Old Pictures

Here's my Dad (left - big ears) and a buddy - probably basic training, maybe Army Air Corps. Due to an injury immediately after basic training, my father actually went through basic training twice. Once with the Army Air Corps (pre Air Force), and then again in the Infantry. He always said, "I was the best trained guy over there!"

As you can see from this post, we finally have a nice printer/scanner. It pairs nicely with the fancy MacBook Pro purchased last week. We've had both for a week and this is the first time I've actually played with the scanner and the Mac.

Now that we have a nice scanner, I thought it time to break out my dad's old WW2 photos. Only a few of the pictures are of my father and buddies. Most of the pictures in the album have a more dubious origin.



Dad (right) and buddy - this one actually has some writing on the back (most don't). It says simply, Germany April 45. Thanks for the detail Dad. Who is this other guy? Better yet who is the guy in the background - far left. Bonus question - what is my father wearing attached to his left breast pocket?

A number of the other pictures in my Dad's collection are not from his own personal collection, but were obtained in the course of combat in early 1945. They were looted from a castle in eastern Germany. I recall my Dad saying that he and a buddy split a photo album.

I'm no history detective, but I've looked at the pictures a number of times over the year and have a bit of a narrative built up around the pictures. My guess (and it's only a guess) is that someone in the family was an officer in the German armed forces. I can't tell which branch - but probably infantry, maybe some sort of cavalry unit. Many of the photos show young officers - many candid shots - and some more formal. There are a number of battle photos - lots of blown-up bridges and a few urban scenes. Several have tanks, but others have horses.



This one caught our eye because of the signage displayed on the bombed out building. It looks French to me.



We also found this photo of African soldiers. Would they be conscripts from one of the German colonies in North Africa?

The collection of photos also contained a number of official propaganda photos - they appear to be postcards. I suspect these were purchased at stores? Need to do more research on that point. Lots of photos of Hitler in various poses - with the people, posing with kids (kind of chilling), with his fellow leaders, etc. I may post some of those later.