WWI Photographs, Propaganda Postcards & Feldpost

Morlar · 11-03-2009 7:40pm #1

Here is a small selection of WWI photographs, propaganda postcards and Feldpost.

1)
First is an '1870 war memorial' postcard along with 2 photos of a 1914-1918 memorial.

2)
Postcard showing a soldier relaxing with wine, cigars what looks to be the wartimes (Alles KreigZeitung).

Detail :

2a Here is a Feldpost & reverse of 2

Morlar · 11-03-2009 7:41pm

Selection of 4 Postcards including the unknown 'worrior'

Reverse:

Detail showing 2 1908 style machine guns (anyone confirm these type?)

Morlar · 11-03-2009 7:42pm

Assorted colour & B/w Postcards

Detail German WWI Teutonic Knight card:

Morlar · 11-03-2009 7:43pm

Detail Crew of SMS Mowe

This is the returning crew of the Imperial German SMS Möwe (Seagull) after a raiding voyage and I believe just after recieving their Iron Crosses from the Kaiser.

http://smsmoewe.com/indexsm.htm

http://smsmoewe.com/ships/smsmsm.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Moewe_(auxiliary_cruiser)

This ship has an interesting history. Originally this was a cameroon-Germany colonial bananna boat - refitted to be a minelayer/'commerce raider' during WWI.

It successfully mined the home of the Royal Navy at Scapa flow under the glare of english searchlights & sank HMS King Edward VII http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_King_Edward_VII in the process. From there her course took her down the west coast of Ireland and out to the atlantic.
Here is an almost contemporary account from this site http://smsmoewe.com/smsmfors.htm

" Rough weather and complete darkness enabled the SeaGull in command of Count Nikolaus Dohna-Schlodien, to leave port and reach the North Sea undiscovered. Heavy seas tossed the ship as if she were a nutshell. Many of the crew, old sailors, paid tribute to Neptune. The SeaGull's disguise was a clever piece of work. None of the British ships which we passed while breaking through the patrol ever thought of hailing us, believing, of course, that we were on our way to some English port.

It certainly required not a little of nerve to lay mines almost under the noses of the British warships, but favorable, stormy weather with low visibility aided the work, which we carried on all night with feverish haste, every man working to the end of his strength. High seas continually washed over the ship and made our task more difficult. Below decks everything that had not been fastened securely was smashed to pieces, and in the crew's quarters the water was standing a foot deep. It seemed as if Neptune was in his worst rage and bent on our destruction. Finally the weather became milder and we could lay the second and third cordon of mines in still better time. With the quiet sea and excellent weather showing, the danger of being discovered was naturally much greater, but John Bull thought the German rats safely bottled up, never dreaming they would dare to come out to disturb his leisure.

Those first were our worst hours. Everywhere we could see lights of the British patrol ships. The searchlight of one of them even played on the SeaGull for some time. Our commander then had the deck cleared for action, thinking that now the first encounter with the enemy was on hand. But, with true British carelessness, they never thought of coming nearer and investigating the certainly suspicious craft. We want ahead sowing the sea with mines full of sudden death and hell for the ships that stepped on these snakes of the deep. The calmness of Count Dohna had taken possession of every one of us on board. And our work went on with smooth regularity until the last mine, at the end of the third night, went overboard with three "Hurrahs."

===
From Wikipedia;

"In 3 months she caught 15 ships, 2 of which were sent, with cargo and prisoners, to port as prizes; the rest were sunk. She returned to Germany, and a heroes welcome, on 4 April 1916."

"Departing on 23 November 1916, Möwe had even more success on her second cruise into the Atlantic. In 4 months she accounted for another 25 ships "

"Möwe was de-commissioned as a raider, being counted to valuable as a propaganda tool to be risked again. She served in the Baltic as a submarine tender, before becoming the auxiliary minelayer Ostsee in 1918. After the Treaty of Versailles, she went to Britain, to be operated by Elder Fyffes as the freighter Greenbrier. In 1933 she returned to Germany, as the freighter Oldenburg, and served as such in World War II. On 7 April 1945 she was torpedoed off the coast of Norway - near the village of Vadheim in Sogn og Fjordane county - and sunk." Almost made it to the end of WWII in Europe.

http://smsmoewe.com/ships/smsmsm.htm

"On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the last Allied ship sunk by the German Navy during World War II was lost. While supporting Operation Overlord, the allied landing force in Normandy, the Norwegian destroyer Svenner was torpedoed and sunk during an attack by German torpedo boats including SeaGull. "

Morlar · 11-03-2009 7:44pm

Some basic related medals:

WWI Iron Cross & 'Cross of Honour for the Great War, 1914-1918' Cross

& reverse showing makers mark

1870 Commemorative medal (Deutcshland HeldenKampf Gegen Frankreich) & 'Cross of Honour for the Great War, 1914-1918' / Hindy cross combatants & Veterans Medal

Reverse

arnhem44 · 12-03-2009 10:46am

Some great bits there Morlar,I love all those old photos,they seem to capture a moment differently,unlike modern cameras with digital or zoom and so on and just getting that raw image,have you any more?,as regards to the machine guns,I don't know myself but I do know the Germans used Maxims during the great war,I think I have a book somewhere with photos of weapons they used,if I find it I will have a look and let you know and finally the last medals you posted up,glad to see what the ribbon looks like on the veterans medal I have one of these minus the ribbon,one of those things I never got around to getting

Morlar · 12-03-2009 12:32pm

arnhem44 wrote: »

Some great bits there Morlar,I love all those old photos,they seem to capture a moment differently,unlike modern cameras with digital or zoom and so on and just getting that raw image,have you any more?,as regards to the machine guns,I don't know myself but I do know the Germans used Maxims during the great war,I think I have a book somewhere with photos of weapons they used,if I find it I will have a look and let you know and finally the last medals you posted up,glad to see what the ribbon looks like on the veterans medal I have one of these minus the ribbon,one of those things I never got around to getting

Cheers - the stand of the maxim looks slightly different, though I also have WWII Russian front photos with the 'Russian 1908' in the hands of Germans so it's hard to tell. I think there is a chance that the ribbon here is not original to this medal (though it is the one that came with it when I bought it) as I have also seen this medal on sale with a different ribbon. I have lots of pictures but not many that are online - I am going to start putting more online shortly though the vast majority are WWII rather than WWI.

Morlar · 26-05-2009 7:02pm

Here are some more WWI pictures/postcards.

WWI German 2 soldiers with dress dagger

WWI German (Iron Cross)

WWI German group

Reverse

WWI German informal

WWI German (Kaiser?)

Reverse

WWI German troops formal

WWI Pickelhaube Brandenburg Gate

WWI British Stereophonic photograph of Ypres salient Map

WWI German portrait

WWI Air war (German)

WWI German Verdun Explosion Postcard
WWI Air War Reverse

WWI German with Medic

citizen_p · 27-05-2009 2:00pm

nice collection, im only starting mine.
i have 2 manuals on map reading, both ww2 1 british 1 german,
alot of german coins, notgeld etc....
2 or 3 maps....

Morlar · 27-05-2009 3:10pm

Mousey- wrote: »

nice collection, im only starting mine.
i have 2 manuals on map reading, both ww2 1 british 1 german,
alot of german coins, notgeld etc....
2 or 3 maps....

Cheers - you should post up some pics of yours.

I may have a lot of ww2 photographs at home and some of them (maybe 20 or so just regular heer etc) I no longer need so I will go through them later to sort them out, they are yours if you want them to add to your collection.

citizen_p · 27-05-2009 11:47pm

YESS!!!
if you dont want them im sure i could find a home for them here.....
could you post them or???

ill post up a few scans tommorrow ( i need 25 posts)

citizen_p · 27-06-2009 7:45pm

ok wrong section...

FiSe · 27-06-2009 9:03pm

Morlar wrote: »

Selection of 4 Postcards including the unknown 'worrior'

Detail showing 2 1908 style machine guns (anyone confirm these type?)

Schwarzlose?

I would say that those lads posing with those MG's are likely to be an Austro-Hungarian soldiers, judging by the uniforms...

Morlar · 29-06-2009 12:14pm

FiSe wrote: »

Schwarzlose?

I would say that those lads posing with those MG's are likely to be an Austro-Hungarian soldiers, judging by the uniforms...

Thanks for that, it looks like they are indeedn Schwarzlose MG M 7/12, or maybe Schwarzlose M08/15

There is a nice site here about it http://www.kuk-ir97.com/mg_section_IR97.html

&
http://sunblest.net/gun/Schwarz.htm
*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzlose_MG_M.07/12

This reminds me I should put online the WW2 photo album I recently got of a machine gun crew.

citizen_p · 29-06-2009 4:06pm

yes definetly.....would love to see it
(no need for a new thread...put it in the thread i made for ww2 photos if you want)

Morlar · 29-06-2009 4:28pm

Mousey- wrote: »

yes definetly.....would love to see it
(no need for a new thread...put it in the thread i made for ww2 photos if you want)

I will have to put them online first but will probably put them in a seperate thread as a complete photo album is a standalone item really, outlining one mans progress through the war (though for this one I think it ends at Denmark if I remember correctly).

Also if it is in a thread of its own it then makes it easier to update the master thread at the top " Post an introduction to your collection here! " where everyone has one post and updates it to include links to all of the threads of their items. One monster photo thread would become unmanageable and is not a good idea (in my view) as it would make it next to impossible to find anything in it over time.

citizen_p · 13-07-2009 4:05pm

picked this up....

i guess that flood light was a wonder weapon :P

arnhem44 · 20-08-2009 1:01pm

This WW1 dated(1916)postcard arrived this morning,not sure what it says,anyone here able to translate a little bit of it??

Dr Strange · 20-08-2009 9:26pm

Hi arnhem,

sorry, don;t have much time but the first part reads something like: "have to tell you that we are all healthy and after 14 days will be in Berlin...."

I probably can decipher more but I am just too busy. I'll be happy to help anyone with German letters, cards etc once my thesis is finished.

Oh and the front of the card reads (loosely translated):

"Made from Iron and Stone - the Guard of the Rhine."

Erz is a word for Iron but nowadays Eisen is used instead. Erz would be mostly the untreated iron evident in the rock.

citizen_p · 20-08-2009 11:39pm

ive only started trying to translate myself a while ago, mainly backs of photos....
so im not very good in this period but in later ones im trying...
this helped me a bit on offical notices etc ... in gothic, and sutterlin used in ww2.

not sure about ww1 stuff.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/german.htm
http://www.freetranslation.com/

arnhem44 · 21-08-2009 7:31pm

Preusse wrote: »

Hi arnhem,

sorry, don;t have much time but the first part reads something like: "have to tell you that we are all healthy and after 14 days will be in Berlin...."

I probably can decipher more but I am just too busy. I'll be happy to help anyone with German letters, cards etc once my thesis is finished.

Oh and the front of the card reads (loosely translated):

"Made from Iron and Stone - the Guard of the Rhine."

Erz is a word for Iron but nowadays Eisen is used instead. Erz would be mostly the untreated iron evident in the rock.

Cheers for that Preusse,it would be nice to know what these lads said in these,to be honest the script throws me sometimes.I wasn't even sure if it had been posted,it looks like there is no address to it.And cheers for the offer of the future translations.

arnhem44 · 16-09-2009 10:35pm

Not sure if this is the right thread for these,these are the six issue's of the Illustrated War News picked up at the living history show at Kinsale last weekend,these are full of stories and photo's from the front and at home in Britain,these particular ones been published on various months during 1917.

arnhem44 · 26-11-2009 11:12pm

Right then,finally back up and running with a new computer,here's some more postcards that have arrived,one WW1 German photo postcard from 1915 and another WW1 German picture postcard both with writing on the back,again no idea what it says,the next one is a military themed one depicting a French officer attacking a German officer on horseback

arnhem44 · 26-11-2009 11:31pm

next up is a retirement letter from the War Office to a Captain Sterling in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in 1911/12 stating how much he would recieve,theres also the second page of the document which isn't showing in full and has been quite difficult to scan due to size

arnhem44 · 26-11-2009 11:36pm

last one up is another official British press postcard from WW1 showing a Chaplin taking details from an injured soldier

arnhem44 · 19-01-2010 1:02pm

Here are some more postcards to have arrived over the past few weeks,mostly portrait style cards from the WW1 era.Here are the first selections,the Royal Army Medical Corps cards were originally sold as a set of twenty two all to the same man,sadly broke up and this is what remains

arnhem44 · 19-01-2010 1:08pm

Next ones are again official Newspaper issued postcards,one showing Lord Kitchener and the other showing Germans(Fritz) carrying in wounded for the Canadians,this card is from the Canadian series brought out by the Daily Mirror.

arnhem44 · 19-01-2010 1:14pm

Next one is to a British soldier with a post date of 1909,this one has been used and states on the back that he was docked two days pay for been absent,now in fairness what was he expecting.

arnhem44 · 19-01-2010 1:18pm

Moving on next to some German cards,this one Is a nice clear photo which has some names and the year written on the back

arnhem44 · 19-01-2010 1:22pm

Another German Group photo,again this card has been used and posted

arnhem44 · 19-01-2010 1:27pm

Another German One depicting two soldiers on a tree which has been damaged taken in the Argonne,this one has again been used and posted and is dated the week before Christmas 1916

WWI Photographs, Propaganda Postcards & Feldpost

Comments