An Excellent Battle for Poland, Holland, Belgium & France SS Photo Album

This album is divided into two sections, the first entitled "Der polnische Feldzug" (The Polish Campaign), the second entitled "Der Feldzug in Holland - Belgien und Frankreich" (The Campaign in Holland, Belgium and France), both sections with numerous subheadings in white china marker. The Polish Campaign section begins in Tannenberg on August 22, 1939, moves on to Brandenberg and has soldiers in battle by September 3rd. This section illustrates various army vehicles, artillery, Panzer tanks, ships and aircraft, with soldiers in groups, marching, seated or at rest, loading wounded onto a railway car, even standing by suspended animal carcasses. There are also photos of captured Polish soldiers, along with dead Polish soldiers lying in trenches and beside the road, surrendered rifles, helmets and other war equipment, with barricades, concrete bunkers, underground wood-supported bunkers and trenches, collapsed bridges, destroyed buildings, a farmhouse and barn on fire at Modlin and an unexploded shell lying beside railway tracks. The Campaign in Holland, Belgium and France section illustrates more soldiers, along with various Panzer tanks, vehicles, motorcycles and horses, churches, windmills, destroyed buildings, with massive destruction of residences and vehicles. There are photos of dead civilians, a dead horse in the street, downed aircraft (both British and German), captured British soldiers from the raid on Dunkirk, captured French soldiers, some of which are close-ups of French African soldiers, one of which has his hands up in the air and smiling for the camera and another of German soldiers marching an entire column of French Africans along a road. There are numerous photos of recent grave sites marked by crosses, one photo highlighting the grave of an SS soldier with his helmet place atop his grave. While in Northern France, the German soldiers stopped at a graveyard, with row upon row of German solders killed during the First World War, the commemorative wall at the cemetery with a large cross on it in the background and inscribed in German and French "HIER RUHEN DEUTSCH SOLDATEN / ICI REPOSENT DES SOLDATS ALLEMANDES' (Here Rests German Soldiers). Also included are two photos taken at a bull fight ring and one of a soldier posing beside an Ambulance vehicle, entitled "Mein Wagen" (My Wagon), indicating that he was likely the original owner of the album and that he may have been an Ambulance Driver attached to the SS unit. The album contains 162 black and white photographs over twenty-four dark gray photo pages, including the inside back cover, with velum inserts between each of the pages, along with two loose photographs, plus a magazine clipping illustrating four tanks making their way across a rocky plain, with the handwritten inscription "Mein Panzerwagen" (My Armored Car) and arrow pointing towards one of the vehicles, the album with a dark green padded cover, string-bound, measuring 192 mm x 275 mm x 26 mm. Extremely fine.