These are period postcards which have come my way in recent weeks , prices range between 7-12 Euros , none are reproductions.
What does a pint of beer or a packet of 20 cost , some might think why pay that for a postcard,fair question but what price for a snap shot of the past in both what the photo shows and the social influence of the government of the day on the national image ?
Same thing was going on in GB , as a waning Imperial power keeping up the illusion of Empire was an on going process , it was all a form of influence and communication.


The Willrich's A watch officer on a UBoat ,Kaptainleutnants Frauenheim and Schuhart.

A few more from the same company.
Willrich was a pretty good portrait artist.
The young girl ("Peasant child from Luneburg Heath") and the old man ("Farmer from the Tyrol")- about £4 a piece , the card showing Fregattenkaptain Hans Erdmenger who commanded destroyer "Wilhelm Heidkamp" awarded his RK on 3/11/40, at the time of his sitting for Willrich he is also wearing the Narvik Shield.
Erdmenger - about £8 , other prices vary according to rarity needless to say any SS subjects are quite expensive and other less well known examples can be classed as "a lot to pay for a postcard".....add a signature and you are in the big money league.

My friend has on a shelf in his office a piece of history - real, tangible history that cost him absolutely nothing. It is a bomb splinter from a Tallboy that struck the Tirpitz. He picked it up on the beach in the fjord when he was filming a documentary there.

I have on my shelves at home, a rusty gasmask tin with tattered straps. It was given to me by a friend who found ti clearing out his house in Germany. It was in the cellar with a load more "Junk" - Inside is an absolutely pristine respirator with cloth, spare eyepieces and everything.

I also have a Panzerfaust tail picked up in the Heurtgenwald. What was it fired at? Who fired it? What happened to them? It was found around the spot where a recorded incident occurred when a company of Shermans attacked towards Vossenack and were repelled by massed Fausts being fired indirectly in volley..... an incredibly brave and foohardy act. Is it one of those? I will never know but to me it is a little piece of history, picked from a battlefield (it was on the surface - partially buried having been turned over by the plough) as I walked it looking at bunkers. It and several other pieces lie in my collection including two party badges dug up and given to me by another German friend to the East of Berlin....... What happened to their owners I wonder.

_________________
Better to Light a Candle than to Curse the Darkness


A001

HG I can commune with you on this.My piece from the battlefield - an unknown part from Catalina AM265 which crashed on a hillside in County Letrim. (21/03/41).
This was the first operational use of the type by the RAF - she had been sent out to assist in a search for Scharnhorst and her sister ship.
As Peers Davidson and his crew died instantly when their "Cat."smashed into an Irish hillside exploding in a fireball, the battlecruisers they were to search for dropped anchor in Brest, "Operation Berlin" was over.

What this is I have no idea , I was drinking a flask of tea when I set my mug down and found this under it.
The top is Air Ministry marked with a Queens crown and "2F/388", made from stainless steel. this innocence looking part , like the bomb/shell splinter and the panzerfaust parts you mentioned , all remain as silent witness to the premature ending of life.
I know Davidson and his crew from diary entries and from photos , sometimes the past does not seem so distant and the dead are not quite strangers.

Some more Scheer / Lutzow related items.
Postcard showing a nicely detailed superstructure , funnel and centre section of the "Panzerschiff".
The photograph is of Kapitan sur Zee Fauge one time commander of Scheer's sister ship Lutzow.

Of note he shield on "Anton" turret, the elevated heavy AA guns, the range finders trained to the right , rear turret trained to the port (forward) , the secondary armament - similar to those which you will find at the Lounges battery in Normandy.
A very pleasing study of what was in terms of merchant raiding a very successful design.
( As was demonstrated by both Graf Spee and Scheer's excursions in the Atlantic.)
Look at the aerial details- outstanding !



A period ink sketch signed by Admiral Marschall her Captain in 1935.
(see viewtopic.php?f=88&t=15403


(Purnells H of TSWW 1966)

The watercolour above shows the tower of Graf Spee as she was a blazing wreck in the mouth of the River plate in December 1939, the contrast to the Scheer could not be more marked but undeniably their linage is one of the same.

The postcards of Scheer down to this post and resized them so as to give a better study of the Scheer.
If you ask most people to name a major German war ship from WW2 Bismarck is the ship which will almost certainly be named simply because she sank the Hood, few will mention Panzerschiff Admiral Scheer.

Almost certainly Scharnhorst.
Compare and contrats the two twin gun turrets in the photograph , the canavas coverings are what you see on the deck - a sailor is cleaning out the upper part of the barrel - loking further aft you can see a second twin turret with its waterproof canvas covering in position , the heavy AA mountings are worth a look as is the domed AA range finder an iconic image of any German capital ship in the heavy cruiser ( Hipper class), battle cruiser ( Scharnhorst class) or battleship (Bismarck class).

Scheer (above) and Graf Spee (Below).



With no battle damage , her Hs float plane intact and an Admiral's Flag flying this can't be during her time in Montevideo. ( Unless I am wrong, which I would not rule out , but if anyone knows the skyline please shout out).
Thanks
js

PS - Hamburg !