... In the last days of April 45' they gave up the flights. Which resulted in bitterness from the German troops that were taken prisoners in Kurland and sent to Siberia. Here most of them died or came home first in 54'.
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I think you are right. Except for that this version is called Junkers 188. Here is some photos from Gardermoen, Norway of these rare birds:

http://www.warbirdphotographs.com/LCBW4/Ju188-D2-9s.jpg

http://www.warbirdphotographs.com/LCBW3/ju188-003.jpg

Most likely, these pictures are taken after the V-day, late 45', possibly. Then most of the flyable fleet of Luftwaffe planes were lined up here at Gardermoen. Most planes were destroyed (help! they would be worth a fortune today!) But these rare pressurized versions were flown to USA for closer investigation.
 
varjag said:
No, they are not unknown. They were pretty widely circulated over Russian internet a few years ago.

Photos mostly in the area of Kharkov, Ukraine IIRC.
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Which could explain that the crew did not survive.

This film seems to be one of the many WWII relics that have surfaced after 1991 and the 'opening' of the Iron Curtain. When I was first time in Russia, back in 93' there was all these street sellers selling off, cheaply, all kinds of WWII relics. This market matured fast, though. By 95' groups of collectors came to buy whole aircraft engines from wreaks strewn all over Russia. Particularly popular was the DB601 of Messerschmidt 109 fame.
 
Reading the German text further down, the flight unit is identified as 'Tannenberg', Nahaufklärungsgruppe 10 (short range reconnoisance) that flew over Charkow in Ukraina in May and June 42'. It argues, since the film contains all these POW pictures that they are not taken during the Wehrmach retreat of 43'. That means the film is, most likely, from 42'. The summer before the catastrophical (for the Germans that is) Stalingrad. Here the Germans were beaten by the Red Army, Some 250.000 German soldiers were taken prisoner. Possibley the no 2 largest military defeat in history, - except for the Japanese defeating the British at Singapore.
 
Some of those aerial photographs show Kharkov, home of the FED camera factory. The FW189 was a reconnaissance aircraft that was the eyes of the German army as they completely destroyed Kharkov. Seventy percent of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands of the inhabitants were killed. Kharkiv, the third largest city in the Soviet Union at the time, was the most populous city in the Soviet Union captured by Nazis. Between December 1941 and January 1942, an estimated 30,000 people (slightly more than half Jewish) were killed and buried in a mass grave by the Germans in a ravine outside of town named Drobitsky Yar.
 
Olsen said:
flight unit is identified as 'Tannenberg', Nahaufklärungsgruppe 10 (short range reconnoisance) that flew over Charkow in Ukraina in May and June 42'.
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That concurs with what I've found on the aircraft in "Warplanes and Fighters of WW2" by Anderton, Gunston and Mason; The book mentions that in 1942 Aufklarungsgruppe 10 and 11 on the Eastern Front finally received FW-189A-1s and A-2s in numbers.

Ronald_H, I was sure it was an FW-189 in that image, not a Fokker G1. The caption too, if I recall correctly, stated that it was an strangely shaped German Aircraft. Of course, I can't seem to find the picture now. It's probably in the Dutch Lecturama Encyclopedia on WW2. But the most obvious book "Bange Meidagen van '40" did not contain it...grrr...
 
The FED factory was situated in Kharkov. I have two wartime FED-S cameras, although one of them is without a serial number. The other one was assembled during the war, possibly during the siege of Kharkov.

The numbered kit is for sale (don't like to but I need to fund an education), the other one was overhauled and authenticated by Yuri at Fedka.com. On that website is an interesting article on the Kharkov FED factory, as outfitter recently pointed out to me. Thanks, outfitter!
 
Spoks said:
Significant is also the German text to picture no. 7. "Aufallende" (to be noted) are the bad teeth of the pilot... When I did my military service training with the British No.2 Para in Finmark, Norway, some 20 years ago, not many of the British guys had that much teeth even.
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I remember reading, years and years ago in one of the books written by Norwegians that survived KZs (some prominent post-war politician, Bratteli or Gerhardsen maybe), that they always got teased by the German criminal prisoners because the Norwegians had such bad teeth and got all kinds of problems because of it. I think this was in Sachsenhausen. Evidently, according to the book, dental hygiene was a lot better in Germany (indeed in Norway at that time it was not uncommon for 15-years olds receiving their confirmation to get a set of artificial teeth for this occasion). This might indicate that the pilot is from a poor family or something like that. I'm just guessing.

/Mac
 
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Kriegsberichter

Kriegsberichter

I have a small collection of kriegsberichter memorabilia, one of which is this photograph:

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It shows a young German SS kriegsberichter, complete with his kriegsberichter armband and a Leica with FIDOM finder. Obviously shot in a studio, possibly a picture to give to his girl friend or mother.

I find the fact that he is looking so calmly proud and innocent heartbreaking. War had not yet left a mark on him, it seems.

So many lives lost, such waste. He might have become a brilliant photographer, we will never know. I do not even know his name.
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Spoks said:
Which could explain that the crew did not survive.

This film seems to be one of the many WWII relics that have surfaced after 1991 and the 'opening' of the Iron Curtain. When I was first time in Russia, back in 93' there was all these street sellers selling off, cheaply, all kinds of WWII relics. This market matured fast, though. By 95' groups of collectors came to buy whole aircraft engines from wreaks strewn all over Russia. Particularly popular was the DB601 of Messerschmidt 109 fame.
Click to expand...


Unfortunately private Germans soldiers also had a penchant for photographing raping, pillaging and murder (which were apparently considered good deeds in carrying out their country's plans for colonizing most of Europe) and many of these unbelievably awful personal "snaps" have also begun to surface.
 
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