Original German Pre-WWII Heer Army Service Photo Album – 55 Pictures Original Items

Original Item: One-Of-A-Kind. This is a spectacular Army Service photo album for the years leading up to the invasion of Poland. There are labels handwritten on all the pages and the years that are mentioned for when the pictures were taken are 1936 and 1937. Most of the photos show what appears to be a young officer with his unit during training exercises as well as photographs of what appears to be the Gneisenau Kaserne barracks being built.

There are fifty-five pictures in total, all photos are professional as well as amateur shots. They show incredible detail of soldiers in uniform wearing early transitional WWI helmets as well as a few shots of NSKK members in uniform and officers wearing dress daggers.

The details are incredible and definitely a must have for the early war collectors! Comes more than ready for further research, translations and display!

The years leading up to the declaration of war between the Axis and Allied powers in 1939 were tumultuous times for people across the globe. The Great Depression had started a decade before, leaving much of the world unemployed and desperate. Nationalism was sweeping through Germany, and it chafed against the punitive measures of the Versailles Treaty that had ended World War I. China and the Empire of Japan had been at war since Japanese troops invaded Manchuria in 1931. Germany, Italy, and Japan were testing the newly founded League of Nations with multiple invasions and occupations of nearby countries, and felt emboldened when they encountered no meaningful consequences. The Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, becoming a rehearsal of sorts for the upcoming World War — Germany and Italy supported the nationalist rebels led by General Francisco Franco, and some 40,000 foreign nationals traveled to Spain to fight in what they saw as the larger war against fascism. In the last few pre-war years, NSDAP Germany blazed the path to conflict — rearming, signing a non-aggression treaty with the USSR, annexing Austria, and invading Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, the United States passed several Neutrality Acts, trying to avoid foreign entanglements as it reeled from the Depression and the Dust Bowl years.