My parents are moving and my dad brought over a box full of my granddad's stuff from WWII, newspapers, pictures, books and so on. There are around 1000 pamphlets and postcards in the box. A lot of the postcards have writing on them, I have no idea what any of this is or what any of it says. If anyone could translate the German that would be awesome.
My plan is to call the Holocaust museum and see if there are any WWII Historians who can help me go through this stuff and see what needs to be preserved, saved, etc.
Can anyone give me any information on what these might be? Particularly the picture pamphlets.
e: nm, I was able to read the printed ones.
The 3 printed ones are pamphlets, belonging to a compilation "Sammelwerk Nr. 8" "Germany awakens" "Genesis, fight and victory of the NSDAP", they're descriptions for images that were attached in this compilation, the text is the same on all 3. It seems this is a compilation of the Parteitag 1933
Upper left one says "Ritter von Epp, liberator of Munich from the red terror, today Reichsstatthalter of Bavaria"
Lower left one: Sa, SS and Stahlhelm are visiting the Führer on occasion of the Reichsführerconference 1933 in Berchtesgarden.
Right one: The Führer welcomes the veterans of labor (Meister Bender Mercedes-Benz)
As for the cards, I have a little trouble reading the script. The right one says:
My dear Irmi(?) for the dear letter, .... .... best thanks, I will answer it in Berlin for you, Heartfelt greetings, your Trude.
(on the left side there's writing in Kurrent I think, I cannot read that. Somebody else wrote his greetings on it.)
The lower card is also in Kurrent I think.
"Dear Franz" is all I can make out.
The pictures:
The man wears an old Stahlhelm, like they wore in WW1. He seems to be a decorated officer, can't make out which rank.
middle pic of the upper row is a common man offering his hand to Hitler.
Right one upper row is a coffee house somewhere. The Irmi's card has a name and an address of a coffee house printed on it. Rathaus Kaffee in Elbling, Ostpreußen. Just speculation, could be anywhere.
lower row left is a group pic with Hitler, men of the SA and SS on it. The guys behind him seem to have a uniform of another colour than the SA and SS, dunno what they are. Maybe you find your granddad on the pic.
(Disclaimer: I don't know much about WWII history, just answering because I speak German)
The cards with the printed text on the back are collectible cards ('Sammelwerk' cards) that you got when you bought cigarettes - there were albums you could put them in, hence the numbers. Yours are from album No 8 'Germany awakens'. Picture No 36 is entitled 'Ritter von Epp. Liberated Munich from the red terror, today Reichsstatthalter (~'Reich Governor') of Bavaria'. Picture number No 160 'The Fuhrer greeting a veteran of work (Master Bender Mercedes-Benz)'. No 187 says 'SA, SS, and Stahlhelm visit the Fuhrer on the occasion of the Reichsführertagung (a convention) in Bechtesgaden 1933'.
The postcard with the picture of the coffee shop was sent to a woman named Irmgard in Stolberg (Rhineland; in the far West of Germany) on 19 July 1941 and reads: 'My dear Irmi, thank you for the nice letter and the postcards. I will answer from Berlin. Best wishes, Trudi.' The bit in a different handwriting says 'Unbekannter Weise viele Grüsse' ('best wishes, although we haven't met' - it's a very German thing to say!) and a name I can't decipher. The coffee shop is 'Rathaus Kaffee' in Elbing (in East Prussia, that's Elblag in modern Poland, halfway between Gdansk and Kaliningrad) which is also where the card was posted.
The other handwritten postcard is harder to decipher, hopefully someone else will chime in... It is sent to someone named Franz to an address that is also in Stolberg (at least I think so, reading it upside down). The postcard is issued in Saarburg and was posted in Pfalzburg (both towns are in Lorraine, i.e. in modern France, now called Sarrebourg and Phalsbourg, respectively).
Three of those are Zigarettenbilder (collectable cigarette cards). There was a similar thread some months ago, there's some more information on those there.