Original German WWII Personal Photo Album of Bruck an der Mur Sent from SS Soldier to Chef Friend - 145 Pictures 3 Postcards

Original Item: One-of-a-kind-set. Here we have a wonderful personal photo album, measuring approximately 12 1/4” x 8” and covered with lovely textured brown leatherette, which looks to be made from pressed paper. It is definitely a civilian album, not one of those officially issued, and it has an inscription inside the front cover, of which a partial translation was included:-

Happy birthday to my chef and memories of the resettlement camp in Bruck a. d. Mur.
Dedicated by (on) operations manager
ᛋᛋ-Oberscharführer
Hugo Neumann

It is also dated clearly Bruck, Inn 17. Juli 1941. on the left side. The inscription is definitely written using Kurrentschrift, an older form of Germanic script writing, which is why the all the "u" letters are written as "ŭ". In this script the lowercase "n" and "u" are identical, so the latter gets the arc shaped mark over it. This is not indicative of an umlaut or other diacritical marking. We unfortunately were not able to transcribe the original German, as it is quite stylized.

A total of 145 photographs fill the 19 pages of this album, making it a treasure-trove of images taken from the viewpoint of a young, patriotic German soldier. These are contained on pages, which are not captioned, and are separated by "onion skin" separators. Some of the photos are attached directly to the paper, while others are held in place by corner reinforcements.

The pictures filling the pages show a wide variety of scenes in the Bruck an der Mur area of Austria, which was a major Heer Army staging area during the war. The first few pages show some pictures of Waffen-SS soldiers, however there are none in the later pages. There are many landscape pictures, and the majority of photos are personal in nature for the first part of the album, while more military pictures are mixed in later on. Definitely a wide variety of different scenes with some great research potential!

Historical records like this album have become priceless time capsules that provide an incomparable level of insight into the individual experience of the Second
World War, now that almost eighty years have passed.

The older albums such as these usually withstand the ravages of time. The leather or fabric covers may wear, but the pages stay well intact. The black paper albums of the early 20th century are more fragile, while the glue from magnetic albums can damage photographs. And, as with all old photographs, keep albums in a safe, climate controlled environment