Germany, Luftwaffe. A Private Wartime and Postwar Photo Album to a Stuka Pilot of Sturzkampfgeschwader 2

(Luftwaffe Fotoalbum). An interesting private photo album featuring an array of wartime and postwar images from the personal record of a Stuka pilot serving with Sturzkampfgeschwader 2 (StG 2) “Immelmann”. It is constructed of a heavy card stock binding with a lemon-yellow woven exterior liner. The interior content consists of 30 off-white card stock pages, each separated by an intact wax paper liner to ensure protection of the images. The first third of the album is pasted with black-and-white images of the family life of the owner, presented in both postcard and smaller sizes, showing a variety of friends and relatives at home and on vacation in alpine terrain and cities. The content then shifts to images of the owner’s wartime career, and features a mix of 48 private and period reproduced images of life in service with StG 2. The former includes photos of the owner in uniform alongside other StG personnel and wearing a variety of decorations, with many depicting the personnel of the unit in the Mediterranean, Balkans, and Soviet Union. These include commemorative images of Oberst Dr. Ernst Kupfer, including some depicting him on the occasion of his 600th combat mission. This is supplemented by 12 postwar images showing the owner at a meeting of veterans with other Luftwaffe veterans. It is also accompanied by loose content, including 17 aerial reconnaissance photos, all printed on marked wartime Leonar paper, with all but two retaining paper labels bearing handwritten information. In addition, the album features two Feldpost letters retaining original envelopes dated to 1942, three loose photos, and an unused wartime postcard. With no material damage or evidence of missing photos apparent, this fascinating wartime account of a Stuka pilot serving with a distinguished unit is in an overall extremely fine condition.