Germany, Luftwaffe. A Private Wartime Photo Album Featuring African and Mediterranean Service

(Heer Fotoalbum). A fascinating and well-presented private wartime photo album belonging to a Luftwaffe soldier who saw extensive wartime service in Africa and the Mediterranean (the latter including both Italian and Balkan campaigns and occupation, constructed of a card stock binding, the exterior with a faux black leather liner, the spine perforated with six holes reinforced with magnetic metal grommets through which is looped a drawstring to securely maintain the album’s structure, the interior contents consisting of 23 black card stock pages pasted with 229 black-and-white images documenting the owner’s wartime service, beginning in 1940 with images of training and barracks life in the Stuttgart area and transitioning to scenes of service with Sch./Fl.-Ausb.-Regt. 43 in the Prossnitz (Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia), with the owner later transitioning to Jagdgeschwader 27 through 1941, with scenes of Luftwaffe personnel assembling, working, and sightseeing in Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece, interspersed with scenes of battle damage and prisoners of war (POWs), a brief interlude showing Luftwaffe personnel in the field in the Soviet Union transitions to the African theatre from late 1941 through 1942, with the owner and his comrades seen in field in Cirene and Derna (Libya) and El Daba (during the Afrikakorps’ incursion into Egypt), with the owner presumably transferred to Italy after the expulsion of German forces from Africa, completing with scenes of life in Italy (including Sicily) during the Italian Campaign, some of which feature Italian military personnel alongside German servicemen, with the album culminating in a number of portraits and family photos, notably the owner has sketched scenes of locales and unit insignia in multi-coloured chalk, notably complemented the accompanying images, most of which are in turn captioned, measuring 340 mm (w) x 245 mm (h), with minor material fatigue and partial detachment of some photos with no evidence of the loss of any images, a superb private account of a Luftwaffe serviceman’s time across the Mediterranean theatre in near extremely fine condition.