Hello,
Most German pictures about WW 2 we come across on the World Wide Web and in books are those that are made by PK units (Propaganda Kompanie), the official German war photographers; although they are of high quality, they just show us what the Nazi government wanted us to see: a war in which the Teutonic heroes fight to safe the world from communism and Jewish controlled capitalism.
The PK war photographers were professionals and they knew how to make pictures that make the German soldier look good, also their pictures needed to be checked by a censor.
So if we today look at illustrations in books and on websites we are basically still looking at images that the Nazis wanted us to see.
But there is an alternative, a good alternative actually, in WW2 one out of every three German soldiers had a photo camera and they took lots of pictures, certainly in the early campaigns when their was no shortage of film; the pictures they took were amateur pictures and they didn’t have to go through the censors office so they show an uncensored side of WW2.
Some of these soldiers took their camera with them to the frontline and made pictures the best official war photographer couldn’t make, they show us another view on the life of a German soldier on the front: faces of soldiers that are scared, their friends that are KIA, the holocaust…etc.
So I thought it was a good idea to start a thread dedicated to these private made photos during WW2.
I’ll start it of with some pictures I have in my collection, please feel free to add yours, allied pictures are of course welcome to, but please try to avoid official war photographer pictures.
Cheers,
Peter
Most German pictures about WW 2 we come across on the World Wide Web and in books are those that are made by PK units (Propaganda Kompanie), the official German war photographers; although they are of high quality, they just show us what the Nazi government wanted us to see: a war in which the Teutonic heroes fight to safe the world from communism and Jewish controlled capitalism.
The PK war photographers were professionals and they knew how to make pictures that make the German soldier look good, also their pictures needed to be checked by a censor.
So if we today look at illustrations in books and on websites we are basically still looking at images that the Nazis wanted us to see.
But there is an alternative, a good alternative actually, in WW2 one out of every three German soldiers had a photo camera and they took lots of pictures, certainly in the early campaigns when their was no shortage of film; the pictures they took were amateur pictures and they didn’t have to go through the censors office so they show an uncensored side of WW2.
Some of these soldiers took their camera with them to the frontline and made pictures the best official war photographer couldn’t make, they show us another view on the life of a German soldier on the front: faces of soldiers that are scared, their friends that are KIA, the holocaust…etc.
So I thought it was a good idea to start a thread dedicated to these private made photos during WW2.
I’ll start it of with some pictures I have in my collection, please feel free to add yours, allied pictures are of course welcome to, but please try to avoid official war photographer pictures.
Cheers,
Peter
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