Unknown German WW II pilot's photos

One soldiers story

One soldiers story

I'd guess that most of the surviving soldiers aren't interested much in sharing their stories. Here is one firsthand acct. from a soldier our family has known for decades:

Was recruited into the youth party, normal German kid from a nice family. From there into the German military as an infantryman. Went on to fight the Russians, killed a lot, got a commendation for staying up late one night and single handedly shooting down a Russian plane.

Ended up in France, his group was hiding out and wanted to surrender, but didn't know exactly how to. They were never taught this part... At the first sight of Americans, they waved white hankies and dropped all their weapons. This soldier had something in his pocket that subjected him to some rogue Jack Bauerism out in the woods - he was simply trying to learn morse code.

He spent a few years in a prison camp in the Eastern US learning all he could. Studied more when he got out. Became an engineer specializing in optics and mech engineering. Interned at a DC glasses shop and even fitted a president for glasses.

Came west to work in the growing aeronautics and optical fields, did a lot of work for NASA, Stanford and Lockheed, worked on the Hubble, wind tunnel, and helped several early tech startups before retiring and moving during an early real estate boom in the valley.

He always hated war and politics, and still does. He could write an interesting biography, but I'm sure never will.

Uwe_Nds said:
From a historian's or conservator's point of view, I fully agree.

However, I am more interested in the people in these snapshots.
They were young lads like us (or like we were - for some).
When I see pictures like that, I wonder what were the lads like, did they believe the propaganda, and what became of them?

Cheers,
Uwe
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Interesting story.

I forgot to mention my wife uncle's story, which is kind of relevant.

He was a Spitfire pilot, was mortified that he was too late for the Battle of Britain, trained in Florida where he obviously had his way with a lot fo the local floozies - there are great photos of him frolicing on the beach with these beautiful women. He was posted to Italy - hardly saw a damn German plane. Then on his main ground-attack, he shot up what he tought was a column... but then later, in flahsback, thought it was a farmer and his cart. Soon afterwards he had a breakdown.

What's fascinating about those photos, beyond the fact they're aesthetically pleasing, is that each of those young men will have had their own varying agendas; if my uncle had been born in Germany it's just as likely he would have been on their side, and would perhaps have had nightmares about killing civilians. Those photos are a literal snapshot of a world we can speculate about, but never truly understand.
 
M4cr0s said:
Of course, there are always several sides to the statistics. There's little doubt that the bombing was a major "inconvenience" for the industry, and that it diverted resources from the front and elsewhere. You should keep in mind though, to use the AA defenses as an example, that a lot of those manning AA batteries where teenagers and old men, unfit for front duty. That said, the Germans wasted resources on a lot of rubbish, if you think cynical about it. For instance the thousands of men manning (guards) KZ camps and the numerous trains with jews and POWs bogging up the strained railroad network (they had priority even over ammunition trains!). Still does not mean terror bombing with civilians as prime target was a good idea.

/Mac
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I fully agree with you that the effect of the deliberate bombing of German civilians had little or no effect on war material production. This has been extensively discussed and researched upon after the war. Typically, the British are, doubtful, while the Germans are convinced. Reading Albert Speer's books gives in insight to how the Germans managed to keep up the production while their workers were stowed into the little living space that was left. More important; the bombing made - first the British, and then the Germans, more motivated. Many Brits were quite lukewarm on going to war with Germany in 40'. After The Battle of Britain they were 'united, motivated and furious' (Len Deighton). - The same can be said about the Germans, I am sure.

A little glimse into this discussion is given when reading about the boss of the British Bomber Command, sir Arthur Harris (.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Arthur_Harris,_1st_Baronet ) Many prominant Germans wanted him tried as a war criminal after the war. But, not only does the victorers write the history, they dictate the terms as well...

Mosquitoes were extensively used as 'pathfinders' for Bomber Command. With advanced radio navigation and ground tracking radar (H2S), they flew in first to mark the target with flares. The Germans often managed to mislead the bomber force by lighting up similar flares on other places. My father (flew Mosquitoes for Coastal Command, and not Pathfinder missions) told of an insident were a pathfinder crew had 'marked' the Leuna Werke in Germany, a large petrol production facility. But the bomber force, of unknown reason, bombed the nearby Leipzig instead. - A major mishap with a large number of civilians lost as a result, and a heated argument who's fault it was; the pathfinder or the bomber force. It was never established how this faulty bombing came about.
 
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I read an article in Aftenposten (an Oslo newspaper) a few years ago were bombing of civilians were discussed. Many examples from the history were mentioned, the ones you Olsen mentioned in another post here. This article made the same conclusion: There is little evidence that terror bombings made any difference. Quite on the contrary. Most often, those bombed came out more motivated to fight the opponent.
 
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The riddle about the unknown photographer has been solved. See the article at 'Einestages', the history department of 'Spiegel Online' (sorry - in German).

To cut a long story short - the pictures actually originate from the German 'Bildberichter' and professional photographer Johann Haehle who worked in a German 'Propagandakompanie' (PK). While most of his photographs are archived in the German Federal Archive, a number of his films apparently initially did not come into any official archive and were 'lost' for several decades. The reason why they were 'lost' is linked with the Babij Jar massacre that took place at the end of September 1941 near Kiew:

Under undisclosed circumstances, Haehle came to the site of the massacre one day after it had occured, and photographed the remains. Apparently, he kept these pictures to himself together with the other pictures mentioned here in this thread. The pictures remained in his private estate which was sold by his widow (Haehle was killed on june 10th, 1944, shortly after D-Day in Normandy) to a journalist, who in 1961 handed over copies of the films to the Public Attourney's office in Frankfurt in an attempt to use them in the proceedings against the German Army members who were involved in the massacre. There, these film copies were 'lost'.

Later, the journalist's widow handed over the originals to the Hamburg 'Institut für Sozialforschung' (Institute for Social Research) which compiled the highly controversial and much-acclaimed 2001 'Wehrmacht' exhibition.

On seeing the Internet campaign to find the author of the aforementioned war pictures, the archivist at the Institut für Sozialforschung recognized these pictures as part of the estate which also included the Babij Jar photographs.

The photographs of the Focke-Wulf airplane have never officially been published. As of today, it is still unclear how the pictures came back to Russia (from where they allegedly were published in the Internet).
 
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Thanks, arjay,

At least the two main known perpetrators of the Babij Jar massacre were indicted. Otto Rasch by the Americans at the Einsatsgruppen Trial, he died in 1948. And Friedric Jeckeln who were indicted by the Russians and executed in Riga in 1946.

But there could well have been many others that participated and that were never tried. After all, between 70.000 and 120.000 were killed at Babi Jar.
 
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