Tag Archives: historical

Vintage World War II Posters from Germany

In this second part of the visit to the Zeughaus, the late 17th and early 18th Century building that houses the German Historical Museum in Berlin, the Deutsches Historisches Museum — I must admit that it was both fascinating and a bit off-putting.

In the lead-up to those galleries full of nationalistic poster art, there are exhibits of social history that explained the frightful poverty and economic collapse in Germany in the period leading up to World War II.

Since there are so many images, I have decided to do a 3rd post about this museum. With the exception of the one rather depressing ink drawing style poster from the 1930s showing a starving family, today’s article shows lots of happy and upbeat propaganda to reinforce the message that the German people were unified in their thinking and to drum up feelings of purposefulness about their cause.

A 1930s poster showing a woman and child in extreme poverty.

A 1930s poster showing a mother and children in extreme poverty.

1936 Winter Olympics poster

Silhouette of the top of the iconic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin overlaid onto this poster for the summer Olympics.

The German ideal of happy families with blonde hair and healthy bodies was highly encouraged.

More perfect-looking blonde children to create Hitler’s future Utopia.

And of course, the idea was heavily promoted that once this temporary messiness of war was over, all good German working families would have prosperity and their own car for drives in the countryside. Recognise the early Volkswagon?

Whether you are a university educated man who works with his brain or a tradesman who works with his hands, the we’re-all-in-this-together approach is on display in this propaganda poster.

The glamourous airships or Zeppelins were still flying into the late 1930s. They provided a mental boost to the German public about their superiority with the construction of these massive airships.

The era of the Zeppelins came to an end in 1937 with the Hindenburg Disaster which took the lives of 35 out of 97 people on board. All remaining German airships were ordered to be destroyed in 1940. The article at the link above is quite comprehensive and if you are interested in that sort of aviation history, it’s definitely worth the time to read through it.

The third and final article from this museum in Berlin shows World War II posters from Germany that are significantly less sunny and optimistic. Watch for those in my next article.

A Day At The Zeughaus — The German Historical Museum in Berlin

We weren’t sure what to expect when we visited the German Historical Museum in Berlin, more correctly known by the actual name Deutsches Historisches Museum on the wonderful street, Unter den Linden. The charming street name translates to under the linden trees.

The museum is housed in an equally historical building, the Zeughaus — the oldest building on Unter den Linden and a former arsenal built between 1695 and 1730 in the Baroque architectural style.

Although ancient and relatively contemporary history is always interesting, both of us are quite curious about the historical periods from the 1920s through the 1940s — and this museum certainly didn’t let us down in that regard. It has halls full of information, remnants of those decades gone by, and a large collection on the emergence of the German Third Reich. Below is a small selection of what is on display.

The next TWO articles after this one will have a very specific theme. They will be photo essays of original World War II proganda posters distributed by the Nazi government of the time. So do come back and see some of that artwork that is rarely seen outside of Europe.

The courtyard of the German Historical Museum, established in the historic Zeughaus building, contains an I.M. Pei designed roofline over the large courtyard.

A vintage petrol pump from the 1920s-40s.

Pre-World War II motorcycle

Complete coffee set

Rather oddly — a display of vintage lingerie and clothing is right next to a display filled with old typewriters!

Sailor ceramic statue — advertising art.

A poster for the 1927 Fritz Lang masterpiece film — Metropolis.

Row of German uniform jackets with a swastika on each of them.

World War II History In The Fields of Norfolk

It’s always a bit stunning to realise how much history has unfolded over the centuries in the UK within eyesight of what now appears to be a ‘normal’ village or town.

We have driven by this particular object for year after year and I always meant to go back and take a picture of it — but I only got around to doing it within this past week. It was a direct follow-on from a visit to an old World War II airfield that is now the museum dedicated to the 100th Bomber Group. And both the museum and this structure are less than a 5 minute drive down the road from my husband’s parents’ home in Norfolk.

As you can see, this machine gun emplacement on the edge of Dickleburgh is standing in a field that has just been plowed for Spring planting.

Nothing like a bit of of history sitting in a field that you pass every day to nudge your memory into recalling what went on there a mere 75 years ago.

Machine gun emplacement from World War II sitting in a rural Norfolk field

Hadrian’s Wall in Winter — Part 2

Returning to our visit to Hadrian’s Wall and the museums at Vindolanda and the Roman Army Museum — here is Part Two.

Walking on an increasingly downhill slope, we continued through the ruins which included what would have been a massive bathhouse for the hundreds of Roman soldiers stationed in this distant land.

Sign at Vindolanda explaining the Roman baths that once existed here

Archaeological excavation at the Roman baths in Vindolanda along Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

Then we followed the winding path that led sharply downhill through the trees toward the Chesterholm Museum, the former family home of the archaeologist Eric Birley — a house that now contains many of the discoveries from decades of excavations. This entire site is an ongoing excavation and volunteers can sign on during the warm weather months to work alongside the professional archaeologists on a dig. What fun it would be to bring up some ancient coin or fragment of pottery and know that you contributed to the efforts to reclaim history.

Chesterholm Museum on the grounds of Vindolanda, a large Roman fortress and village along Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

A Roman temple replica in the gardens of the Chesterholm Museum at Vindolanda, a large fortress and village along Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

We were not allowed to take any photos inside the museum so, after viewing the exhibits and the gift shop, we began the slow uphill hike along the winding path and back into the main section of ruins — all the time walking on the ancient Roman roads.

Walking on the old Roman road inside Vindolanda at Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

Standing in the past on an ancient Roman road at Vindolanda near Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England.

Feeling seriously hungry by this time, we drove out of the parking lot toward the second museum on this section of Hadrian’s Wall, the Roman Army Museum. I asked at the front desk of Vindolanda for a recommendation for lunch and the charming woman on duty drew me a tiny map to lead me to a local pub with good food and accommodations where the archaeologists stayed during the summer months. The name of the town was (seriously!) Once Brewed and the name of the pub was Twice Brewed!

Looking for the Twice Brewed pub in the village of Once Brewed in the North of England

The Roman theme continues at the Twice Brewed pub in the village of Once Brewed in the North of England

The Twice Brewed pub in the village of Once Brewed in the North of England

After a nice lunch, we drove the few miles further to the Roman Army Museum. Again, we were not allowed to take any photos within the museum — a pity since the exhibits are quite good — but we enjoyed what we saw and the 3-D film called Edge Of Empire gives you a good idea of the size and scale of the fortifications and just-outside-the-wall village at Vindolanda.

Roman Army Museum entry at Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

These are truly informative museums (especially the Vindolanda site), but I would recommend seeing them both in a single day to get a complete overview to life as a Roman soldier in this remote and harsh landscape. The two museums are a mere 7 miles apart and are easily visited in one afternoon. I highly recommend these sites to anyone who is travelling to this part of the North of England.

Hadrian’s Wall in Winter — Part 1

According to what we heard from several people during the month that we visited Newcastle, the North of England is a cold and damp place for a minimum of 6 months (and sometimes longer!) of each year. It was therefore not a great stretch of the imagination to visualise what a shock to the brain and body it must have been for soldiers from the warmer climate of Italy when they travelled north to be stationed at the remote and icy fortifications along Hadrian’s Wall.

We chose a day that was forecast to contain at least a small measure of blue sky and off we went to Vindolanda and the Roman Army Museum which were both along that historic fortified wall.

The entry building at Vindolanda gave no clues to what was lying in the hills and fields beyond. So it was a pleasant (but icy cold!) surprise to walk through the building, pass a cluster of bundled-up school children on a class outing, and emerge into a biting wind and onto a pathway that led to a huge archaeological excavation.

Entry to Vindolanda at Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

School children eating their lunch outside on an icy day at Vindolanda (yes, that IS ice in the fountain!) at Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

Entry sign for Vindolanda at Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

A cold day for a visit to Vindolanda at Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

The ruins were stretched out in both directions beneath the snow-covered hills. But I must admit that we were walking rather briskly through them as I took pictures and gasped with each blast of sub-zero wind.

Ongoing excavations at Vindolanda at Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

Ongoing excavations inside Vindolanda at Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

Underfloor heating system in a ruin that has been excavated at Vindolanda at Hadrian’s Wall in the North of England

Come back soon for Part 2 of our wintery visit to the two museums at Hadrian’s Wall and lots more photos including exterior pictures of the larger museum buildings, the gardens in winter, and the spot for our mid-afternoon meal break.

A Lingering Vibe of Sadness in Eastern Germany

It caught me by surprise — that lingering sense of sadness, hopelessness, and anguish. But I was too busy trying to catch up on editing photos to focus on tuning into the first wave of the vibe. I certainly hadn’t intended to know the history of that place since all I thought we were doing was ‘parking’ ourselves for a week after our wonderful month in Berlin. But it happened nonetheless, washed over me, and it has taken me months to feel like writing about it.

Ferienpark Dresden main building with self-contained apartments upstairs

The biergarten (beer garden & exterior dining area) at Ferienpark Dresden

We had been enjoying our time in a self-contained apartment in the small town of Ortrand outside of Dresden. We were at the Ferienpark Dresden campground with holiday apartments that were surrounded by thick forests on one side and flat farmland stocked with dairy cattle on the other side. We could cook for ourselves or eat in the charming little restaurant downstairs. And the biergarten served such yummy dark German beer! The setting was lovely, all was well, and there was no reason for my psychic senses to go all twitchy.

But as we took a long walk one afternoon to put some movement into my laptop-obsessed-and-inactive-body, I spontaneously blurted out to Mark as we walked, “I wouldn’t want to ask any of the local people about what went on here during World War II.” Mark was accustomed to this sort of out-of-the-blue sensing from me, so he just looked at me and didn’t query my reactions as I continued to talk.

“I get the oddest vibe here — as if there was a concentration camp or a work camp or something even more dire related to the Nazis. It’s hanging around in the atmosphere all of these years later. And it would make the current occupants uncomfortable about what their parents and grandparents might have been up to 70 years ago. I’d never want to make any of these nice people feel ill at ease.”

Every single person that we had met thus far had been completely charming and both common sense and common courtesy meant that I knew that the German people were quite sensitive and aware of what an aberration those 1930s and 1940s years were under the Nazi regime. I read the English translation of the German newspaper online and I knew that both the government and the general populace were determined to never have a return to that kind of chaotic violence. But it was a hurtful period to reflect on for many of them, so I wanted to practice the utmost courtesy and simply not ask.

We had stopped to stare at a waterway and the cows in the field as we continued on into the town. Then I told Mark that I was going to do a web search when we got back to the apartment. I knew that we were in an area that had been in East Germany until the reunification in the late 1980s, but it didn’t feel like a Communist time period vibe — it felt like a 1940s vibe.

On we walked into the spotlessly clean and orderly Ortrand, looking around slowly, and we began to spot things that we had never seen when we had arrived three days earlier from the other direction and gone straight into the campground complex. Watch towers — we saw watch towers looming over two different places. And then we walked by the fences, fences that were quite a lot taller than I am, fences that spanned both sides of one of the roads on the outskirts — and my entire stomach just went all icky.

Fences with a lingering 'vibe' in Ortrand near Dresden in eastern Germany

“Why are those fences shaped like that?” I asked Mark. And he told me that they were bent at the top to keep things in, not keep intruders out. I didn’t have a camera with me and we had to return there a few days later as we were departing, but I thought I would share what we saw and what I discovered.

There were large concrete tanks and platforms and crumbling buildings behind those fences and I was just preparing to photograph those when the hair on the back of my neck began to stand up. I turned to see a man who appeared to be in his early to mid-90s who was absolutely glaring at me with an extremely hostile expression when he spotted my camera. We departed quickly.

Ortrand had been the site of a work camp — one of the “Arbeitskommandos (Work Camps) supplied from Stalag IV-D” in Torgau according to the website run by a man named Graham Johnson. His extensive research was done to honour the memory of his father who was a prisoner in one of these camps. If you scroll down that extensive list, you will find that Ortrand used British servicemen from Stalag IV-D to make cement for the German army. That certainly explained all of those moldering buildings behind the fencing which were grown over and only partially visible.

This Iron Cross and Eagle monument, pictured below, stands in the middle of a traffic round-about in front of the train station which is currently full of workmen and undergoing renovation. So yes, the past is still visible in several places around the village.

Iron Cross and Eagle on monument in front of train station under restoration

This is Ortrand today — a very peaceful, pretty, and tidy village full of pastel coloured buildings. Any feelings of discomfort that I may have had several days previously were dispelled by an afternoon of walking around, taking photographs, eating ice cream, and drinking a wonderfully strong expresso at a local cafe.

The main square in Ortrand near Dresden in eastern Germany

Pastel buildings in Ortrand near Dresden in eastern Germany

View down Bahnhoffstrasse from train station towards the village

Barista in Ortrand making a splendid expresso!

I am quite aware that most people aren’t as sensitive to lingering historical vibrations as I am, but it was an episode that I felt was worth sharing.

A Wanderful Life

The Neverending Journey

Tag Archives: historical

World War II History In The Fields of Norfolk

Hadrian’s Wall in Winter — Part 2

Hadrian’s Wall in Winter — Part 1

A Lingering Vibe of Sadness in Eastern Germany