Unknown German WW II pilot's photos

[jarski]

thanks OP for sharing the link.

... Some 30.000 (possibly more) Sovjet POWs are burried on Norwegian soil only. What we see here is a genocide in making....

exactly, how hard reality it must have been down there. cant even imagine, I probably would have gone nuts in a few days...

 

[Spoks]

Voigtländers save lives!

Voigtländers save lives!

Here is a picture from the same collection. An advertising of Voigtländer claiming that one German soldier had his life saved by carrying one. The text going with the picture claims that German soldiers were encouraged to take photos of their war service. When I did my military service we were forbidden bring cameras and take pictures. Military secrets, we were told. It was important that the Russians did not know that our boots leaked water....

Voigtländers save lives! Hum, good I have one.

 

[photovdz]

save life or not... I bought a Bessa (Voigtländer) that was "recuperated" by a Belgian resistant when they attacked the Saint Ghislain railway node in '43... the guy left a note indicating that they killed a group of 3 german sentinels, and took their equipment... and that they spotted one soldier with a leather etui and thinking it was binoculars (that they specially needed) they cut his throat... but it was only a Voïgtländer Bessa (not useful).
Strangely the guy kept the camera and used it and his son sold it on ebay for peanuts... it's only when I went to get the camera that i received the note written by the father and telling the story.

 

[Olsen]

Here is a rare flock of a **holes.

From the left:

Dr. Josef Mengele. Experimented with humans at Auschwitz. Like burning jews in an owen 'to see how much they could take'. Escaped to South America and managed to avoid trial, and most likely execution. Much due to lackluster ethusiasm of the West German government to try to search for him and bring him to justice. Died in Brazil in 79'.

Rudolf Höss. 'Kommandant' of Auschwitz. During his term' as kommandant more than a million people perished in Auschwitz. Condemned to death and hanged in 47'.

Josef Kramer ('The Beast of the Belsen') and in charge of the gas chambers of the Ausschwitz-Birkenau camps. Hanged in 45'.

The next guy is unknown.

 

[Ducky]

save life or not... I bought a Bessa (Voigtländer) that was "recuperated" by a Belgian resistant when they attacked the Saint Ghislain railway node in '43... the guy left a note indicating that they killed a group of 3 german sentinels, and took their equipment... and that they spotted one soldier with a leather etui and thinking it was binoculars (that they specially needed) they cut his throat... but it was only a Voïgtländer Bessa (not useful).
Strangely the guy kept the camera and used it and his son sold it on ebay for peanuts... it's only when I went to get the camera that i received the note written by the father and telling the story.

Fascinating story, . . . eBay for pete's sake.

 

[Ducky]

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.

Great movie, "The Music Box", involves this fact.

 

[Spoks]

Great movie, "The Music Box", involves this fact.

What's this guy on? Something you smoke, drink or inject? (I dropped the snort, since that makes you sharp) He shouldn't bicycle to close to The Grassy Knoll. If he can get on his bike at all... Ha, ha!

 

[Spoks]

Here is a rare flock of a **holes.

From the left:

Dr. Josef Mengele. Experimented with humans at Auschwitz. Like burning jews in an owen 'to see how much they could take'. Escaped to South America and managed to avoid trial, and most likely execution. Much due to lackluster ethusiasm of the West German government to try to search for him and bring him to justice. Died in Brazil in 79'.

Rudolf Höss. 'Kommandant' of Auschwitz. During his term' as kommandant more than a million people perished in Auschwitz. Condemned to death and hanged in 47'.

Josef Kramer ('The Beast of the Belsen') and in charge of the gas chambers of the Ausschwitz-Birkenau camps. Hanged in 45'.

The next guy is unknown.

This is a very good picture. You can almost smell the faint smell of "schnaps und sigaretten" from this after dinner scene. "The Beast" seems to have got one schnaps too many. Taken at a hut some 30 km from the Auschwitz camp were the crew could rest and get away from the awful smell of the crematorium ovens.

 

[Uwe_Nds]

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.

Like these?

Cheers,
Uwe

 

[Paul T.]

Can we all agree that the soldiers of all nations have been responsible for their shares of war crimes, and leave it at that!

My father hated the Nazis; they attempted to pressgang him into the German army, they murdered many of his relatives, and he fought them as part of the French resistance, in North Africa, and Italy. His mum was German.

Anyone who mentions events at Kharkov has a right to criticise the regime that unleashed such horros, without it being taken as a denigration of the German people of today. Please let's leave it at that, or this thread will descend into irrelevant nastiness.

 

[johannielscom]

So, the Germans had Kriegsberichters, the Americans and other allied forces allowed independent reporters as well as signalling corps soldiers to report from the front too.

I wonder if there ever were any special units at the Russian end to report from the battle front? Seems to me Stalin also had quite the propaganda machine going... And how about the Japanese?

Were the Germans the only party in WWII that institutionalised war reporting for propagandist means? Did the Russians allow for independent media to report from the front? Anybody any info on this?

The Germans mainly used Leica's and Kodak Retina's on the front line, the Americans mainly shot Kodak Medalists I was told, or the Kodak 35, right? What were the other parties using?

 

[Olsen]

Can we all agree that the soldiers of all nations have been responsible for their shares of war crimes, and leave it at that!

My father hated the Nazis; they attempted to pressgang him into the German army, they murdered many of his relatives, and he fought them as part of the French resistance, in North Africa, and Italy. His mum was German.

Anyone who mentions events at Kharkov has a right to criticise the regime that unleashed such horros, without it being taken as a denigration of the German people of today. Please let's leave it at that, or this thread will descend into irrelevant nastiness.

My father participated, among others, in three landings in the Mediterraean and was appalled and shocked by the disrespect of human life. On both sides. He argued that there 'were facists on all sides' of the WWII. Like so many of his generation, WWII destroyed his life. We can do little about the sins of our fathers and grandfathers. But we all certainly could do more to prevent war and injustice today.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I've learned over the years that the RFF community simply does not have the maturity and self-control required to bring up the words "Nazi", "World-War", "President Bush", "COmmunist", and just about anything else not directly related to discussing camera gear.

And if you really want a serious debate, lets convert this to a

Film is Dead because it is a Chinese Communist Plot to Dominate the World with Electronic Gadgets made like CRAP that will directly upload your every image to a server in China and then Censor Them.

Time to close this thread was passed with page 1.

 

[Philip Whiteman]

Brian: I see a range of sensible, balanced and informative comment running through this thread. I have to disagree with you.

 

[Olsen]

So, the Germans had Kriegsberichters, the Americans and other allied forces allowed independent reporters as well as signalling corps soldiers to report from the front too.

I wonder if there ever were any special units at the Russian end to report from the battle front? Seems to me Stalin also had quite the propaganda machine going... And how about the Japanese?

Were the Germans the only party in WWII that institutionalised war reporting for propagandist means? Did the Russians allow for independent media to report from the front? Anybody any info on this?

The Germans mainly used Leica's and Kodak Retina's on the front line, the Americans mainly shot Kodak Medalists I was told, or the Kodak 35, right? What were the other parties using?

All sides used propaganda during WWII. Neither party had anything like a 'free and independant press' during WWII. Propaganda films of the Stalin era are legendary. So, are American newsreels from WWII. Both intended to prep up morale by exagerating their own success. Both typical with load music and commentators roaring out optimistic percentage figures about everything, - except their own human losses.

The War Generation had an ability to see through all the lies. - Which we have lost today. Here in Norway, German newsreels were shown with Norwegian comentaries. It was said that when the film showed the Germans andvancing towards the East and there were no limit to their success, advancing troops were shown with horses pullig waggons. When one of the horses crossing the screen seemed to be limping it created a roaring laughter among the public,...

 

[QUAsit]

So, the Germans had Kriegsberichters, the Americans and other allied forces allowed independent reporters as well as signalling corps soldiers to report from the front too.

I wonder if there ever were any special units at the Russian end to report from the battle front? Seems to me Stalin also had quite the propaganda machine going... And how about the Japanese?

Were the Germans the only party in WWII that institutionalised war reporting for propagandist means? Did the Russians allow for independent media to report from the front? Anybody any info on this?

The Germans mainly used Leica's and Kodak Retina's on the front line, the Americans mainly shot Kodak Medalists I was told, or the Kodak 35, right? What were the other parties using?

There`s quite a number of Sovient propaganda photos even from 1941-42 period, when Red Army got a set of local vistories (or succesful episodes) at least.
Please consider that number of private cameras in USSR was pretty small. Life level was far far lower than in Europe.
Common gear was same as German had + some soviet cameras like FED or Fotokor.

Most of `independent` Soviet photos are photos often classified as `secret`, because they`re used for internal army reports.

Just a simple example:

Is this 1941-42 and russian POW? Nope.

This is July1944 and `Bagration` offensive German POWs. Photo is taken by 1st Soviet Air Army photographer and was kept in Archive for decades.

More 1944 photos here (Blog of russian war historian):
http://dr-guillotin.livejournal.com/75705.html#cutid1

 

[Sonnar Brian]

There is a range of intelligent comments intermixed with sheer hatred. Just keep an eye on this one.

 

[Solinar]

Brian - I doubt that we need the People's Party in Beijing to close off this thread when freedom loving Americans such as yourself are here to call in the censors.

Seeing those young soldiers brought back some memories of my own during the years of a police action in S.E. Asia. It may not be everyone's cup of tea - but it is good someone shared the photographic archive.

 

[Uwe_Nds]

Brian: I see a range of sensible, balanced and informative comment running through this thread. I have to disagree with you.

And if you really want a serious debate, lets convert this to a

Film is Dead because it is a Chinese Communist Plot to Dominate the World with Electronic Gadgets made like CRAP that will directly upload your every image to a server in China and then Censor Them.

Philip,

I have to agree with Brian. :angel:

Cheers,
Uwe

 

[Spoks]

There`s quite a number of Sovient propaganda photos even from 1941-42 period, when Red Army got a set of local vistories (or succesful episodes) at least.
Please consider that number of private cameras in USSR was pretty small. Life level was far far lower than in Europe.
Common gear was same as German had + some soviet cameras like FED or Fotokor.

Most of `independent` Soviet photos are photos often classified as `secret`, because they`re used for internal army reports.

Just a simple example:

Is this 1941-42 and russian POW? Nope.

This is July1944 and `Bagration` offensive German POWs. Photo is taken by 1st Soviet Air Army photographer and was kept in Archive for decades.

More 1944 photos here (Blog of russian war historian):
http://dr-guillotin.livejournal.com/75705.html#cutid1

This is indeed true for Norway too. Very few had amateur cameras in 1940. With the German invasion of 9th of April 1940 came a huge wave of well equipped and quite competent amateur photographers. Remember; the camera business was totally dominated by the Germans back then.

Our National Archive has large amount of films and pictures taken, not only by German professional press photographers, but also by German amateurs. It is a huge resource to document everything from railway station architecture and pre WWII harbour constructions to historical events and persons - and what not. The huge volume of amateur photography comes to Norway with the German soldier.

- On the picture of his friends waiting to be sent eastwards is not the friends that is interesting anymore. But the shape of the railway station windows in the background is the source to restoration of the old railway station building to it's original shape today. To mention one example.