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Wehrmacht Paintings


leon21

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Heres 3 of my watercolour Paintings signed and dated Paris 1942.

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post-3823-0-18613700-1336683409_thumb.jpg

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great photos Leon ,but are you sure they are watercolours? I have a similar one of my uncle and I think it is a photo which has been tinted, not sure how they tint them maybe they do use paint? The fact the are signed and dated might be the actual soldiers signature and the date of when he served.These photos were usually sent home to loved ones.

 

Here is my uncles tinted photo and also a group shot ,top left has the panzer mans inscription and year served.

erich (2).jpg

erich group (2).jpg

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Hi Kenny, the first picture is definitely a painting Its done on a very

thick carboard material, its signed on the back with his name and year.

The other two could be tinted photos, but they are not done on photograph

paper. the soldier with the horses i'm sure is the same guy on the left

of the other picture, maybe thats why they have the same signature, they

were unframed when I got them. Great pictures of yours Kenny.

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Like yours too :thumbsup:

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  • 4 years later...

In the 1960s and early 1970s special water colours for colouring photos were still available, they could be diluted to make them paler. This work was also done by studios, and required a lot of skill, the photo in wet condition was simply painted over with a diluted colour wash and allowed to dry. The results were as seen in the above examples. A matter of taste really, whether you like this or not. You will also find this on old 19th - 20th century photo postcards, before colour photography arose. The same appled to black and white cinegraphic films, these were sometimes later coloured. This an be seen also on television documentaries of WW1 and WW2 "in colour", as these were not always "colour photography".

The pictures shown above could be colourised photo prints on special material. They do not look like "paintings", the origin would definitely be "photographic" - or perhaps even copied from "photos".

 

In one of Kenny's photos bottom left is a photo of Graf Strachwitz .Hyazinth_Graf_Strachwitz.jpg

 

- Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz von Groß-Zauche und Camminetz (* 30. Juli 1893 in Groß Stein; † 25. April 1968 in Trostberg) Generalleutnant und Panzerkommandeur in the Wehrmacht and Freikorps im Selbstschutz Oberschlesien during the Aufstände in Oberschlesien 1921. He was known in WW2 as „Der Panzergraf“.

Die Strachwitz are an old Adelsgeschlecht and belonged to the most wealthy land and forestry owners in Schlesien.

With the Regiment Garde du Corps in Potsdam, Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz became Leutnant. His cadet days in Lichterfelde he had spent with Manfred von Richthofen and Hans von Aulock

While commanding a battle group on the Narva front in early 1944 he was awarded the Diamonds to his Knight's Cross on 15 April. He was wounded 12 times during the war, and was also injured in an automobile accident.

In 1945, he surrendered to US forces and was taken into custody. By the time of his release in June 1947, his youngest son had been killed in action, his wife had been killed in a road accident, and his Silesian estate had been confiscated by Poland. He remained in West Germany, married again and briefly worked for the Syrian Armed Forces as a military consultant. He lived on an estate in Bavaria from 1951 until his death from lung cancer on 25 April 1968. He was buried with military honours in Grabenstätt, Bavaria

 

A member of this family with this name was also a practising solicitor and lawyer in Hamburg, and I was a client of his during the late 1970s early 80s.

 

Is there any connection here to Kenny's uncle?

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What Graf Strachwitz experienced in WW1 -

The outbreak of World War I, which was triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo, ended Strachwitz's Olympic ambitions. The Russian Empire ordered a partial mobilization one day later and the German Empire mobilized on 30 July 1914. Strachwitz received his mobilization order while on vacation in Silesia, and returned to his unit in Berlin immediately. His regiment was subordinated to the Guards Cavalry Division and scheduled for deployment in the west.[10]

Shortly after the mobilization, the Life Guards arrived at their assigned position near the Belgian border. Strachwitz and his platoon volunteered for a mounted, long-distance reconnaissance patrol, which would penetrate far behind Belgian lines. His orders were to gather intelligence on rail and communications connections and potentially disturb them, as well as report on the war preparations being made by their opponents. If the situation allowed, he was to destroy railway and telephone connections and to derail trains, causing as much havoc as possible.[8] His patrol ran into many obstacles and they were constantly on the verge of being detected by either British or French forces. Their objective was the Paris–LimogesBordeaux train track. Strachwitz dispatched a messenger, who broke through to the German lines and delivered the intelligence they had gathered. The patrol blew up the signal box at the Fontainebleau railway station,[11] and tried to force their way through to presumed German troops at the Marne near Châlons. However, the French forces were too strong and they were unable to get through. After six weeks behind the lines their rations were depleted and they had to resort to stealing or begging. Strachwitz then decided to head for Switzerland, hoping that the French–Swiss border was not as heavily protected.[12] After a brief skirmish with French forces, one of Strachwitz's men was seriously wounded, which forced them to seek medical attention. During many weeks of outdoor living their uniforms had deteriorated, so Strachwitz took that opportunity to buy new clothes for his men. Their progress was slowed by the wounded man, and the group was caught in civilian clothes by French forces.[13]

 

220px-Fort_Barraux_L1040224.jpg
Fort Barraux, 2011

Strachwitz and his men were questioned by a French captain and accused of being spies and saboteurs. They were taken to the prison at Châlons the next day where they were separated. Strachwitz, as an officer, was placed in solitary confinement. Early in the morning they were all lined up for the firing squad, but a French captain arrived just in time to stop the execution. Strachwitz and his men were then tried before a French military court on 14 October 1914. The court sentenced them all to five years of forced labour on the prison island of Cayenne. At the same time they were deprived of rank, thus losing the status of prisoners of war. Strachwitz was then taken to the prisons at Lyon and Montpellier, and then to the Île de Ré, from where the prison ship would depart for Cayenne. It is unclear what circumstances prevented his departure, but he was imprisoned at Riom and Avignon instead. At Avignon prison he was physically and mentally tortured by both the guards and the other prisoners. This included being chained naked to a wall, deprivation of food and severe beatings. After one year at Avignon he was given a German uniform and taken to the prisoner of war camp at Fort Barraux.[14]

At Barraux he learned that the fighting in the west had turned into a war of attrition and that only on the Eastern Front were German troops still reporting successes. His health improved rapidly and Strachwitz started making escape plans. With other German soldiers he started digging an escape tunnel, which was detected. Strachwitz was again put in solitary confinement. As a deterrence against German U-boat attacks, German prisoners of war were sometimes carried in the cargo holds of French merchant ships. Now classified as "determined to escape", Strachwitz was put in the cargo hold of a ship which commuted between Marseilles or Toulon and Thessaloniki, Greece. Malnourished after four trips without food, he was returned to Barraux. During further solitary confinement he recovered again, and made further escape plans. With a fellow soldier, he climbed over the prison walls, planning to head for neutral Switzerland. However, Strachwitz injured his foot when he fell into barbed wire, and the injury caused blood poisoning. While searching for help, they were picked up by the French police and turned over to a military court. He was then sent to a war prison for officers at Carcassonne where his request for medical attention was ignored. The injury was severe and he became delirious. An inspection by the Swiss medical commission from the International Red Cross resulted in him being transferred to a hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, where he awoke after days of unconsciousness.[14]

Strachwitz recovered quickly in Geneva. During his convalescence he was visited by members of various European royal houses and clergymen who stopped by to pay their respects. The doctors told Strachwitz that the French government had requested his extradition back to France once he had fully recovered, to serve his full term of five years of forced labour. Strachwitz then moved into a villa in Luzern where he was visited by his mother and sister. He had a great fear of being returned to France, and together they came up with a plan to avoid his extradition. He would "sit out the war" in a mental asylum in Switzerland. The plan worked, although Strachwitz's mental health genuinely deteriorated in the process. The war ended and Strachwitz was released to return to Germany.[15] For his service during the war while imprisoned by the French he was awarded the Iron Cross (Eisernes Kreuz) Second and First Class.[16]

Source: Wiki

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Hi Paul, sadly no connection to Erich as far as I'm aware, but would not be surprised if they crossed paths at some point. I bought the Graf Strachwitz picture years ago as he was quite a character. The picture has a wartime signature and on the back is written tunic eagle belonging to General Strachwitz.

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