Mysteries of a Nazi Photo Album

[Story]

There are certainly many photo albums of Nazi leaders and many photo albums of the Nazis’ victims. But it’s hard to imagine many albums depicting both, just a few pages apart.

At least one does, however, and it has surfaced in New York City. Its creator was able — apparently within weeks — to photograph Hitler as he warred on Russia and also to photograph some of the earliest victims of that brutal campaign, known as Operation Barbarossa, which began 70 years ago Wednesday.

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Professor Taylor called attention to the fact that the pictures were printed on two different types of paper: Agfa Brovira and Leonar. He invited us to consider the possibility that the pictures were culled from a number of sources, not just the PK photographer’s own work; that the album may have been compiled and pasted up by his companion or someone else with little interest in faithful narrative cohesion or chronological order.

Beware of inference, in other words. Professor Taylor has learned this lesson from dealing with other personal photo albums. “We think we can get so close to these people, but we can’t,” Professor Taylor said. “They are not the same people we are. We come up with assumptions — and the material always undermines what we think.”

Dr. Uziel agreed. “The eclectic selection of topics, the different styles of photography and the different papers may suggest an album fetched together by someone else,” he said.

At the very least, Professor Wolff said, there are two albums contained between the covers: one showing the Eastern Front and the other showing Munich and Bavaria. “Maybe the key,” he said, “is to fit them together.” We welcome your assistance in trying to do so.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/mysteries-of-a-nazi-photo-album/?hp

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

He (the current owner) said the photo album and 50,000 baseball trading cards were given to him by a manual laborer of his acquaintance who had fallen on hard times and had to borrow money from the executive. The objects amounted to repayment of the cash loan. The executive said the worker told him he had received the album from an old German man whose lawn he had maintained. Because there are nine pictures of Hitler in the 24-page album, all who handled it were sure it must have some value.

Could it be possible that the old German man in question might have been the photographer himself?

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Here's another photo album that recently came to light.


(Edit: Link removed due to pro-SS content. No harm, no foul)

 

[cookie]

Years ago as a little kid I found a photo album on the city dump. Remarkably (for an emigrant to Australia) some German had brought it to Australia with all the photos of pre-War Nazi Germany a country we spent lotsa blood and treasure defeating.

It stuck in my mind all my life yet strangely as a child I tossed it away for some reason. Bizarre because I have always been fascinated by history. It had the Nuremberg rallies etc.

Another thing from the dump that I kept (and mysteriously lost) was a monograph booklet of a German eyewitness account of the Turkish massacre of the Armenians in 1915. I later had a lot to do with Armenians and regret having lost it in some house move.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Revisit the article today... the photographer was identified a mere three hours after the Times article went online! Follow-up article:

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/world-war-ii-mystery-solved-in-a-few-hours/

As fascinating as the pictures are, I can't get over how quickly their taker was identified: a powerful example of what the Internet makes possible...

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/world-war-ii-mystery-solved-in-a-few-hours/

Mystery solved.

 

[scotrace]

And you're late to share.

Remarkable to note that the photographer lost his wife, a beautiful woman seen in the collection, and his son and daughter in the war during allied bombings. He lived on nearly 50 years.

 

[ChadHahn]

In the first article there is a photo of a cameraman who has a large aparatus hanging from his left side with a thick cord running from the camera into it. Does anyone know what that is? Synced sound? Battery?

Chad

 

[Haversack]

There are a lot of unpublished photos from the war out there and in out of the way places. Back when I was in school, (early '70s), I was over at a friend's who knew I had an interest in WWII. He showed me six thick albums full of photos his father had taken during the war. They were all of the Eastern Front circa 1943. His father had been in the Luftwaffe as an aerial photographer and had had his own camera and access to a darkroom. About the only thing I remember seeing was a lot of casual shots of people relaxing and of twin-boom Fw 189s.