From their earliest days, the Nazis had appreciated the value of propaganda and, from 1933, their striking red, white and black swastika logo could be seen in a myriad of places, from public buildings to art deco posters. Goebbels oversaw the production of all sorts of media, from feature films for the cinema to posters and photographs, as well as books and magazines.
In addition, both the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht produced their own propaganda picture magazines showing the armed forces at their best. Der Adler, meaning ‘the eagle’, was the Luftwaffe magazine, with Die Wehrmacht for the army and Signal as a more general-purpose publication, the equivalent of Britain’s Picture Post. It was produced in several languages and designed to be sold not only to those in the service but also to the civilians on the home front. Until 1941, Signal was also made available in the USA as an English-language edition, but its 2.5-million print run was also available throughout the Continent in German, Italian, Spanish, French and numerous other languages.
The men of the Propaganda Kompanie (PK) were assigned to the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe with the prime job of recording the glorious victories of the German armed forces. They produced millions of images and film of the war, some of it in colour. This imagery appeared in Signal, Der Adler and Die Wehermacht, as well as in special books such as Vormarsch – Farbfotos von Heinz Schröter, Unsere Wehrmacht im Kriege and Fliegende Front. The latter was devoted to the activities of the Luftwaffe. These photographs captured the immediacy of the campaigns, as well as the humdrum aspects of everyday life between the action. As indicated by the opening quotation to this introduction, the PK’s photographers’ desire to obtain the best images often entailed flying with the airmen on their missions. However, a flight in a Stuka was no joyride, as the dive-bomber dived almost vertically on its target, releasing its bomb and then pulling up sharply, creating a 6G force capable of causing temporary blindness and even blackouts. At the moment of attack our PK photographer/correspondent, A. Grimm, had stood in the cockpit to take photographs as the aircraft plummeted towards its prey, a ship in the Channel:
Something is happening to my body. It changes place. Now I know what is happening to it. I am now really standing on my head, yet I do not fall. By a tremendous effort of will I hold my camera and like a bolt of lightning the thought crosses my mind that I am after all able to hold it in such a way that at the crucial moment I shall be able to take my photographs across the pilot’s shoulder. I suddenly consider my position and discover that with a few fingers grasping some object or other I am in a position to steady my whole body and my camera. My will seems to triumph over the laws of gravity ... I am making one exposure after another. Uncanny, but very oppressive too, the ship continually grows bigger; it is rushing towards me. Then – a wrench passes through the whole plane, my body is convulsed for a fraction of a second: the bomb has been released. I take another photograph, but a superhuman strength, an iron hand, presses me downwards. I drop to my knees, I fall across the wireless apparatus. I am a worm, crushed and trampled upon, a being incapable of making the slightest movement and all my mental strength is just sufficient to enable me to realise that in this second the pilot has arrested the dive.
The images in this book are the results of the work of the Propaganda Kompanie. Some of these have become iconic images of Germany’s war, while others are less well known. With only one exception – the final photograph – all of them are genuine colour images from the era of the Second World War and there has been no Photoshop trickery to create colour where it did not exist.
In a period when we have instant access to images of the world around us – and almost everyone in possession of a mobile phone has the ability to take a photograph and post it worldwide for all to see – we can easily forget that many of these Luftwaffe images were taken in the heat of the moment and required development behind the lines before they could be dispatched for use in magazines, newspapers and books. As a result the quality is sometimes variable, but it is always engaging. Seeing the Second World War in colour brings an entirely new aspect to our perception of those troubled years. Yes the sky was blue, the grass was green, even in wartime.
In the early years of the war, until 1942, the Propaganda Kompanie was able to report good news on almost every front. And if it was not so good, such as the Luftwaffe’s failure to gain control of the skies in the Battle of Britain, then it was conveniently ignored. That is the nature of propaganda, and in the period covered here the photographs show a proud air force playing its part for the Fatherland.
The Beobachter – the literal translation of the term is ‘observer’ – checking his position on the map. He is inside the glazed nose section of a Heinkel He 111.