Postcard from Warsaw

Now, sometimes you just get lost in a story.

It seemed easy enough, or so I thought.  

The German on the picture postcard would be easy to translate.

But not so.  

The translation, if I have got it correct reads “Germans innocent in World War”.  The message on the back is undecipherable but I guess will not shed much light on the words on the front.

The post card was sent in the June of 1916 from Warsaw which had been occupied by the German army since the August of the previous year.

And would remain in German hands until November 1918.

I suppose we a dealing with a piece of propaganda but whether this was the message that was intended by the person who sent it is now lost.  

It may be that they were attracted by the lilies which according to one source “portray love, ardor, and affection for your loved ones”.*  An idea reinforced by the words above the portrait of the you women which reads, “Flower language: Lilies”.

Until I can work out the message on the back I am left with  the post marks, one of which appears to be a military one, referring to "Landstr Juf Batl. Burg IV 85", and the other carries the location “Warschau” with the date June 28th, 1916.

There is one last clue and that is the name of the picture postcard company who are listed on the back as R&K, and that this one was 2654/1.  But I fear trying to find information on a German/Polish company a century and bit after the event will lead nowhere.

Location; Warsaw

Pictures; message from Warsaw 1916, from the collection of David Harrop

*Lilies, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilium#Symbolism

War time messages from Germany

 Now, I am intrigued by this picture postcard from the Great War.

Partly because you don’t see as many ones from the “other side” and partly because the “other side” included members of my German family.

So, while I can count two uncles, my grandfather, two great uncles and a great grandfather who fought for King and Country between 1914-18, my maternal grandmother was German, and her relatives will have fought in the German Imperial forces.

Added to this my mother and her brother who were born in Cologne served in the RAF while some of their cousins fought for the other side in the Second World War.

The caption reads “Red Cross Collection of youth volunteers in wartime care”, and like some many of the allied picture cards issued at the same time it drips with sentiment and an appeal to war time loyalty.

And it is all there, from the eternal flame of nationhood burning brightly flanked by the tree, to the shadowy figures of soldiers. 

The war veteran echoes those earlier conflicts including victory over France sixty years earlier while the young men and women are a reminder of the present struggle.

There is a message on the back which in time I will translate, and the card was sent from Wittenberg to an address I can’t make out.

My Wikipedia tells me the artist was Adalbert von Rößler who was the son of the police director of Wiesbaden.  After a stint working in industry he became a painter, studied at the Munich Art Academy and the Antwerp Academy, before moving to Berlin.

The card was acquired by David Harrop who I understand will display it in his permanent exhibition in the Visitors Lodge in Southern Cemetery.

Location; Wittenberg

Picture; “Red Cross Collection of youth volunteers in wartime care”, circa 1914-18, from the collection of David Harrop

*Adalbert von Roessler, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adalbert_von_Roessler

Looking west from those other trenches …… postcards from the Great War ….. no. 1 the uniforms

Now, I say looking west, but these young men may have been destined for the Eastern Front.

But the passage of a century and a bit has made it pretty unlikely I will ever know.

One of the cards bears a Munich postmark and another comes from Warsaw, and both are dated 1916.

There may be someone out there that can recognise details from the uniforms which may offer up a clue to a regiment and hence a destination, but until then I am stumped.

Which just leaves me staring at the men, and in a very unhistorical way wondering about who they were and what happened to them.

Over the years I have studied and used many picture postcards from the Great War, and tried to fit the five men of our family into similar British uniforms.  We do have a picture of my great grandfather who in 1916 was in the West Kents, and one of my uncle George in the uniform of the Black Watch.

But I don’t have any of the German side. Our maternal grandmother was from Cologne and married granddad who was in the British army of occupation in 1920.

Her brothers may have served in the Imperial armed forces of Germany, and she will certainly have had cousins who also fought for “Kaiser and Empire”.

If there were any pictures taken of them they have not survived, so these four are all I have.

And one of these postcards has the name, and address of the photographer on the reverse along with the name Bergez, which I take to be the young man in uniform.

The photographer was a Bernard Koch of the “Art Enlargement Agency, and the address was Tumblingerstrasse, München.

The street is still there just a stones throw from the River Isar.  It is one of those pretty unremarkable side roads you can find in any town or city across Europe, and while some of the building look like that might have been known by Herr. Koch, other look to be very modern.

But there is a building at the end of Tumblingerstrasse, just as it goes underneath the main railway line and marshalling yard which looks like it might have been a military barracks.

And that would have made sense for Herr. Koch to have set up business close.

Certainly, the young man is standing in front of a standard studio background, almost exactly liker the one his British counterparts might have chosen for a backdrop.

Interestingly two of the other images show the soldiers out in the open.  In both cases they are standing in front of a building which bears a resemblance to the one on Tumblingerstrasse, but that may just be me wishing it to be the barracks.

So, there you have it four picture postcards of six men in German army uniforms sometime during the Great War, doing pretty much what soldiers do everywhere before being sent to the Front.

Location; somewhere in Germany

Pictures; German soldiers, circa 1916, from the collection of David Harrop