Figure 1.--Here the boy is pretending to read a newspaper. Those are really not his glasses. He looks to be wearing short pants and long over-the-knee stockings.
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Figure 1.--Here the boy is pretending to read a newspaper. Those are really not his glasses. He looks to be wearing short pants and long over-the-knee stockings. |
We do not know this boys name or wear he was from in Germany. Despite the lack of information, the available photographs provide us some fascinating insdights into this boy and his family. We do know that he is German and was probably born in the early 1920s. I'm not sure if if he had any brothers or sisters. The family was not rich or poor. We would guess lower-middle class. The parents appear to have encouraged artistic pursuits. The father was interested in photography and took artfully as well as humorously posed images of his son. While an entire albumn survived the War, we have only a few of the images. There are thus images from infancy to the boy's joining the German National Labor Service (RAD) about 1938-39. He apparently was wounded in World War II which began in September 1939. We are not sure if he ever actually entered the German Army.
We do not know this boys name nor have any provinance about the source of the images. We do know that he is German as he served in the German National Labor Service. We believe that he was born in the early 1920s. I'm not sure if if he had any brothers or sisters. While an entire albumn survived the War, we have only a few of the images. There is thus images from infancy to joining the German National Labor Service (RAD) about 1940.
These photographs are part of an exceptional album with the finest amateur photography I have seen in years. The album follows the life a boy, born around 1920, through boyhood, holdiays, Easter and Christmas, playing , learning, exploring, to his years as a young man when he was a member of the RAD before World War II. He was gravely injured in his head, and returned home to recuperate and there the photo album ends. They are in a recycled album (not surprising given the war time conditions uder which the album must have been put together). This means that the first pages with photos from the album's first use have been removed, and this album starts on the last page and moves forward from right to left. There were approximately 75 photos.
The albumn is undated. One of the photographs appears to have a date on it which looks to be 1924, although 1929 is a possibility. He looks to be abouty 8 or 9 years old in this photograph. This would mean that he was born about 1915 or 16. This does not seem to be correct at this would mean that he was 18 years old in 1933-34 before the NAZIS made RAD service compulsory. (German boys did that RAD service at about 18 years of age and in his RAD portrait he does look about age 18. So perhaps 1929 is correct, meaning he was born about 1920-21. Then he would have entered the RAD in 1938 or 39, probably just before the War began.
The family was not rich. The fact that one image shows him being bathed in an old tin washing tub by his mother is an indication that the family was not an especially affluent one. The mother looks a bit haggered actually. The fact that the father clearly persued photography as a hobby suggests to us that he family was not poor either. Also the family in another image has quite a number of books. This also suggests the family was not poor. We would guess lower-middle class. A German reader comments, "I don't think just because the boy had to bath in a washing tub, the family was a poor one. German children wear bathed in the 50s and perhaps still the beginning of the 60s in bathing tubs. However, that doesn't tell much if they were poor or rich. I believe they were in the middle, as his father could afford a camera."
The father was interested in photography and took artfully as well as humorously posed images of his son. The boy did not wear glasses and often for the playful images that he and his father enjoyed, his father would pose him in glasses, such as the one here at about age 5 where he is pretending to be reading a newspaper (figure 1). Presumably they are his father's glasses. The newspaper appears to be held so that it would have been upside down to him, so he clearly is not reading it. He appears to be wering short pants and long stockings in this image, althought it is difficult to tell.
His father also posed him without his clothes on. This was done not only as a toddler in the bath picture mentioned above, but also as a school age boy. His father presumably thought that these were artistitic images. There are of course many such images of babbies and todlers. Such school age photographs were less common. The exception was probably families that had an artistic orientations as this boy's family did in the more innocent 1930s.
Many of the images in the albumn were quite playful images. The boy's father seems to have had a wonderful sence of humor. One image shows the boy in what looks like a costume with a large Perer Pan collar and enbroidered detailing on the front. There is jacket like top and matching long pants bottoms. It looks to be a light color, but I am not sure just what color. He wears this costume with a kind of Alpine cap and a very long necked devoice, possibly some kind of pope.
The parents appear to have encouraged artistic pursuits. Another image from what looks like the early 1930s shows a boy wearing a smock to paint with at home. It might have just been used for painting, but we suspect that he may have worn it for other occassions as well. This does not appear to have been a wealthy family and we suspect that they would not have had such a garment just for the occasional times that the boy painted. His smock in fact does not look well used or covered with paint as one might suspect..
Even as a toddler this boy had his hair cut short, although not shaved or cropped close. All the boyhood photographs show him wearing his hair short with front bangs.
This boy mist have been a member of the Hitler Youth (HJ). We do not have any images of him in his Hitler Youth uniform. We do not know if there are any in the albumn. Many German families as the Allies approached in the Spring of 1945 destroyed photographs of family members, even the children, in any kind of NAZI uniform. This involved large number of photographs as so many Germans belonged to groups that had uniforms of various descriptions. Part of the NAZI design was to keep Germans in mass organizations from childhood to old age. There was not only the military and Hitler Youth, but a range of civilian groups as well. As the RAD photograph was not destroyed, however, it seems unlikely that the Hitler Youth photographs would have been destroyed. Perhaps his father, being an educated artistivally unclined man, did not like the NAZIs and had no desire to photograph his son in his HJ uniform. But then the photograph of the boy in his RAD uniform is included in the albumn.
The boy was photogrphed in the German National Labor Service (RAD). He looks to be about 18 years old, probably about 1938-39. All German boys had to serve with the RAD after finishing school and before entering the military, usually at about age 18.
He apparently was wounded in the War. We are not sure if he ever actually entered the German Army. Somke RAD units served with the military or performed combat duties. Others were used fighting fires or on anti-aircraft defenses. So it is possible that he was wounded while still in the RAD. It looks like he was seriously wounded, but recovering nicely. This was the last image of him. We have no idea what happened after he recovered from the injury. Presumably these images were taken about 1940.
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