Elizabeth Newsberry

I swear!  I'm not obsessed with all things German.  I don't know whether it's coincidence, a German tendency to take lots of photographs, or easy access to really well made German cameras, but I keep finding pictures from Germany.

Crailsheim is a town in the German state of  Baden-Wurttemberg.  ( My, that sounds familiar.  Navigate back a few posts to The Pforzheim Album Collection for more photos from Baden-Wurttemberg.)  The city was pretty much destroyed during World War 2.  It was a major rail center as well as the location of a German airfield.  After a major bombing campaign, the American army over ran the town, only to be pushed back by a German counteroffensive.  After the Nazi surrender, Baden-Wurttemberg and Craisheim ended up in the American zone of occupation.  McKee Barracks, opened in 1946,closed in 1994, was built on the outskirts of Crailsheim.  But was Elizabeth Newsberry a war bride, or was she a dependent who joined her husband while on occupation duty?  There's no date on the photo, but the car looks old enough that I'm thinking  it predates the return of civilian government.

Crailsheim was the birthplace of Hans and Sophie Scholl, the brother/sister founders of The White Rose, a non violent anti-Nazi resistance movement.  They were arrested in 1943, found guilty of high treason, and executed by guillotine.  Hans was born in 1918, Sophie in 1921.

In 1934, Kodak bought Nagel Kamerawerks, a pioneer in 35mm photography.  From 1936 to 1966, Nagel built the Kodak Retina camera, one of the well built German cameras mentioned in the first paragraph.  I'm referencing the Retina because it was built in Stuttgart, the capitol of Baden-Wurttemberg, and because I own a Kodak Retina model IIIc, manufactured from 1954-1957.  I still use it.  It works perfectly.

Men's Club

I've got lots of photos in folders, but with the exception of the nightclub shots, I rarely publish anything other than the photograph itself. This one's a bit different. There was a fascination with "Orientalism" in the first several decades of the 20th century. The influences of the far east can be seen in the paintings, sculpture, design and architecture of the period. The design of the folder is far more interesting, with it's Chinese pagoda, and vine like frame around the photo, at least to me, than the photograph itself. Having said that, I still like the photo, and even without the paper folder, I would still have wanted to put it in the collection. The man in the glasses is older than the six other men, but he doesn't seem to be old enough to be their father. He may be a college professor with some students, or a clergyman with parishioners. This was the era of the missionary, and I've seen a lot of photos, just like this one, of young men about to go off to convert the non-Christians of the third world, posing with an older, more experienced hand. Or perhaps, the younger men have just joined a fraternal organization like the Elks. A far less interesting supposition, but one more likely.