Postcards Collection – German Love Couples

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Reich in Photos – Stuttgart During the 1930s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Die Deutsche Wochenschau (UFA-Tonwoche) - Newsreel No. 502 – 17 April 1940

1. Scandinavia

 

Military operations in Denmark and Norway.

 

– German warships are sent to Denmark.

 

– On deck are the sailors, in front of them speaks commander.

 

– The observer with binoculars.

 

– Ships at dusk in the port of Copenhagen.

 

– Ongoing unloading of troops and ammunition.

 

– The soldiers marched to the gate of the citadel, over the citadel National Socialist flag is flying.

 

– The German soldiers take off the Danish flag, spread it on the ground.

 

– German planes fly to Denmark, they are over the city.

 

– A resident holds a leaflet in Danish.

 

– German soldiers in the city, they are resting, smoking.

 

– The empty streets of the city, are German soldiers.

 

– On the building a sign of the German commandant’s office, drives a car.

 

– Generals Regenfind and Nima accept the surrender.

 

– The local police in the ranks, they take batons as weapons.

 

– German and Danish soldiers talk.

 

– The families of diplomats sit on the car, leaving the city.

 

– German soldiers drive down the street in cars, residents watch the movement of troops.

 

– The streets of Copenhagen, a sculpture of a lion on a pedestal, city hall.

 

– Local residents riding bicycles on the street.

 

– A German soldier holds a Danish newspaper, he is surrounded by local girls, smiling.

 

– Residents greet the passing troops.

 

– The square with a fountain, in the background a building with a German inscription.

 

– King Christian X rides down the street on horseback, residents and a German officer greet him.

 

– German traffic controller directs the flow of cars and cyclists.

 

– In the port there are German ships.

 

– On the waterfront riding bicycles, walking residents.

 

– Troops board ships.

 

– Transport ships sail along the shore, people on shore waving their hands.

 

– Two German naval officers friendly goodbye to the Danish couple at home.

 

– German soldiers guard the bridge, make checks of passing cars.

 

– At the station, the German soldiers unload ammunition and various materials, are the shells in boxes.

 

– Trucks on the road.

 

– Signpost: Kebernhern, Roskude, Golbak.

 

– German trucks moving through the city, mechanized artillery behind them, watching the residents.

 

German planes are flying into Norway, they are over the mountains.

 

– The pilot plots the course on the map.

 

– In the cabin of the plane sit paratroopers.

 

– Seaplanes can be seen on the water below.

 

– The plane lands at Aalborg airfield, paratroopers are unloaded.

 

– Oslo, is a sentry in front of the building

 

– Flying planes.

 

– German soldiers watched the clouds of smoke over the forest from the explosion.

 

– At sea, a German squadron, from ships beating guns, planes bombed Oslo.

 

– German transport ships in Oslo, is unloading vehicles.

 

– View of the city from the top.

 

– In the port are Norwegian ships.

 

– German soldiers with bicycles on the pier.

 

– The German squadron at sea, on deck soldiers.

 

– British planes.

 

– Since ships hit them with guns, anti-aircraft guns.

 

– In the dark traces of tracer bullets can be seen.

 

– The ships are approaching the coast of Norway.

 

– The city of Bergen.

 

– The Germans on the barge explore the shore, looking through binoculars.

 

– View of the mountains.

 

– The soldiers pass the backpacks from the boat into the boat.

 

– German soldiers in port, they talk with the Norwegian dockers.

 

– The soldiers are marching into town.

 

– Another part of the ship comes off the boat.

 

– On the wharf troops, equipment, unloaded tanks, carts, artillery.

 

– Horses are in the hold, a soldier stroking the muzzle of a horse, soothing him.

 

– Horses unloaded in containers.

 

– Soldiers, taking the opportunity to rest, lying on the ground.

 

– German soldiers marching down the road with a song.

 

– The parade of troops on the streets of Oslo, is a military band.

 

– Residents.

 

– A German soldier talking with a resident, laughing.

 

– The orchestra gives a concert for the public on the square.

 

– A soldier with a dog in his arms talking to local girls.

 

In Denmark and Norway are the German echelons, marching troops, riding tanks and equipment.

 

– Footage of the military might of the German Wehrmacht.

 

– Shoot guns, take off the planes.

 

– The planes in the sky, the German squadron at sea.

 

– Close-up of the National Socialist flag

The Forms of Order

 

Source: Command and Obedience: SS Leadership Guide by Alfred Kotz

 

An order can wear many kinds of clothing. It can look friendly and immediately please. It can also be gray and simple or obvious and self- evident. An order can also be dressed so unattractively that it repels, or even so ugly that it provokes resistance and rejection. All that is possible.

 

Therefore, an order must never wear a mask. Its face must be clear, clean and inalterably directed toward its goal.

 

If we put an order into a soldier’s uniform, we initially call it a command. The command is the shortest form of an order. The command is bound to both - the person who commands and the person who executes the command - by a regulation. Both know the regulations. Knowledge of regulations saves the superfluous. Any further word or explanation is unnecessary.

 

Whoever commands must limit himself to the correctness of the execution. Otherwise there is nothing to say, nothing at all. Fine expressions are not appropriate for us. They endanger the seriousness. Roaring is hence detestable. The enlisted man burns with desire to improve. You can tell him that in a reasonable manner, considerate and direct. The enlisted man should never get the slightest impression of being provoked or harassed. It’s your fault if he gets such an idea.

 

Go far ahead of the front! Place yourself there! Know what you want! Now command! The execution will be like your command. But if who run around like a toad who doesn‘t know what he wants, then your helplessness and agitation become infectious. Then don’t be surprised how your men squawk during the next break.

 

If you make a mistake, don’t immediately get excited! If your knowledge of command speech fails you, then order the way that seems natural to you!

 

Have your goal in front of your eyes and go ahead unerringly! Only the goal matters. The enlisted men know that, too, and they follow you.

 

Helpless figures at the front are the terror of all soldiers. If looks could kill!

 

Make you men listen by means of the loud opening order! Put your whole strength into the following execution order. You will be pleased by the smartness of your men. Don‘t forget half! If you order, „At Attention!”, then don’t go away without having commanded „At ease!“ Otherwise the men start to do so on their own. What else should they do? But their disobedience – and what they did is indeed disobedience – is your fault! Improve by command, not by placing in question! For example, don’t say: „Heavens, whose stomach is sticking out?“ You have asked, but you don’t really want an answer. If you have a bright lad, he’ll irritably shout, „Soldier X has his stomach out!“ What do you want to do then? Probably you yell at him and thereby make a second mistake. Instead, you correct: „Soldier X, step back three centimeters!“ and all complications are avoided. Otherwise seriousness is lost, because the matter is ridiculous. The purpose of the short order is undermined, and at the same time your authority, for if one laughs, they all laugh at you!

 

The order has a different expression if the seasoned soldier’s training is lacking. For example, during a maneuver you want to secure an area. For the former officer or non-commissioned officer, the following order would suffice: „Place guards at the village exits there and there!“. He repeats the order, marches off with his men and knows exactly what he must do.

 

If you send a green recruit, you must first explain the requirements to him. If you want your order to be properly executed, you will not only instruct him; rather you will also have to convince yourself that he has understood everything. It’s possible that you do not fully understand a task placed on you. That could happen without endangering your position. Then find a comrade to whom you can entrust this task. Openly admit you must care for splendid comrades, but don’t be a know-it-all. You dispatch a guard but don’t bring him back, because you don’t know the situation, and then reproach the man who naturally acts on his own accord and returns. Nothing can help now – you’ve become impossible for these soldiers, even if thanks to their good, voluntary discipline they continue to obey you a thousand times.

 

The art of handling people does not just lie in great problems. It’s proven through the little things. The solution of the big problems emerges from these little things. Ignorance is not the same as stupidity. Nothing works against arrogance and stupidity, which however are often the same. Here’s an example of what damage ignorance in these spheres can cause, something we’ve often seen in the barracks. A non-commissioned officer throws open the door to the enlisted men’s room: „One of you can come to me!“ The clever „old warriors“ understand. They pull down their caps and disappear without a trace. An innocent lamb remains. A little while later the non- commissioned officer is back. „Ah, my son, why didn’t you come? Didn’t I say that one should come? Come along!” First: this soldier gets punished.

 

Second: At the next assembly it’s report, exercise and aggravation! The „old warriors“ stand there calmly. „He didn’t say anything to me!“ The result: one learns to shirk.

 

What would have been correct? Door opens: “Soldier X, come along! Do this and this!“ The command is repeated and executed. The clear, precise order gave the other soldiers no cause for „discussion“. Each carried on and there was no aggravation or complication.

 

When you command, then supervise the exact execution! Therefore take care not to command something that cannot be executed!

 

Do not demand more than you can perform yourself! Therefore train as long as necessary so that the enlisted man knows exactly what he should do! His limbs can only execute what he has in his head. For example, at the command „at ease“ he must automatically assume the correct position. If he does it right, you’re saved later corrections.

 

An order can also have its fine points. In this regard, progress is conceivable. We must refrain from them, because another bond is necessary, namely a similar education and training. Conscription is not the essence of an order. A „request“ from the regiment to a company is nothing other than an order. And the „please“ of a commander to his officers results in obedience. Yes, in the final development a self-evident obedience is conceivable where the superior does not even have to speak and barely needs to make a gesture.

 

The better both parts are attuned to each other - the more they share the same knowledge and will to serve the higher goal, the more both possess character values - the happier is the relationship that gives the stamp to the order on the one side and the execution on the other. The superior officer merely needs to express his wish. Eventually, even this expression is not always necessary, because the other feels the intention and already views it as an order. In such cases the subordinate officer can be given free room for his own decisions and independent action. The precondition is, of course, to create security. Only whoever is secure in ordering - and precisely knows the cause and effect - ,educates toward certainty in obeying. Whoever is not completely certain in obedience forfeits the right to dominate the field in which he is supposed to command.

 

Although we base our observations on the world of soldiery, this doesn’t mean we only wish to address soldiers, i.e. those who bear weapons. We see what is valid everywhere. The essential points from these observations can be applied to all segments of the folk and to all aspects of its life. Right down into the family, the law of command and obedience accompanies us. The child already receives orders; it already reads from the mother’s voice whether it must obey or can delay or even avoid the order.

 

Mothers, too, easily make the mistake of overlooking things. They don’t take the execution of their instructions seriously enough and then one-day make the painful realization that their children slide out of their control. It is not the task of the woman to command, but it is nonetheless her duty to force her will on her children, and in professional life we find many women who also command. Hence our soldier examples also apply to the German woman.

SS Handbook for the Ideological Teaching of the Troops – Topic 1

 

Only the National Socialist world view secures us  a kind-appropriate life

 

„National Socialism is a cool-headed theory of reality with the strongest scientific insights and its mental characteristics. By opening the heart of our people to this doctrine, we do not desire to fulfill it with a mysticism that is beyond the purpose and aim of our teaching.”

- Adolf Hitler

 

I. What does „worldview” mean?

 

It is necessary to explain this concept first, especially in view of the fact that the present war has become a total confrontation of different worldviews. „Weltanschauung“ means simply looking at the world. In a broader sense, a world view is the epitome of all the thoughts and ideas of a community of people about the world and life. Every world view is conditioned and shaped by the whole existence of man, such as race, education, environment and experience. Worldviews are therefore an expression of human life forms and vice versa.

 

„Already in the word „Weltanschauung” lies the solemn proclamation of the decision to base all actions on a specific starting point. Such an opinion can be right or wrong. It is the starting point for the statement on all phenomena and processes of life and thus a binding and binding law for every activity. The more now one such conception coincides with the natural laws of organic life, the more useful will be their conscious application for the life of a people.”

 

- The Führer on the Reich Party Day 1933

 

II. The National Socialist Worldview

 

The National Socialist Worldview emerged from the findings of the racial, bloody and moral basic forces of the German people. It is made of the unspoiled and healthiest ingredients of the people themselves. So it is not a foreigner theory that is practical through a community effort to realize it, but the announcer and a watchman of a kind-appropriate life. The life of the German People has itself produced the National Socialist worldview in its most original order. As a result, this worldview cannot be chosen or taken by anyone, but it itself takes possession of all that, the laws of people and of life, and it forces them into its spell.

 

III. National and Social Community

 

The connection of the national and the socialist thought has given the Party its name and lets us speak of National Socialist Worldview.

 

The Führer says:

 

„The great cultural achievements of humanity have always been the highest achievements of the community life of the people, of the race; they are therefore in their image the expression of the communal soul and ideals.”

 

Thus, National Socialism is committed to the natural view of life, as it lies in the blood and has always been in our Germanic ancestors. But it also overcame the individualistic-materialist ideas of liberalism and Marxism.

 

With the confession to the concept of the blood community and the establishment of the socialist community, the nationalization of the Germans took place.

 

„With sword and plow for honor and freedom louder, therefore, the battle-cry of a new race, which wants to build a new empire and seeks standards by which it can fruitfully judge its action and its pursuit. This call is nationalistic and socialist! „

 

- Alfred Rosenberg: „Myth of the XX. Century”, p. 534

 

IV.             National Socialism - a Natural Worldview

 

If we trace our history back to the earliest Germanic prehistoric times, the following expressions of life of the Germanic-German man become apparent:

 

1.             His upright, proud and blood-conscious manner, the nobility of his mind and

2.             is warlikeness, which finds its expression in soldierly hardness and determination and his fighting spirit, in his high conception of honor and freedom, loyalty and obedience and leadership.

3.             His high sense of community (family, clan, people) and his willingness to make sacrifices for these blood communities.

4.             His peasantly genuine, strong, simple and simple nature, his attachment to the soil, his love for his place.

5.             His high creative power, which made him the founder of the cultures and states of the Occident and thus, from antiquity to today, the ordering and determining factor in the coexistence of the peoples.

6.             His deep faith. This is the basis of National Socialism. He confesses to the high values of Germanic humanity, whereby it must be emphasized that the idealism of our view has nothing to do with enthusiasm and fantasy. National Socialism is a life-blooded people’s community and service to the people as a supreme law for every German person. It is the teacher of blood and honor.

 

A major component of the National Socialist doctrine is the demand for achievement for the community and hardness against itself. With this life- connected basic conception, National Socialism stands in irreconcilable opposition to the worldview of materialism, whose ‘Instigator’ is the Jew and his vassal peoples.

 

This war represents the inexorable conflict between these two worlds of ideas.

 

„In the reality of politics, National Socialism realizes what we, with a religious heart, see and believe in brave spirit as necessary and right. It is the fate of our people. It is the mastery of the hereditary world and the environment: it puts the myth of blood and honor into words. It focuses our eyes again on the essential events of blood and soil. It restores our thinking, faith and action to the eternal order of the world in us and in the world around us. It gives us the confidence and the opportunity to reverently penetrate the lawfulness of omnipotence and, according to its laws, also to orient the order that is set and shaped by us so that it becomes law-abiding and true to life. Because only then is the future of our people safe, clear and certain.“

 

- Stengel v. Rutkowskı: Of omnipotence and order of life

 

V. The meaning of the personality

 

If we see the individual as a servant of the people’s community, it does not mean that it is absorbed in the masses. Genuine national community cannot grow out of massiveness, but only of strong personalities. A healthy forest needs strong trees! National Socialism, then, emphasizes the value of the personality, which is hot, but not for the sake of its own sake, because there is no such thing, in truth, for its own sake. It exists only as a bloodless thought- construction and contradicts the laws of life, according to which humans are born into the naturally grown orders of family, clan and people.

 

National Socialism wants the personality fully developed in all abilities and capacities, a bloodthirsty, strong-willed and strong character, the highest achievement for the people’s willing. The means of creating this human type is in the sense of the National Socialist worldview. The means of creating this type of human being is education in the sense of the National Socialist Worldview. The prerequisite for this is the cleanliness and higher development of our blood through rearing.

 

The Führer says:

 

„We have the great task to give more and more to the true spirit of the Volksgemeinschaft and to work out the personality value ever more clearly.“

 

VI. The Struggle as a National Socialist law of life

 

We regard struggle as an inalienable law of life, for only in the eternal struggle, the precondition of all selection, do personalities and hard peoples grow. Great things are born only in battle.

 

„Whoever wants to live, who fights, and who does not want to fight in this world of eternal wrestling, does not deserve life.“

- Adolf Hitler

 

Fighting designed the German. Through his life, fighting accompanies his entire existence: struggle with himself, struggle with destiny, struggle with the hostile environment. In tenacious struggle, he masters fate and fights for himself and his people the essential and thus God-wanted life form. Fighting is the German human divine law for formation and education, for hardness. „Praised be that which makes hard.“ That is why he rejects the previously taught principle of humble allegiance to fate.

 

Struggle and hardship are the main elements of National Socialism. It is therefore the worldview of the strong, the militant man. National Socialism springs from genuine soldiering. It is with his combative basic trait the soldier’s Worldview. But the soldier’s sacrificial mission is the most visible socialism. The soldier is the first socialist in the Reich. The soldier in particular must accept National Socialism with a special readiness in his heart and be his most fanatical confessor. From this militant attitude, National Socialism abhors a softening well-being. He is the mortal enemy of egoism and materialism, leading to a dissolute life. He demands simplicity, hardship and straightness in life. The strong, genuine peasant and the hard soldier should benefit every German, no matter whether he serves his people in the city or in the country, with the weapon or the workbench.

 

„If the fight for a world view is not led by self-sacrificing heroes, no death-defying fighters will be found in a short time,“

-Adolf Hitler: „Mein Kampf“ p. 114

 

VII. Commitment to honor and loyalty

 

We profess our honor and loyalty, both of which are inextricably linked. The concept of honor is the center of Germanic existence in general. The lives of our ancestors revolved around honor and glory, freedom, courage and pride. Her life was always pure and great, as long as honor had precedence.

 

„Germanic Europe gifted the world with the brightest ideal of humanity; with the doctrine of the character value as the basis of all civilization, with the high song on the highest values of the Nordic being, on the idea of freedom of conscience and honor. „

- Alfred Rosenberg

 

In recent centuries, the high conception of honor has been greatly affected by the ideas of humility and humanity. The Führer once again made the honor the starting point of all German life.

 

Honor is the inner law, the conscience that dictates all our actions and our attitude towards the community. It is never related to itself, but finds its actual interpretation in the relationship of the ego to the community. Germanic- German marriage presumption makes one’s own ego withdraw in favor of the honor of the people. Our National Socialist worldview, with its life and blood laws, is based on honor. The socialist idea of volunteering for the people and striving to keep our blood pure develops out of honor. But he who has honor in his body will never abandon his comrade, his people or even his leader. For loyalty grows out of honor.

 

VIII. My honor is loyalty

 

The leader gave the SS-man the slogan that commits him to the first soldier of National Socialism for now and for the future: „SS-man, your honor is loyalty!“

 

„Many things on this earth can be forgiven, but one never: infidelity.“ The fidelity we have sworn to the leader, must be as sacred to us as the fidelity to the German people, his will and his way, fidelity to the Blood, to our ancestors and grandchildren, loyalty to our kind, faithfulness to the comrades and loyalty to the immutable laws of decency, cleanliness and chivalry. The nobility of the German man is shown by a high level of honor and loyalty.

 

„Let us all be committed to these principles and close the great circle of our fellowship, strong in the trust of our people, filled with faith in our mission and prepared for every sacrifice that the Almighty demands of us. Then Germany, the National Socialist Third Reich will pass through this time of distress, sorrow and grief, armed with the metal that alone makes the knight survive without fear and blame in the fight against death and the devil: the strong heart of iron.”

 

- Adolf Hitler

 

Publisher: The Reichsführer-SS, SS-Hauptamt. N / 0921

Franz Schubert - Symphony No. 2 in B major

 

Conductor: Herbert von Karajan

Performance: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Year of recording: 1978

 

I. Largo - Allegro vivace

II. Andante in E major

III. Menuetto: Allegro vivace in C minor - Trio in E major

IV. Presto